Twitter Is About To Customize Its Timeline To Your Preference

Twitter shares fell in Wednesday after-hours trading as the company revealed that its user numbers had declined sequentially.

The San Francisco-based company predicted first-quarter revenue of between $595 million (528 million euros) and $610 million, well below the average analyst estimate of $627.1 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Excluding SMS, the company reported it had 305 million monthly active users down from 307 million in Q3.

The company is moving forward, confident that “disciplined execution” will result in growth, but for months now it’s been treading water, and even sunk a bit.

But its outlook for the current quarter failed to allay concerns, with revenue growth below most forecasts. Twitter claims to reach a total audience of 800 million users per month, including non-registered users who read tweets embedded on third-party websites.

Twitter’s net loss shrank to US$90.2 million, or 13 cents per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec 31 from US$125.4 million, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier.

Today Twitter has announced a new timeline feature to help users catch up on the best tweets from the people you follow.

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has been plagued with an endless stream of problems, including the problem of high turnover among key executives. Revenue rose 48 per cent from the previous year to $710 million, providing some measure of hope that the service can still be turned into a viable of business.

Twitter’s financial results came on the same day it unveiled a major change to the way it displays users’ tweets.

Meanwhile, CEO Jack Dorsey – who took over for Dick Costolo past year – has seen the departure of a number of top executives and will be expected to give an update about his plans to replace them during the company’s conference call with investors.

Wall Street was expecting 12 cents per share and $709.9 million in revenue.

Twitter has been struggling to make itself more attractive to users beyond its core base of journalists, celebrities, sports figures and other influencers.

Searches: Up by double digits from the same period one year ago.

WHAT’S IMPORTANT? – Twitter defines it as “tweets you are likely to care about most”. The micro-blogging platform had 320 million users at the end of the year, compared to the consensus of 325 million.

During a periscope of the earnings, Dorsey said the company will “focus now on what Twitter does best: Live”.