14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter is growing steadily, but that doesn’t mean that all its users are genuine. All online services face this problem, but it seems that Twitter has managed to put a number on this problem, indicating that about 23 million accounts aren’t actually human.
According to a new set of disclosed numbers from an SEC filing, Twitter has revealed that it has detected a lot of bot accounts, making up for some 8.5 percent of all active user accounts at the end of June. The number is quite high and investors are likely quite disappointed, especially since the company’s stats aren’t all that great.
“We have reviewed and refined our processes, however, to calculate a new metric that is comprised of only such active users who have used applications with the capability to automatically contact our servers for regular updates where there was no discernable user action involved. In the three months ended June 30, 2014, approximately 11% of all active users solely used third-party applications to access Twitter,” Twitter’s note reads.
“However, only up to approximately 8.5% of all active users used third party applications that may have automatically contacted our servers for regular updates without any discernible additional user-initiated action. The calculations of MAUs presented in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q may be affected as a result of automated activity,” the company reveals.
Twitter has 271 monthly active users from nearly every country of the world. The company believes that the current total audience that views content on the platform, not including syndicated content, is about two to three times the number of the actual monthly active users.
During the second quarter of 2014, Twitter has had quite a bit of success, unlike in other years when the results failed to meet expectations. Most of the success can be traced back to the World Cup when users were particularly active. This has led to an increase in revenues for Twitter.
But the company didn’t just sit around and amass fortunes. Instead, it invested in its future by purchasing Gnip Inc., a company that provides social data and was a former data partner of Twitter.
According to the SEC filing, Twitter paid $134 million (€100.4 million) in stock and cash for the startup. $107.3 million (€80.42 million) will be paid in cash, while 0.6 million shares of common stock are going to be handed over in the process.
During the first six months of the year, Twitter has acquired an additional four companies for a total of $55.5 million (€41.6 million) paid in shares and cash.
