Dick Costolo, COO, Twitter
0 Comments | CEO Wire, Sep 2, 2010
(This is not a legal transcript. Bloomberg LP cannot guarantee its accuracy.)
DICK COSTOLO, COO OF TWITTER, TALKS ABOUT COMPANY EXPANSION ON BLOOMBERG TV
SEPTEMBER 2, 2010
SPEAKERS: DICK COSTOLO, COO, TWITTER
CRIS VALERIO, REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS
CAROL MASSAR, HOST “STREET SMART”, BLOOMBERG NEWS
15:31
CAROL MASSAR, HOST “STREET SMART”, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Well, Twitter, well, it continues to expand. Today in fact it released a new app for the iPad. Its just one more sign that the social media darling is growing up.
Our Cris Valerio joins us now from San Francisco with a special guest, Dick Costolo. He’s Twitter’s COO. Cris?
CRIS VALERIO, REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Hi, Carol. That’s right. I wanted to point out here, he’s helping the company grow up.
So Dick, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
DICK COSTOLO, COO, TWITTER: Thanks for having me.
VALERIO: So first off, first question I want to ask you is Promoted Tweets, this was a main revenue stream source way to look at it. After you had the search –
COSTOLO: Yes, search deal.
VALERIO: Yes, search deal. So how is it going?
COSTOLO: Promoted Tweets is going great. We couldn’t be happier with how it’s going.
I think when we launched it, one of the things we were worried about was – or thinking about was – we’re going to have to test this a lot, we’re going to have to do AB tests, see what works, see what we need to change, keep making changes, move along cautiously. And right out of the gate, it’s been a fantastic success for us.
VALERIO: Can you give us any metrics? So for instance, how much is it increasing engagement for your advertisers, what kind of numbers are you seeing out of there?
COSTOLO: Yes, so the kinds of numbers we’re seeing are when advertisers use Promoted Tweets, they’re getting engagement rates sometimes of over 10%, but in high single digits in most cases, which is just off the charts for online advertising.
And by engagement rates, we mean we counted anything as an engagement that they click, retweet (ph), or reply.
VALERIO: And how many advertisers do you guys have signed up right now?
COSTOLO: We still have less than a hundred advertisers, but we keep growing that by the week. We’re adding more and more sales and marketing folks around the country, across the country.
VALERIO: Is it self-sustaining yet? The cash that you’re making out of it, is it self-sustaining, or is it still kind of –
COSTOLO: You’re making the wheel spinning move with your fingers. This is the international symbol for self-sustaining.
It’s sustaining. The revenue is growing.
VALERIO: Does it make you money?
COSTOLO: The revenue is growing every month. We’re adding more and more advertisers. It’s a big success.
We’ve also just rolled out Promoted Trends recently. So the idea behind Promoted Trends, like Promoted Tweets, is that we’ve got an organic set of the top trends in Twitter, and we’re now allowing advertisers to promote an eleventh trend, something that’s already trending on Twitter that they want to bump up into that eleventh spot. And that’s also a big success for us.
VALERIO: Can you bring me down here to just kind of the bare bones? Twitter is making money because of the search deal
ipad apps