Not only did an errant Tweet posted by Twitter's chief financial officer to his 9,000 followers reveal potential stock-moving information, it served as evidence, to a degree, as to why the social network has approximately 500 million logged-out users.
Twitter recently began rolling out a sharing feature for tweets, which allows its users to embed tweets in private messages. Users can embed any public tweet into a private conversation, where they can discuss the information in the posts openly without having to face the scrutiny of the general public. The thing is, the tweet has to be made public, to some degree, before it can stapled into a direct message chain.
It's unclear if Anthony Noto, Twitter's CFO, was attempting to post a direct message or trying out the new shared tweet feature -- he seems fairly new to Twitter. What is clear is that Noto erroneously tweeted information about a possible acquisition, which is the type of information that sends speculators on Wall Street into a frenzy.
"I still think we should buy them. He is on your schedule for Dec. 15 or 16 - we will need to sell him. I have a plan," stated Noto in the tweet.
Noto's message was deleted in short order, but removal didn't come in time to prevent it from being saved for eternity by screen grabs. While outsiders can only speculate on what company Twitter is looking to acquire, Noto's tweet is just another indicator of how bullish the social network is feeling.
Noto's mistweet is just the latest in a long line of high-profile individuals who, to their detriment, have failed to the use the site properly.
Former politician Anthony Wiener began his fall from grace when he tweeted an image of his penis about three years ago, the start of a string of events and denials which was capped ultimately by his resignation from Congress.
And while you can take the Wiener out of Congress, apparently you can't take him off Twitter and away from public relations gaffs. Last week, Wiener favorited the Twitter page of a scantily clad woman who uses the handle "Sugarfuzz" -- her page was his only favorite.
"Filling in for your wife since 2001. Indulge your sexual fantasies by having an affair," states states Sugarfuzz, Joslyn Stevens, in her Twitter bio.
Back at its analyst's day, Twitter's top brass talked about improvements to its social network to make the site easier to use. Twitter says it has to become more engaging to attract those hundreds and millions of users that stop by the site to check out hihg-profile media touted tweet s.
"Prior to now, our strategy only allowed us to focus on that audience of 284 million users, and not the audience of 500 million users that already exist on our platform," said Noto.
