Despite the social network’s stagnating userbase and profits, Twitter has decided to purchase Magic Pony Technology, a neural network image data company, for $150 million.
The London-based tech company specialises in enhanced image technology and uses neural networks, or computers which process things in a similar way to human beings, to advance their systems.
“Today, we’re very excited to announce that we’re expanding our capabilities in machine learning by acquiring Magic Pony Technology, a London-based technology company that has developed novel machine learning techniques for visual processing,” announced Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a statement made on the social network’s official blog. “Our acquisition of Magic Pony builds on other investments we’ve made in machine learning, beginning with the acquisitions of Madbits in July 2014 and Whetlab in June 2015.”
But despite Twitter’s numerous tech investments, both the social network’s userbase and turnover are becoming increasingly depleted. In February, shortly after Twitter deverified Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos and started its alleged war on conservatives, it was revealed that the social network’s monthly active userbase had dropped by ten percent since December. In the same month, it was also revealed that the company had lost over $2 billion since its launch.
“Since our inception, we have incurred significant operating losses, and, as of December 31, 2015, we had an accumulated deficit of $2.09 billion,” announced Twitter in an annual report. “Although our revenue has grown rapidly, increasing from $28.3 million in 2010 to $2.22 billion in 2015, we expect that our revenue growth rate will slow in the future as a result of a variety of factors, including the decline in the growth rate of our user base.”
Earlier this month it was confirmed that Twitter had invested around $70 million into the music streaming service SoundCloud, despite reports indicating that the streaming service was “haemorrhaging money” and had lost the same amount as Twitter’s investment between 2013 and 2014 alone. The acquisition of image search tech company Madbits in 2014 and machine learning startup Whetlab in 2015 have also failed to repair any of Twitter’s current damage.
Magic Pony Technology is described by Tech Crunch as consisting of “a website that has never offered more than a simple statement about what it does and the number of patents that it has filed.”
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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