Monday, October 7, 2013

MOBILE INSIGHTS: Twitter Has A Mobile Monetization Problem

View this email online | Add newsletter@businessinsider.com to your address book

Monday, October 7, 2013

Twitter Has A Mobile Monetization Problem

Mobile Insights is a daily newsletter from BI Intelligence delivered first thing every morning exclusively to BI Intelligence subscribers. Sign up for a free trial of BI Intelligence today.

Twitter Makes Less Money From Mobile Users (All Things Digital)
Twitter recently filed its S-1, revealing the company's long speculated-upon financials for the first time. One item of note was Twitter's mobile users, which account for 75% of its 218 million monthly active users, making it one of the most mobile-centric of the top social networks.

However, it turns out that Twitter is dealing with a mobile monetization gap. It's mobile users generate less revenue for the company than its desktop users do.

Promoted tweets and trends, Twitter's primary ad products, are difficult to identify in the current iterations of Twitter's mobile app and mobile website. This is a glaring problem considering that three-quarters of Twitter's userbase accesses their feeds from a mobile device, and because that mobile base is likely to increase going forward. Read >

In other news...

Fake accounts may also put a damper on Twitter's future ad monetization potential. (Wall Street Journal)

Apple takes the top smartphone spot in the U.S. with 40.7% market share during August, up from 39.2% in May. U.S. smartphone penetration also ticked up slightly to about 61%. (comScore)

Best Buy slashed the base price of the iPhone 5C to to $50 on a 2-year contract only two weeks after initial launch. (The Verge)

Cisco Systems, Google, and SAP may be talking to BlackBerry about a potential acquisition bid. (Reuters)

The president of the FIDO alliance claims Android devices will have fingerprint scanning capabilities within the next six months. (USA Today)

The New York Times has a narrative of how Steve Jobs conceived and executed the first iPhone for Apple. (New York Times)