Here We Go Again: Twitter Makes Another Change to Your Timeline

Twitter says it has 320 million active users this quarter, which is the exact same number the company reported in Q3 2015.

The worst part is that if one excludes the number of SMS Fast followers ( people who use Twitter via SMS and don’t see ads) from the above number, the number of users actually declined from 307 million in the previous quarter to 305 million.

The lackluster performance disappointed already disillusioned investors.

Twitter shares dropped some 2.4 percent in after-market trades that followed release of its latest earnings report. If the shares trade similarly in Thursday’s regular session, it will mark a new low. In July, it reported 316 million users were actively tweeting, just a 3 percent rise from three months before, and it warned investors not to expect “sustained meaningful growth”.

Among its plans include an algorithmic timeline which will highlight tweets which Twitter thinks matter more to each users, instead of presenting them in reverse chronological order. That’s certainly a lot better than Facebook’s algorithmically sorted news feed, but may not make hardcore Twitter users happy.

Twitter announced a widely expected change to its product earlier in the day, saying it will alter how it displays tweets by customizing them to individual users rather than presenting a chronological list of messages. As of May 2015, Twitter has more than 500 million users, out of which more than 332 million are active. On Wednesday he outlined his five priorities: making the main product easier to use, investing in live streaming video, giving creators and influencers better tools, investing in making Twitter safer, and supporting developers. To compound the disappointing figures, the micro-blogging site said that they expected to make between $595m and $610m (£410m to £420m) in the first quarter of 2016 – well below Wall Street forecasts.

Twitter’s biggest problem stems from its inability to make most of its users feel personally connected to what’s being shared on the service, according to Gartner Inc. analyst Jennifer Polk. “We set off the week together at both companies and we have checkpoints and then the balance of my time is really spent on recruiting”. Twitter’s share price has been plunging in recent months amid fears that it could struggle to grow.

Twitter planned to begin turning the feature on during coming weeks, sending people notifications to let them know about the change. He also said that more marketers are turning to the network and finding good results. Furthermore, the company’s $710 million in revenue is a significant increase from $479 million a year before.