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Acquired · Twitter · Strategies

Strategies

Named moves Acquired identified in Twitter's playbook — what they did, when it crystallized, the evidence behind the claim, and where each move sits in the broader 12-pattern strategic taxonomy.

3 strategies3 patterns1 concept

Strategic moves · grouped by era

2006-present

Let content escape the product

Accept that tweets will be syndicated across clients, sites, and alerts, then design the business model around that distributed reach.

  • Twitter's distributed content created the monetization constraint that produced its native ad format.
    [Acquired: Twitter with Dick Costolo (October 2020)]
    Source

2010-present

Make the advertisement a tweet

Use the native content unit as the ad unit so monetization can travel anywhere the product is consumed.

  • Guest:Costolo explains that the only thing able to go everywhere a tweet went was another tweet.
    [Acquired: Twitter with Dick Costolo (October 2020)]

Charge for engagement

Price promoted tweets on measurable user actions such as opening, liking, reposting, or replying rather than on impression alone.

  • The interview credits Ashish Goel with the engagement-based charging model.
    [Acquired: Twitter with Dick Costolo (October 2020)]
    Source

Pattern constellation

Of the 12 strategy patterns in the Acquired taxonomy, Twitter most prominently practices 3. Size = how many named strategies express that pattern.