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Tag: Dick Costolo

  • Pet Tales with MediaCom senior business director Ketan R Karnik

    Pet Tales with MediaCom senior business director Ketan R Karnik

    Pets are a gateway to escape from everyday's stressful life. There is nothing more satisfying and relaxing than coming home to your 'buddy' and spending some quality time with our little furry friends. Executives that have a stressful and strenuous job love to spend some quality time with their pets as and when they can.

    From Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom who has a golden retriever that has more than 11,700 followers on Instagram to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo who keeps bees in his backyard and posts videos of them to his Vine account, it seems that industry executives are not afraid to show off their adorable pet friends.

    In our constant endeavor to bring the most diverse content to our readers, brings to you some stories of our media execs' and their beloved pets.

    Pet Tales, our latest special, captures certain aspects of noted media professionals that are rarely touched upon.

    We highlight how some of India's most successful marketing and media executives unwind and relax with their pets after emptying their creative reservoirs at work.

    Here’s MediaCom senior business director Ketan R Karnik talking about Leo.

    Pet: Dog

    Breed: Great Dane

    Age: 8

    Name: Leo

    What’s your favourite pet movie?

    K9 and War Horse

    What does a typical day with your pet look like?

    My day starts with a morning walk with him, then I feed him and leave for office. When I return he is the first one who welcomes me. After cuddling him for a while only then he allows me to remove my shoes. From then onward till we go to bed he follows me like a shadow. Saturday and Sunday are our days. He is involved in all the activities we do on holiday as a family. Now he is 8+ years old and a senior citizen but still a cute kid for me.         

    What prompted you to have a pet and do you feel having a pet changes your perspective?

    I have always loved animals. Right from my childhood, I wanted to have multiple pets as they are the ones who love you without any expectation. I got Leo eight years ago when a colleague of mine who stays in Kolkata told me one day that he has a puppy and would like to bring him to Mumbai. So, he sent me a photo and I thought he was cute. I brought him to Mumbai through flight and my entire family was unaware about it and so it was a surprise for everyone.

    After a few days, my wife couldn’t handle him as running behind him and taking care was a tiring job. She even suggested dropping him somewhere else, to that I  asked her to have some patience. And after a few months, the patience paid off as he became a family member. In fact, my wife is the one who looks after him very passionately like a kid. And after that we never leashed him in the house, he roams everywhere in the house. He’s very friendly. He being a large breed, we initially thought he won’t be comfortable and will need more space than what houses in Mumbai provide, but he got used to it.

    Even today when I come back home after a tiring day, just seeing him jump makes me feel energetic and charged up. Frankly, you have to take a lot of care of a Great Dane than any local breed because of his sheer size.

    Do you think public places within India are pet-friendly? If not, what can be done to improve this?

    I think we need more pet gardens to open up where pet parents can take their pets for a stroll because in societies or streets you don’t have any place. Even your kids don’t have space to play forget about pets. Also there needs to be more awareness among people about pets. Some societies don’t allow pets at all or treat them in a very different way as they are scared of them.  

    Climatic conditions in India are also not very favourable for breeds like St. Bernard and others. People adopt them as a puppy as they look very cute but they don’t know what they will become once they grow up and so there’s a need to spread awareness of these things. Many dogs even die because of this. So yes, generating awareness is very important.

    What’s been your favourite campaign/ad that involving animals?

    The international Chevrolet Chevvy commercial ad is my favourite.

    Has adoption of strays really increased today because of media and increased awareness?

    I have seen people adopting these stray animals where they have no relation with the animal but seeing them injured or in pain it makes people feel something. In our society and nearby societies there are a few guys who actually take care of stray dogs. One of the guys I know has adopted some 6-7 stray dogs.

    But then again there are people who feed glucose biscuits to these stray dogs every morning which is actually harmful for these animals. So yes, there is a lack of awareness on what to feed these animals. People who feed dogs non-vegetarian foods, they cook it and then they feed them. Even at my home, my mom used to give Leo bones to chew but I reminded her that there is a difference between meat being cooked and serving it raw as the hardness of the bone matters. It can actually harm their windpipe or intestine and your dog can actually die.

  • Twitter CEO Dick Costolo resigns, Jack Dorsey returns as interim CEO

    Twitter CEO Dick Costolo resigns, Jack Dorsey returns as interim CEO

    MUMBAI: Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has decided to step down from his post effective 1 July, 2015.

     

    Twitter co-founder and chairman of the Board Jack Dorsey will serve as interim CEO while the Board conducts a search for the next CEO.

     

    Costolo will continue to serve on Twitter’s Board of Directors, and Dorsey will continue to serve as CEO of Square, Inc., the payments and financial services company he co-founded in 2009.

     

    Twitter’s Board has formed a Search Committee to lead the search for a permanent CEO. The Search Committee is chaired by the Board’s lead independent director Peter Currie, and includes Peter Fenton and Evan Williams.

     

    The Committee will retain a leading executive search firm to assist in conducting a global search, which will consider both internal and external candidates for the CEO position.

     

    Costolo said, “I am tremendously proud of the Twitter team and all that the team has accomplished together during my six years with the Company. We have great leaders who work well together and a clear strategy that informs our objectives and priorities. There is no one better than Jack Dorsey to lead Twitter during this transition. He has a profound understanding of the product and Twitter’s mission in the world as well as a great relationship with Twitter’s leadership team. I am deeply appreciative of the confidence the Board, the management team and the employees have placed in me over the years, and I look forward to supporting Twitter however I can going forward.”

     

    Dorsey added, “The future belongs to Twitter thanks in large part to Dick Costolo’s dedication and vision. Dick has put a world-class team in place and created a great foundation from which Twitter can continue to change the world and grow. We have an exciting lineup of products and initiatives coming to market, and I look forward to continuing to execute our strategy while helping facilitate a smooth transition as the Board conducts its search.”

     

    Dorsey continued, “I am grateful for the talented team at Square, which I will continue to lead. We have built a very strong company from top to bottom, and I am as committed as ever to its continued success.”

     

    Currie said, “On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Dick for his years of tireless devotion to building Twitter into the strong and dynamic company it is today, putting us in a superb position for continued growth and innovation for many years to come. We look forward to his continued contributions during the transition period and as an ongoing member of the Board. The Board is fully committed to running a thorough process to identify the right CEO to lead Twitter into its next phase of growth. In the meantime, we are fortunate to have Jack – one of our founders – step back into a management role and help lead Twitter as we continue executing on our strategic priorities.”

     

    Second Quarter 2015 Outlook

     

    Twitter also reaffirmed its outlook for the second quarter of 2015. The company continues to expect revenue to be in the range of $470 million to $485 million and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $97 million to $102 million. Stock-based compensation expense is expected to be in the range of $190 million to $200 million, excluding the impact of equity awards that may be granted in connection with potential future acquisitions.

  • Twitter and IBM announce new partnership

    Twitter and IBM announce new partnership

    MUMBAI: Twitter and IBM announced a landmark partnership to help shape business decisions using data collected from tweets worldwide. The alliance brings together Twitter data that distinctively represents the public pulse of the planet with IBM’s industry-leading cloud-based analytics, customer engagement platforms, and consulting services.

     

    Announcing the collaboration, IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty said, “Twitter provides a powerful new lens both as a platform for hundreds of millions of consumers and business professionals, and as a synthesizer of trends. This partnership, drawing on IBM’s leading cloud-based analytics platform, will help clients enrich business decisions with an entirely new class of data. This is the latest example of how IBM is reimagining work.”

     

    With the development of new solutions to improve business decisions across industries and professions, IBM and Twitter will be able to enrich existing enterprise data streams to improve business decisions. For example, the integration of social data with enterprise data can help accelerate product development by predicting long-term trends or drive real-time demand forecasting based on real-time situations like weather patterns, said the press release.

     

    Excited about the new partnership, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo commented, “This important partnership with IBM will change the way business decisions are made – from identifying emerging market opportunities to better engaging clients, partners and employees.”

     

    The collaboration will focus on three areas: 

     

    Integration of Twitter data with IBM analytics services on the cloud: IBM plans to offer Twitter data as part of select cloud-based services, including IBM Watson Analytics, a new cognitive service in the palm of your hand that brings intuitive visualisation and predictive capabilities to business users; and a cloud-based data refinery service that enables application developers to embed data services in applications. Entrepreneurs and software developers will also be able to integrate Twitter data into new cloud services they are building with IBM’s Watson Developer Cloud or IBM Bluemix platform-as-a-service.

     

    New data-intensive capabilities for the enterprise: IBM and Twitter will deliver a set of enterprise applications to help improve business decisions across industries and professions. The first joint solution will integrate Twitter data with IBM ExperienceOne customer engagement solutions, allowing sales, marketing, and customer service professionals to map sentiment and behaviour to better engage and support their customers.

     

    Specialised enterprise consulting: IBM Global Business Services professionals will have access to Twitter data to enrich consulting services for clients across business. Additionally, IBM and Twitter will collaborate to develop unique solutions for specific industries such as banking, consumer products, retail, and travel and transportation. The partnership will draw upon the skills of tens of thousands of IBM Global Business Services consultants and application professionals including consultants from the industry’s only integrated Strategy and Analytics practice, and IBM Interactive Experience, the world’s largest digital agency.

     

    “IBM brings a unique combination of cloud-based analytics solutions and a global services team that can help companies utilise this truly unique data.  Companies have had successes to Twitter data – from manufacturers more effectively managing inventory to consumer electronic companies doing rapid product development. This partnership with IBM will allow faster innovation across a broader range of use cases at scale,” reckoned Twitter Data Strategy vice president Chris Moody.

  • We remain focused on driving increased user growth: Dick Costolo

    We remain focused on driving increased user growth: Dick Costolo

    MUMBAI: Micro blogging site, Twitter has had an interesting second quarter. The company has announced its financial results for the second quarter ended 30 June 2014.

    In a company statement Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said, “Our strong financial and operating results for the second quarter show the continued momentum of our business.”

    “We remain focused on driving increased user growth and engagement, and by developing new product experiences, like the one we built around the World Cup, we believe we can extend Twitter’s appeal to an even broader audience,” he added.

    It can be noted that Twitter’s Q2 revenue was $312 million, up 124 per cent year-over-year. The company reported Q2 net loss of $145 million and non-GAAP net income of $15 million, Q2 GAAP EPS of ($0.24) and non-GAAP EPS of $0.02 and Q2 adjusted EBITDA of $54 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17 per cent.

    According to a report by AP, San Francisco-based Twitter’s stock jumped 30 per cent to $50.01 in extended trading Tuesday.

    It can be noted that Twitter introduced new product experiences that were built around the World Cup, including real-time scoring, push notifications, event and match timelines, and a voting ballot feature. In addition, Twitter also launched new web profiles and the ability to send private messages within Vine.

    Twitter also launched a number of new advertiser tools including mobile app promotions, which allow mobile app developers to drive installs and engagements on Twitter, and website cards, which allow advertisers to easily surface website content within a Tweet and drive relevant traffic to any page of their site such as their home page, product page, or an important blog post.

    Twitter continued the international expansion of its advertising products, expanding state/region geo-targeting to help marketers meet local advertising objectives in additional countries including the UK, France, and Indonesia, among others, and launching its self service ad platform for small and medium sized businesses in Spain, Israel and South Africa.

    Twitter closed the acquisition of Gnip, a leading provider of social data, and entered into agreements to acquire several other companies including TapCommerce, a leader in mobile retargeting and re-engagement advertising, and SnappyTV, a platform for video editing and distribution.

    Second Quarter 2014 Financial Highlights

    Revenue: Revenue for the second quarter of 2014 totalled $312 million, an increase of 124 per cent compared to $139 million in the same period last year.

    • Advertising revenue totalled $277 million, an increase of 129 per cent year-over-year.

    • Mobile advertising revenue was 81 per cent of total advertising revenue.

    • Data licensing and other revenue totalled $35 million, an increase of 90per cent year-over-year.

    • International revenue totalled $102 million, an increase of 168 per cent year-over-year.

    • International revenue was 33 per cent of total revenue

    Net loss: GAAP net loss was $145 million for the second quarter of 2014 compared to a net loss of $42 million in the same period last year. Twitter’s GAAP net loss included $158 million of stock-based compensation expense.

    Adjusted EBITDA: Adjusted EBITDA was $54 million for the second quarter of 2014, an increase of 461 per cent compared to $10 million in the same period last year.

    Non-GAAP net income / loss: Non-GAAP net income was $15 million for the second quarter of 2014 compared to a Non-GAAP net loss of $16 million in the same period last year.

    EPS: Basic and diluted GAAP EPS was ($0.24) for the second quarter of 2014 compared to ($0.32) in the same period last year.

    Non-GAAP EPS: Non-GAAP EPS was $0.02 for the second quarter of 2014 compared to ($0.12) in the year ago period.

    Capital expenditures: Purchases of property and equipment for the second quarter of 2014 were $44 million. Additionally, $31 million of equipment was financed through capital leases during the second quarter of 2014.

    Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities: As of 30 June 2014, cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were approximately $2.1 billion, compared to $2.2 billion as of 31 March 2014.

    Way ahead!

    Twitter’s outlook for the third quarter of 2014 is as follows:

    Twitter’s outlook for the third quarter of 2014 is as follows:

    • Revenue is projected to be in the range of $330 million to $340 million.

    • Adjusted EBITDA is projected to be in the range of $40 million to $45 million.

    • Stock-based compensation expense is projected to be in the range of $180 million to $190 million excluding the impact of equity awards that may be granted in connection with potential future acquisitions.

    Twitter’s revised outlook for the full year of 2014 is as follows:

    • Revenue is projected to be in the range of $1,310 million to $1,330 million.

    • Adjusted EBITDA is projected to be in the range of $210 million to $230 million.

    • Capital expenditures are projected to be in the range of $330 million to $390 million.

    • Stock-based compensation expense is projected to be in the range of $640 million to $690 million excluding the impact of equity awards that may be granted in connection with potential future acquisitions.

    Click here to read the financial report

  • Twitter: Strong IPO, followed by even stronger opening

    Twitter: Strong IPO, followed by even stronger opening

    MUMBAI: It began with a tweet on its twitter handle which stated: “We just priced our IPO.” Attached with the tweet was a screen shot of the offering announcement.

    And by the time Wednesday 6 November ended, the social networking site that has become a phenomenon across the globe had managed to raise $2.09 billion from its IPO, making it the seventh-largest US tech IPO ever, just ahead of Google, which raised $1.92 billion in its 2004 stock market debut, according to some estimates.

    But there was more in store for stockmarket observers and investors as trading began on Thursday morning. The Twitter share – under the TWTR ticker – spurted 90 plus per cent in value as it soared to $45 per share during early trades and then to a high of $50. This took up the valuation of the firm to $25 billion or 32 billion or so, at the time of writing.

    Yesterday’s $26 price valued the microblogging service at $18.34 billion, on a fully diluted basis. That is 16 to 17 times forecast 2014 sales, a premium to rivals including Facebook, LinkedIn and Yelp, according to some analysts.

    Twitter set an early price range of $17 to $20 for its IPO, which was considered cautious. But there was strong interest from investors, and the company was selling just 70 million of its 545 million shares, leaving an imbalance between supply and demand. That allowed the company and its bankers, led by Goldman Sachs’ Anthony Noto, to raise the range to $23 to $25 and then pick a final price above that.

     

    Analysts felt that the price should have been in the $21 range but the final pricing zipped past that. Other analyst and stock watchers had predicted that the share would go past the $40 market during day one’s trading. The IPO was as much as 30 times over-subscribed.

    While Twitter has a broad and powerful influence, its service is sometimes tricky to understand and use, which has reportedly limited the company’s growth. Twitter has about 230 million users, including heads of state and celebrities, while Facebook has more than one billion.

    However, Twitter lost $65 million in the latest quarter.

    Twitter is expected to generate $1.24 billion in sales in 2015, according to some projections. Its adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margins will be roughly 6.5 per cent this year and 8.4 per cent in 2014, according to IPO underwriter forecasts that were shared with investors. In 2015, margins may jump to about 16 per cent, the estimates suggest.

    During an interview given to CNBC, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is believed to have said that investors should not be concerned about the company’s current lack of profits, since its part of a plan to invest for the long term.

    It looks like the investment community and public is buying his story for now – at least.