Twitter shares have surged more than 40% this month — and even briefly touched an all-time high — on optimism that the social-media platform may finally be getting its business strategy straight with new ventures designed to help it branch out and bring in different types of revenue. On Thursday, investors will hear more about these efforts from Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey at the company’s analyst day.
As rosy as Dorsey’s presentation is likely to be, it’s important to remember that Twitter has a poor track record at expanding into new areas. With the stock trading where it is, investors may want to ask themselves, is it really different this time? And does Twitter deserve the benefit of the doubt? They may see something to cheer but, at least for now, I don’t.
Twitter’s latest rally began late last month after the company announced the acquisition of paid email-newsletter service Revue on Jan. 26. The move sparked enthusiasm that Twitter was getting serious about moving beyond its core advertising business model to make money in new ways, in this case subscriptions. This followed the launch of two other recent initiatives: Fleets, a Snapchat-like feature that allows users to post disappearing stories, and audio-based Spaces, a Clubhouse clone where users can hold live voice discussions with their followers.