Rumors surfaced that Twitter Inc might be introducing a major change as early as next week, but those who were outraged at this possibility can breathe a sigh of relief.
Following a report that said the social media site was planning to make a change to the way users see other tweets, co-founder and chief executive officer Jack Dorsey reassured users that this was not the case.
News and entertainment site BuzzFeed reported on Friday that Twitter would introduce a timeline based on an algorithm rather than a real-time stream. The report upset some users, who created the hashtag RIPTwitter to debate the change.
However, Dorsey took to Twitter on Saturday to dispute the report.
“Twitter is live,” he tweeted. “Twitter is real-time.”
BuzzFeed updated its report with Dorsey’s response.
One of the big draws for Twitter, especially in the news industry, is that things are chronological and that makes it rather easy to find out when things are happening.
When the San Francisco-based social media site reports earnings next week, the first number analysts will look at is monthly active users. If this were to change and a number of the monthly active users turn to other platforms instead, it would be a huge problem for Twitter.
After the article was posted, RIPTwitter became the No. 1 trending hashtag on the Web site, showing just how upset some of the most loyal users are. It is a similar reaction to the one we saw when rumors surfaced of a 10,000-character count versus the current 140-character limit.
Some good news for those who are not happy about the possible change, the report also said it might be something that you opt in or out of. Based on these reactions, it certainly would not be surprising if Twitter decided to make it optional.
Shares of the tech company have lost more than half of their value over the past year, with analysts continuing to get more bearish on the firm’s prospects despite Dorsey becoming CEO again late last year.
Stifel analyst Scott Devitt downgraded it last week on concerns that it is not a sustainable public company.
Currently, 55 percent of analysts have hold ratings on shares while 38 percent have buys and 7 percent have sells. The average price target is US$28.84 versus US$33.97 at the end of last year. Shares closed at US$15.72 on Friday.
Additional reporting by AP
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