Stockholders okay Twitter CEO's plan to donate shares to employees

Celebrating Twitter’s 10th birthday at its annual meeting on Wednesday, stockholders of the micro-blogging site have approved CEO Jack Dorsey’s pledge to give away one-third of his shares to employees. Last October, Dorsey had pledged to donate shares to a pool to be “granted over time to TwitterÂ’s employees and other service providers,” Forbes reported on Thursday. The 6.8 million shares that the Twitter CEO plans to donate were worth about $200 million when he promised to give them to employees in October. Since then, Twitter stocks have slid more than 50 percent owing to stalled users growth and falling revenues, lowering the value of the promised shares to $98 million, the report added. Twitter shares fell sharply about 12 percent after the micro-blogging website - which managed to add 5 million people to take its monthly active user base to 310 million - missed the first quarter revenue estimates last month. The company posted $595 million revenue in the first quarter ending March 31. It was up 36 percent from $435.9 million in the same quarter last year but missed the $607.9 million expected on average among analysts, Forbes reported. Twitter posted a net loss of $79.7 million compared with a year-earlier loss of $162.4 million. Twitter has predicted revenue for the second quarter between $590 million and $610 million – much lower than the $678 million analysts expected. “Revenue came in at the low end of our guidance range, as brand marketers did not increase spend as quickly as expected in Q1,” the company tweeted. According to Dorsey, the engagement on Twitter is growing. Direct messages are up about 50 percent year-over-year and tweets shared via direct message are up more than 75 percent quarter-over-quarter. Twitter said more than 800 million people visit the site and there are more than 1 billion monthly unique visitors to pages that syndicate Twitter content. The company also said that new follows on the service are up about 48 percent. Dorsey hinted that Twitter’s deal with the National Football League (NFL) to stream 10 games this fall will help the company earn better traffic. IANS