Software : In Depth: Dick Costolo, former Twitter CEO: a timeline

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In Depth: Dick Costolo, former Twitter CEO: a timeline Posted: Introduction When Dick Costolo announced that he would be stepping down as the CEO of Twitter last Thursday, effective July 1, many investors breathed a sigh of relief. Surely, the wolves of Wall Street have cause to shame and blame Costolo – he was the leader of a company that was showing itself to be weak, at least in terms of its performance on the stock market, which to be fair, is primarily what an investor should care about. But there's more to Dick Costolo's work at Twitter than the stock market shows, especially from a technology perspective. Ultimately, it looks like Costolo faced two major problems during his tenure at Twitter, and they were unfortunately large enough to undermine his successes, which lie mainly in the company's mobile advancements and diverse ad offerings. The first problem is that Costolo tried to make Twitter resemble Facebook instead of maximising Twitter's own unique appeal as a microblogging site. This first problem only enhanced the second, which is that Twitter just doesn't have the user engagement that Facebook has (not even close). All the products, partnerships, and ad services in the world don't mean squat if you don't have the reach. Here's a look at some of Twitter's major moves under Costolo's leadership. October, 2010: Getting aggressive with ad products Twitter unveiled Promoted Promotions the same day Twitter co-founder Evan Williams announced he was stepping down and naming Costolo as his replacement. While it could be seen as a development made under Williams' watch, it's just as arguable that it was a feature pushed by Costolo, since it's not unusual for CEOs to start moving into the driver's seat before their predecessors are fully out the door. The ad product suggests user accounts that one isn't already following but appears in line with their interests based on other accounts they follow (and is largely used by brands looking to gain followers for advertising purposes). Twitter also began making Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends available beyond Twitter.com – something the site discussed doing since launching Promoted Tweets in April of the same year. Costolo's first month was a crucial one for Twitter, as he sought to prove it as an aggressive ad platform, and also to show just how successful it already was. "It's been a busy but exciting few months for Twitter's advertising team," Twitter said in its product announcement. "We've launched three major products in the past six months. We're working with over 40 advertisers – nearly 80% of whom have already become repeat buyers in this short period of time..." May 2011: Buying TweetDeck Twitter acquired TweetDeck, one of Twitter's most widely used third party apps, for $40 million. At the time it was the company's biggest acquisition. February 2012: Twitter gets on board with SMBs Twitter announced that starting the following month, small-to-midsized businesses could use the platform to offer up their own ads using Twitter's Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts products. January 2013: Twitter launches Vine The mobile service that allows users to record and share short looping videos is introduced by Twitter to "inspire creativity." Over the years, it's enjoyed enduring popularity, particularly among millennials and teens. October 2013: Twitter Connects To TV Ratings Twitter and TV have long gone hand in hand, but Costolo made the sweet and savoury pairing official when he sealed a deal with Nielsen to launch, Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings. The service measures the total activity and reach of TV-related conversation on Twitter by counting the number of people tweeting about the programs, but also how many users are seeing those tweets. This was great on Costolo's part because it develops Twitter's unique stance as the modern day TV accessory, something Facebook isn't. October 2013: Twitter acquires MoPub Twitter nabbed up MoPub, a mobile ad network, ad serving business, and real time bidding exchange. The pricey purchase suggested that Costolo was looking to beef up Twitter's own mobile exchange. November 2013: Twitter files its IPO This is where things really start to get tricky for Costolo. The stock debuted beautifully, launching at $26 a share and at one point leapt to $50.09. Twitter raised some $1.8 billion that Wednesday, but guess what? Facebook, despite being remembered as an IPO debut flop, raised $16 billion. The problem isn't so much that Facebook performed better, it's that Facebook has always done better and has so many more users than Twitter. Unfortunately, despite its many distinctions, Twitter is largely perceived as "the other social network." 2014-present Twitter acquires Gnip, April 2014: For $134 million, Twitter buys Gnip, a provider of social data and a longstanding Twitter partner, according to the company. The idea here was to be able to collect and analyse public data so as to "[deliver] the most essential Tweets to [Twitter] partners. Twitter stock plummets, May 2014: It was a new, and horrible low for the company's stock performance, and in the eyes of investors, evidence that Costolo was failing. Feeling the pressure then, Costolo tried to stretch or bloat the meaning of what a Twitter user is and created three representative circles, as a fascinating profile in WSJ reveals: "one circle represented the core users of the social-media service; the other denoted those who visited the site but didn't log in; and the third circle was for people who saw Twitter content embedded on other sites." Costolo wanted investors to understand that Twitter content reaches beyond Twitter users. It sort of makes sense, but it's also a bit too meta for an investor's pocketbook. June, July 2014: Twitter scoops up Nano Media, SnappyTV, among others Costolo had a lead foot on the gas pedal of acquisitions that summer. Twitter bought native advertising firm Nano Media to enhance its own native ad business; video startup SnappyTV to ramp up its TV-focused ad tools; and mobile retargeting and re-engagement advertising platform TapCommerce to continue building on its mobile advancements. During this time, Costolo claimed that 80% of its ad revenue came from mobile. In an effort to bridge the gap between online promotions and offline sales, Twitter also acquired payments infrastructure company CardSpring, a company that fellow social apps like Foursquare were already using. It felt a bit random, primarily because despite catering to local businesses, Twitter is not by nature a mobile check-in app. August 2014: Twitter launches Promoted Video It seems that Costolo wanted to feel out the possibilities of video beyond Vine, particularly insofar as native video can better enable advertisers, brands, and publishers. Essentially, Promoted Video was yet another big, shiny ad offering that was poised to appeal to established partners. August 2014: Taking Flight It's just as important to attract agencies to your platform as it is to attract brands, as they're usually the ones engineering a brand's campaigns. Costolo and his team unveiled Twitter Flight School, an online resource designed to "inspire creativity and help agencies of all sizes make the most of marketing on the platform." October 2014: Twitter launches Fabric, has first conference, and partners with IBM Getting more pots boiling on the mobile stove, Twitter launched Fabric, a mobile platform designed to "make it easy" for developers to build apps. The product was unveiled at the company's first-ever mobile developer conference, Flight, where Costolo gave the morning keynote. Further establishing Twitter as a pioneering source of consumer data, Costolo secures a partnership with IBM to let enterprises incorporate Twitter data into their decision-making processes. January 2015: Twitter launches group Direct Messages, and mobile video Direct messaging has never been Twitter's forte. But, Costolo apparently did not want that to forever be the case. And so group Direct Messages was born so that users could speak with a number of fellow Tweeters privately, in one conversation. If it sounds a lot like what Facebook has done with its messenger service that's because it is. In the very same company announcement, the ability to capture, share, and edit mobile video from the Twitter app was made available to users. Not so sure how group chat and mobile video coincide, but there it was; another cool, new feature to try. January 2015: Twitter acquires ZipDial Twitter acquired a Bangalore, India-based product partner, ZipDial, in a forward-thinking move. In certain countries like India, Brazil, and Indonesia, mobile is the first and foremost way people connect with the Internet. Twitter had better be there. March 2015: Twitter launches Periscope After acquiring Periscope in January, the company unveiled the Periscope app, one that invites users to share limited-time video content from their mobile device onto the network. It was the most exciting news to come from Twitter in some time, and a tool that both consumers and brands are still having fun figuring out.

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