Discord In The House Of Twitter?

Apparently, Jack Dorsey’s 8 hours per day at Twitter (and 8 hours a day at Square) have led to some conflict over operations with Dick Costolo, which is manifesting itself in the turnover in marketing staff:

Alexia Tsotsis via Techcrunch

[…] according to multiple sources, the departure of Marketing head Pam Kramer six weeks ago has resulted in Twitter’s Jack Dorsey basically replacing her as head of Marketing and amping up his influence within the company. (Yes he really does work those 8 hours at Twitter, now all I’ve got to do is confirm the 8 hours with Square).

Dorsey stepping it up, coupled with Dick Costolo’s heavy Operations hand has led to a conflict in many staff members eyes, “Which master do we follow?” And confusion.

According to one source, this “Do I do what Dick says or do I do what Jack says?” dilemma has put extra special strain on the Twitter Communications team, which seemingly doesn’t know whose message they should be communicating. Others say that its Jack’s Jobsian management approach that has led to the frustration among staff in all departments.

First, I don’t know why Costolo and the Twitter board allows Dorsey to be the CEO of Square while running product for Twitter. It doesn’t make sense.

Second, I’m not so sure that Twitter’s marketing team was/is as shiny as Tsotsis and others have colored it. The company has made a lot of missteps, and while its hard to separate policy from positioning, I wouldn’t hold them up as paragons.

Lastly, what message is Twitter sending these days, anyway? ‘Follow Your Interests’? That’s some great positioning? ‘The information network’ story is weak.

My two cents: they should better articulate the value proposition of being connected in a connected age rather than making a weak case for following our interests.

Maybe there is a battle over positioning and message going on, and the marketing folks most associated with this weak sauce are being shown the door.

Google And Square Square Off

Now I know why Jack Dorsey, in his Square CEO incarnation, was dismissing wireless payment systems that force users to ‘wave their cell phones near registers’ when he was announcing the Square payment system at Techcrunch Disrupt yesterday: Google is about to release such a payment system this week.

Tara Siegel Bernard and Claire Cain Miller, Google Is Said to Have a Wireless Payment System

Google is expected to introduce on Thursday a mobile payment system that will let shoppers wave their phones to pay instead of pulling out a credit card, according to people briefed on the announcement. 

Google will offer mobile payments with MasterCard and Citibank, according to one of the people, as well as with cellphone carriers, hardware manufacturers and retailers. 

Initially, the mobile wallets will be available only on Google’s Nexus S phone and will use a Citibank-issued MasterCard credit card number and a virtual Google MasterCard prepaid card. Consumers will be able to make payments at any of the 124,000 merchants that have MasterCard’s PayPass terminals, which accept contactless payments, a person briefed on the deal said.

I am a believer in near-field communication, and skeptical about Square’s Card Case model, which seems to  require a bigger commitment by retailers than Google’s model, which only requires NFC to be added to registers.

Still these are early days. I don’t think Square can beat Google, but I sense that Square is a likely candidate for acquisition by Apple, and then Dorsey would be able to apply his considerable energies to Twitter, exclusively.