For Twitter, the Challenge Is to Keep It All Simple

Updated June 2, 2013, 12:44 a.m. ET

For Twitter, the Challenge Is to Keep It All Simple

Dick Costolo has been at the helm of Twitter Inc. since 2010. The microblogging service is one of the most popular social networks, and many are expecting an initial public offering soon. In a conversation with All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher, Mr. Costolo dodged questions about a potential IPO, but he did talk about Twitter’s current focus on TV and why he thinks simplicity is important.Here are edited excerpts.

The Big Question

MS. SWISHER: When is your IPO?

MR. COSTOLO: I’ll use a sports metaphor. I feel like I’m this wide receiver and I’m running down the sidelines and I’m trying to manage this business and I’m trying to create separation from the cornerback, and the quarterback’s throwing the pass and I’ve got to figure out how I’m going to catch the ball, and this person on the sidelines says, “Hey, what are you doing after the game?” I stop and say, “I’m not thinking about that right now,” and they’re like, “Oh, sure.” I’m trying to run this business and build this business. [An IPO] isn’t what I spend a lot of time thinking about.

MS. SWISHER: What’s the next big thing for Twitter, then?

MR. COSTOLO: I think very much about Twitter and TV, all the work we’re doing with instant replays from sports.

Over the past few years we’ve recognized that Twitter is the second screen for TV, and TV is more fun with Twitter. We’ve decided to invest heavily in that—we think there’s a bunch of ways that we can be complementary to broadcasters. Take an instant replay from a sporting event that’s going on right now, it goes out as a tweet, the instant replay is in the canvas of the tweet, and those things drive tune-in. That’s great for the broadcaster, great for us and great for the users.

MS. SWISHER: Where is advertising going? Because one of the issues you talk about a lot with advertising people is creativity, and where that comes from.

MR. COSTOLO: Marketers have to start thinking of the conversation as the canvas. It used to be they would broadcast this ad and then try to generate buzz for it. The way advertising works now is here’s an organic conversation people are having, and then you as a marketer jump in and participate in it. Companies that do that are seeing incredible engagement with their message. During the power outage at the Super Bowl, a bunch of companies dove into that. Oreo was doing, “you can dunk an Oreo here, you can dunk an Oreo there, you can still dunk an Oreo in the dark.” That was retweeted tens of thousands of times.

Apple and Twitter

MS. SWISHER: Describe your relationship with Apple.

MR. COSTOLO: We’re integrated into iOS and as I’ve said before I think of Apple as a mentor company to us. We like the way they think about simplicity of design. We like the way they think about product elegance. Those are things we try to drive into our own organization. I’m constantly looking to the design team—what are things we can remove from the product to make it even simpler?

MS. SWISHER: What is Twitter missing today that it needs?

MR. COSTOLO: Simplicity. Because of the 140 character constraint, users have created this remarkable language that allows them to communicate among groups of people in that 140 characters. But that remarkable language is super hard to understand for people just coming in. So bridging that gap is a product challenge that I continue to encourage the team to take bigger chances and risks around.