Former Chicagoan Dick Costolo is taking the helm of Twitter Inc., where he had been serving as chief operating officer for the past year.
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, who had been chief executive of the privately held microblogging service since 2008, announced the change Monday on the company’s Web site. Williams said he plans to focus on product strategy.
“Building things is my passion,” Williams said in a blog post.
Costolo is co-founder and former CEO of FeedBurner, a Chicago-based startup acquired by Google Inc. in 2007.
Costolo, 47, an early investor in Twitter and a former advertising product manager at Google, joined the company a year ago to help forge search partnerships with Google, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., as well as to spearhead its advertising initiatives. Twitter recently rolled out a major redesign, led by Williams, to make the site easier to use and for advertisers to get noticed.
“During (Costolo’s) year at Twitter, he has been a critical leader in devising and executing our revenue efforts, while simultaneously and effectively making the trains run on time in the office,” Williams wrote in the blog, adding that he is “confident we can make this a smooth transition.”
The handoff comes as Twitter has been looking for ways to make money.
Williams noted that Twitter, whose value private investors and research analysts have pegged at $1 billion to $2.4 billion, has experienced massive growth during his two-year tenure.
Twitter, which launched four years ago, is now the world’s third-largest social networking site, behind Facebook Inc. and Windows Live Profile, according to ComScore Inc. Twitter.com had 96 million unique visitors in August, up 76 percent from a year earlier, ComScore reported.
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The service has seen its number of registered users skyrocket from 3 million to more than 165 million during Williams’ tenure. Those users are creating 90 million updates per day, compared with 1.25 million two years ago. Twitter’s work force has grown from 20 to 300 over that period, and is sure to grow by hundreds more, analysts say.
That will increase the demands on its top executive, particularly now that generating revenue is Twitter’s top challenge. Twitter has taken its time developing its advertising strategy and still has a way to go, analysts say. Some advertisers, such as Virgin America, have had success advertising on Twitter, but others aren’t yet sure.
Costolo is Twitter’s third chief executive. Williams took over that post in 2008 from co-founder Jack Dorsey, who remains chairman and now runs another company, Square. Costolo joined Google in 2007 when he sold FeedBurner, which distributed podcasts, blogs and other Internet content, to the Internet search giant.
Costolo is known for his business acumen and his sense of humor. When he joined Twitter in September 2009, he tweeted: “First full day as Twitter COO tomorrow. Task #1: undermine CEO, consolidate power.”