Oh, yes it did. Twitter finally found a new product chief
Christmas comes early for the social network as it gets app startup Yes and a new head of product in a package deal.
Yes said yes to Twitter.
In a flurry of activity, Twitter bought a startup Thursday and immediately appointed its CEO as its new vice president of product.
The startup, called Yes Inc., makes apps that let users connect immediately with friends to set plans and share videos. You could think of Yes' focus on snappy, short-form interactions as a cousin to Twitter's own 140-character strategy.
Keith Coleman, who worked at Google before founding Yes, will take over as Twitter's product chief immediately. The post has seen a high turnover rate, with six different people taking the spot since 2007. Twitter employees have been sharing the responsibility for leading product this year, but the role has essentially been vacant since Kevin Weil departed to join Instagram back in January.
The appointment comes toward the end of a tough year for Twitter, which among other things has seen its share price drop 22 percent and which has closed down its Vine video app. Disney, Apple and Google parent Alphabet reportedly expressed interest in buying the company a few months back, but failed to bite. Still, executives believe the company's fortunes are improving, according to the Wall Street Journal, thanks mainly to a sharper focus on video.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO, welcomed Coleman to Twitter with a tweet. It would be fair to say Coleman isn't the most avid tweeter himself. He joined the social network as a user back in 2007, but has only tweeted 147 times since then.
Yes announced in a blog post that its own apps will now shut down. "We are sad to see them go, but excited about the future," the post reads. That future begins as soon as next week, according to Coleman, who starts at the social network on Monday