Twitter should ask Kanye West to be its CEO — or at least a member of its board.
In 72 hours, Kanye has done more to make Twitter relevant and compelling than anything its beleaguered executive team has done during the past year.
First came the #SWISH moment on January 24, when he tweeted a hand-scrawled image of the track list for his forthcoming album, Swish, with the words “So happy to be finished with the best album of all time.”
The low-tech picture ignited a fire. His tweet about the long-awaited album was re-tweeted 160,000 times and liked 210,000 times. But more importantly, he and Twitter both gained positive coverage in media such as Forbes and The Wall Street Journal — an incredible feat given that Twitter had announced mass executive departures the same day. For once, Twitter was not on the receiving end of doomsday coverage. Twitter rode Kanye’s coat tails and became relevant: one of the world’s biggest and controversial entertainers had chosen the platform to announce significant news.
And then things got weird for Kanye — and better for Twitter.