Twitter Inc (TWTR) Is More Than Monthly Active Users: Nick Bilton

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is a different beast compared to the likes of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and it’s more than the vaunted monthly active users metric, Nick Bilton of The New York Times said in an interview on CNBC.

Bilton was reacting to news that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s CEO may not have long being the top executive at his company. Sun Trust analyst Robert Peck released a note earlier saying that he thinks Costolo is going to be out of the company next year which consequently resulted in the company’s stock trading higher.

The New York Times columnist said that he feels sorry for the Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) CEO because of the reaction of the market to the news that he is leaving but said that he thinks Costolo has been focusing too much on monthly active users.

“One of the things that I think was really fascinating was his focus on [monthly active users] and it’s something that investors have been focused on from the beginning of Twitter. I think it’s a wrong metric to be looking at. If you look in the news, every single day, Twitter is mentioned. […] It is much more important that the whole and the sum of the numbers that make it up,” Bilton said.

The columnist noted how people have always flocked to Twitter for their news. High-profile organizations like Sony made its announcements after its cyber attack on Twitter, Bilton said. He also mentioned President Barack Obama using the service.

He said that sure, millions may be using the service every day but its reach is in the billions every day. He said that people may not necessarily be excited to share details of their lives every day on Twitter but they sure consume a lot of content from the service.

Bilton also noted that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) may never grow as big as Facebook. It’s a different platform, he said, much like The New York Times – which has a million users a day – is different from say Buzzfeed – which has more audience because it’s a different kind of site.

The columnist said that maybe Wall Street needs to look at Twitter in a different light and take into consideration other metrics aside from monthly active users when judging the company.

Daniel Benton’s Andor Capital Management owned 5.75 million Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) shares by the end of the September quarter.