Our words, not his. In a new interview the 26-year old who sits at the top of the company that employs 1,400 people and is on pace to bring in $1 Billion in revenue this year said about the new social networking kid’s rise on the scene:
There was a time over the last year and a half when you and the company became more engaged with Twitter, and then there was a time when you weren’t. What did you learn from that?
At first I think we learned that they do a lot of things really well. It’s a very nice, simple service. They do one thing really well – that’s powerful.
I think the main thing was we looked at their growth rate and – well, we saw our exponential growth rate continue for a very long period of time, and it still does at a super-linear rate, though not quite 3% a week any more. I looked at their rate and thought if this continues for 12 months or 18 months, then in a year they’re going to be bigger than us. I guess I extrapolated too much from our own experience of what was possible, but it just turned out that that their growth rate was kind of unnatural. They got a lot of media attention, and it grew very quickly for a little period of time.
Most of the lessons I take away from the whole thing now are that, as good as I think they are, I think I personally just paid too much attention to it. I don’t think we over-rotated as a company on it, but it was interesting because we’re a pretty young company, and we haven’t had that many other companies in our space. Learning how you work with other companies is an interesting thing that I’ll hopefully figure out over the next decade, and it was just interesting learning from watching them.
What particular product insights did you gain from that experience?
The way that people use the products are pretty different. It’s just interesting that they do some things that we explicitly don’t want to do, but do them well. For example, they don’t do real names, and they have themes. It’s a lot more around self expression than real identity, but I think it works for them. But that doesn’t mean we want to be that. Watching them is going to be really interesting over the next few years, and the same with FourSquare, and a lot of other social companies.
Did Zuckerberg just say Twitter is stalling out right now…..?
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i think his more or less exact words is that he became overly concerned with twitter’s growth rate – a rate that twitter has been unable to maintain.
it didn’t read to me anyway like he was casting shade. twitter’s growth rate was unnatural as was facebook’s. myspace, etc. all went through the same thing – then the growth slows. the question he said he’s trying to solve is what everyone in the social network space is trying to figure out – how do you maintain growth when it seems the social networks are a trend based and cyclical business.
the internet is so new that looking at history is almost a contradiction of terms as there is only about a generation of data. but social networks rise and fall quickly – so it seems like they are suited for a jump-in/cash-out style of investment and management – getting your money before the ship starts sinking cuz it will eventually sink – sooner than you think – and fast.
Spot on my friend. I haven’t come across any social site that has maintained the same stardom during its peak but that is the basis of a cycle when it comes to product and its lifespan…Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. With your introduction, not many individuals are prepared to become part of whatever it is you’re producing or sharing to the world; that’s if they’re even aware of who you’re. You have a majority of people unknown to your existence. The latter is what creates the second stage of a product’s existence; growth. The media brings attention to it, first-time adopters spread word of the brand, etc and suddenly those weary or unknown to your product allows you to go from 0-60 in a matter of months.
They also create the maturity because everyone now has an understanding of your product, the appeal or flash is no longer present so as a marketing team you try to spice things up a bit but eventually hit a plateau or the height of your popularity. As time fades, your popularity fades or goes into a decline. It doesn’t mean the end of your product, but the spotlight is no longer vivid as once before. Think of Friendster, Crushspot, Cpixel, Findapix and of course Myspace. I’m curious to see how long the interest with Facebook will be because companies used to say, “find us on Myspace and Facebook,” but now I see ,”Twitter and Facebook.”
Only time will tell if Twitter can alter the traditional marketing scheme lifespan of their product.
Between the both of you, I’m exhausted!
Oh God is that really his face?
LMBAO!
I figured it out….. AVATAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
he look like an alien, i knew facebook was owned by outside of earth
LMAO! Omg I was thinking he looks like a straight alien, thats got to be a mask. FB is probably being controlled from another planet.
That picture had me looking at it for a while. Dudes face and eyes especially don’t look human.
Maybe he got hit by a book!
DA DUM CHA
Dude got reptile eyes! Anybody watch V? This muthaf*cka is a visitor!
Yo word up dude no like he a reptile, they got something going on behind this FB getting more info about us humans and our personal info.
bout to delete my shit lol
no lie*
for some reason when i look at this pic it give me chill its look so creepy, something is going on ,this muthafucka right here is not damn Human
I rather look like that with the money he got
THANK YOU! Dude can buy any of our faces and wear them! lol