Is Twitter in trouble? HBO Now off to a slow start
Tech Industry
Are we at a turning point for Twitter, and is HBO Now growing too slowly?
I'm Jeff Bakalar filling in for Bridget Carey.
This is your CNET Update.
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After what was mostly a stagnant earnings report released yesterday, Twitter is having major issues convincing Wall Street it's the real deal.
Most discouraging, Twitter can't grow its user base.
That number has moved since last quarter.
Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times writes that Twitter needs to reconsider what kind of company it is.
Maybe Convenience, not the blockbuster silicon valley powerhouse that Wall Street wants it to be, but perhaps it's not meant to emulate the Google's and Facebook's of the world.
Instead Twitter is more like a public utility, a news wire, a transcription of the world.
Manjou doesn't say Twitter can't make money, but maybe normalizing expectations is the first step in bringing the still great service Back down to earth.
HBO NOW the la Carte $15/month streaming service.
Has seen a slower than expected adoption rate.
It's been a little less than a year since the platform debuted and analysis projected subscriptions to be close to the $2 million dollar mark.
But in reality, about 800,000 people have signed up for the service.
But on the flip side, 800,000 sign ups is nothing to scoff at.
HBO CEO Richard Plepler says the numbers remind us that HBO Now was only available on Apple TV for its first three months, remember that?
Also, HBO Now isn't really available on as many devices as you may think Especially game consoles.
It's yet to hit the PS4 or XBox 1, which actually make up 20% of HBO Go's audience.
And HBO still has tons of new content coming through this year, including shows from Jon Stewart, Bill Simmons, and a daily news program from Vice.
And finally Comcast is trying to preemptively warn potential Google fiber customers in Atlanta, to quote, not fall for the hype.
In a flyer posted by a Reddit user, Comcast is trying to compare their internet service with Google's, but as some Reddit users pointed out, a lot of these bullet points come with significant caveats.
For example, Comcast's fastest home WiFi claim leaves out the fact that anyone can simply buy a faster router and pair it with their Google Fiber service.
Now Google Fiber offers gigabit Internet at $70 a month, where Comcast's 2 gigabit's per second service Goes for $300 a month with $1000 in startup fees.
So yeah, I'd be passing out flyers too.
That's going to do it for this tech news update.
Everything else you need is over at cnet.com.
From our studios here in New York, I'm Jeff Bakalar.
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