Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is determined to prove to Wall Street that the company is strong despite unimpressive earnings in the last quarter. While speaking at Re/code‘s annual Code Conference on Thursday in Rancho Palo Verdes, Calif., Costolo said his mission for Twitter remains the same despite the lackluster earnings last month and dropping stock price.
Twitter not on sale
Twitter is not giving up on its mission to expand its user base by showing tweets to people outside of Twitter or on TV or other platforms like Flipboard. Costolo said people are working on this plan, and it is the right time to attest that the plan can deliver actual growth and, more importantly, revenue. Costolo said, “People believe the strategy,” and they “buy it.” However, the company needs to demonstrate how it will monetize after expanding to billions of people on and off the site.
Twitter has seen expansion and growth issues over the past year, and there were reports that the company could be on sale, but Costolo rejected any such rumors, saying, “We have every intention of being an independent [public] company,” and adding, “Those things you read about in the press are simply rumors, not facts.”
Can Periscope control illegal video streaming?
On the stage, Costolo was assisted by Periscope CEO Kavyon Beykpour, who is also the founder of a live streaming startup Twitter acquired in January. Periscope was criticized earlier this month for being a potential disruptor of U.S. copyright laws and live streaming. Periscope’s technology is relatively new, and therefore, broadcasters and sports leagues are looking for ways to cope with scenarios like the one that emerged this month when Periscope users broadcasted a pay-per-view boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.
Following the complaints, Twitter froze dozens of streams that were showing the match illegally, but the incident raises a question about the difficulty level involved in supervising thousands of live video feeds at one time. On this, Beykpour said there is no outright way to solve the issue, and existing tools such as YouTube’s content ID are not very effective on live content. Beykpour said that Periscope is still in the take-off phase and is already very popular among users.
