Twitter
Summary
"What's happening in the world right now," shared by users in 280-character bursts, with media attachments available.
Type of organisation: Publicly-listed company (or group)
Market share: One of the leading products (#3-7)
Pricing: Too complex to explain in detail
Factors driving pricing: Additional features, More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic)
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: No, sign-in is optional
Type of organisation: Publicly-listed company (or group)
Market share: One of the leading products (#3-7)
Pricing: Too complex to explain in detail
Factors driving pricing: Additional features, More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic)
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: No, sign-in is optional
Pros
Open Source alternatives available
Releases new features regularly
Shares product roadmap
Clear data policies
Allows data export
Allows data deletion
Shares diversity data
Cons
Newsworthy business problems - Jack Dorsey says Twitter will ban all political ads, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Adds His Voice to Support of Regulation in Tech, Trump met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey — and complained about his follower count
Newsworthy technical issues - Twitter is back up after global outage, Twitter used phone numbers provided for security to target ads, Twitter system ‘outage’ briefly blocked Trump whistleblower tweet
Newsworthy security breaches - Twitter users told to change passwords after internal leak, Two former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia, Hundreds of Users Impacted in Twitter and Facebook Data Breach
Lacks accessibility statement
Full Product Data Collection
Data collected January-February 2020
| Product name | |
| Product URL | https://twitter.com/ |
| Parent organisation | N/A |
| Workflow category | Audience engagement & monetisation |
| Date product founded | 2006 |
| Product description | “What’s happening in the world right now,” shared by users in 280-character bursts, with media attachments available. |
| What type of company or organisation is the product owned by? | Publicly-listed company (or group) |
| Is the company profit-making? | Yes, profitable |
| How is this product funded? | Advertising |
| What market share does the tool have? | One of the leading products (#3-7) |
| Is there an Open Source alternative in this product space? | Yes. Mastodon |
| When did the company last release new features? | January 2020: Global launch of Promoted Trend Spotlight |
| Have they shared details of the product roadmap? | Yes. Threaded replies (in testing, no full release date announced) |
| Is there talk of the product raising further investment? | No |
| Is there talk of the product being acquired? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy business issues or challenges in the last 12 months? | Yes. Jack Dorsey says Twitter will ban all political ads, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Adds His Voice to Support of Regulation in Tech, Trump met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey — and complained about his follower count |
| Is there a pricing model listed on the website? | Yes |
| How clear & transparent is this pricing model? | Partly: some pricing listed; must speak to salesperson to confirm |
| What is the range of prices offered? | Advertising pricing is too complex to explain in detail. |
| What factors drive higher pricing? | Additional features, More audience (e.g. more subscribers, traffic) |
| What skills are needed to get this tool set up & usable? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| What skills are needed to USE this tool day-to-day? | Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it) |
| Does this tool use proprietary file formats for saving documents & outputs? | Defaults to common open standard file formats |
| Is the product reliant on 3rd-party APIs or interoperability to function? | No |
| Have there been any newsworthy technical issues in the last 3 years? | Yes. Twitter is back up after global outage, Twitter used phone numbers provided for security to target ads, Twitter system ‘outage’ briefly blocked Trump whistleblower tweet |
| How clear is the Terms of Service for users (i.e. publishing customers)? | Technical, legalistic TOS |
| Does the product have a data collection & usage policy on its website? (Can be a GDPR statement)? | Yes, comprehensive. |
| Is their data policy “GDPR everywhere”? | No, different rules in different markets |
| Does the product require your audience to sign-in to use it? | No, sign-in is optional |
| IF SIGN IN REQUIRED: Does audience sign-in use 3rd party platforms? | Twitter authentication |
| Does the public product website mention how to export or transfer your data to another service? | Yes: Export publisher metadata, Yes: Export/transfer publisher content, Yes: Audience can data export |
| Does the public product website mention how to delete your data? | Yes: for both publisher and audience data |
| Have there been any newsworthy security breaches with this product in the last 3 years? | Yes. Twitter users told to change passwords after internal leak, Two former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia, Hundreds of Users Impacted in Twitter and Facebook Data Breach |
| Does the company have an accessibility statement on its website? | No / cannot find |
| Does the company release information on the diversity of the workforce? | Yes |