Trying to learn from Facebook’s mistake, Twitter priced its IPO at $26, a relatively low figure, leaving room for a larger first day pop. It refused to follow in Facebook’s footsteps, which initially priced its shares at $38 and saw a huge fall in the following months. It took over a year for the stock price to recover.

Twitter chose the New York Stock Market, as opposed to Facebook's decision to go with NASDAQ, historically the place where techy companies list. So far, Twitter’s conservative strategy seems to have worked.

Leaving finance aside, let’s look at the actual social media platforms.

Twitter’s users mostly access it using their trusty mobile phones, whereas Facebook is only just starting to make headway with mobile phone usage. On the other hand, Facebook is highly dependent on adverts, whereas Twitter is more a platform for brands to actually engage customers on their own, rather than use the ad programmes available.

Facebook is sometimes painfully complex in what it offers its users. Or am I the only one that’s completely baffled at times by the continuous changes in policy and functions? Twitter is much easier – 140 characters to say what you have to say. Or is it?

I’ve noticed recently that the tweet stream has changed. It’s not the same Twitter it was when we met. It now has actionable buttons visible on tweets, full-width images and click-to-launch videos. Now what does that remind me of…? It would have to be Facebook news feed. You know, the one everybody hated when it was introduced.

Twitter is changing. Some of these changes are justified by the need to stay ahead of the game. Others are definitely motivated by the social media platform’s new public company status. 

So now comes the hard part – the stock market’s handsome lad must prove his worth. Twitter must show its investors that it really is worth their money.

Part of the problem is that three quarters of Twitter users are outside the US, yet only 26% of revenue comes from this segment. The challenge for Twitter is to find a way of generating more revenue outside the US. Maybe then it might even make a profit, who knows?

What’s your take on this story? Feel free to use the comments section to rant and troll. Or even discuss.

Image courtesy of stockimages on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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