Twitter is having trouble adding users as fast as it used to, but a new partnership with Google is set to increase Twitter’s stock and usership a bit more.
Google search results are now including Tweets again, a feature that was terminated back in 2011. This deal was designed as investors hoped a larger audience could be lured in. There are plenty of Internet users who haven’t got a Twitter account, and the company wants them to turn the casual onlookers into active members.
Google will be offering a teaser of the Tweet in its search page: the entire text and the potential attached image are visible without having to click on the Tweet. But if you do, the link will bring you to the Twitter page, where some extra information is revealed: the number of favorites and retweets of that specific post.
If you are a nonmember, Twitter made sure to place giant buttons for “Sign Up” and “Log In.” If you ignore those and try to click on pretty much anything else on the page, Twitter will prompt a popup that ask you ever so kindly to please, please sign up for their social network.
The company has been struggling to expand its usership, and one of the most important strategies to get their numbers back on track is luring people in from around the Web.
The first step in this direction was to offer logged-out users a taste of the Twitter experience on desktop computers by allowing people to browse from a special homepage tweets about certain subjects, like cute cats or Nascar live feed.
Second move might look more desperate then encouraging. James Cakmak, analyst at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., thinks the same. According to him, this Google deal presents a certain risk of drawing people to click on tweets, only to put them off with repeated requests of signing up or logging in if they want to see more.
Cakmak thinks Twitter has got to work on its mobile implementation, because finding some interesting tweets in the search results and then sending people to a dull and uninteresting mobile website might not be drawing enough attention.
The desktop version for nonmembers has been in the works since November, and it is barely functioning as it should. Back in April, Twitter chief executive officer Dick Costolo said that this Google deal is meant to engage people with Twitter content, whether they are logged-in members or not.
Image Source: Eduvantis Digital