Twitter Inc Adds Stickers, But Some Not Happy

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Twitter has launched stickers for all its users to beautify the photos shared across the platform. With the launch, the micro-blogging site announced that users can now browse through a library of accessories and emojis that they can position on top of photos, rotate and resize.

Playing catch-up with rivals

Making good on its promise made last month, Twitter has made the stickers available to improve the platform. The micro-blogging website is doing all things possible to get users to stick around and to add more users.

“Now, everyone can use #Stickers on photos! Celebrate with us tomorrow as we #StickTogether,” the micro-blogging firm tweeted while announcing the feature.

Though stickers are a small feature, they are likewise illustrative of how the company is focused on playing a catch-up with bigger rivals like Snapchat and Facebook, which already offer an assortment of sticker packs and other image editing features.

Could help boost Twitter revenue

Stickers could affect Twitter’s financials if the company wanders into brand-sponsored sticker packs or paid downloads similar to Japanese mobile messaging app Line, which makes more than $20 million per month by selling sticker packs. Line charges around $1 to $2 for some of the packs, each with a dozen or more stickers, and claims to be making over $720 million per year just from stickers.

So it’s a logical decision from Twitter to foray into this possibly productive domain as it tries to crush more revenue out of a stagnant client base that is not growing as it should be. In its second-quarter earnings report, the company claimed 313 million monthly active users – up only 3% from the year earlier and down 1% from the past quarter.  Nevertheless, Twitter was able to raise its ad revenue, which expanded 18% year over year to $535 million, the company reported.

Not all happy with stickers

Twitter, which is confronting a bigger and more critical set of problems, is still playing “me too” with other networks, and this annoys many users. Following the announcement of live stickers, many users tweeted that Twitter first needs to fix its app and let users edit tweets, address the abuse and make good on its other plans.

Of these, the biggest issue facing Twitter is battling harassment and the massive trolling problem that its users have to deal with. This issue is affecting the platform on a continuous basis with new users unwilling to join the platform owing to fears of being verbally attacked and old users quitting the platform after experiencing the problem themselves.

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