• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, January 19, 2016

At the moment, no one knows what caused its extensive service outages, this morning -- not even Twitter.

But the damage is clearer, including millions of irritated users, investors sending Twitter’s stock to new lows, and rivals like Facebook and Snapchat licking their respective chops. 

Of course, Facebook has experienced its fair share of outages too, but continued success in nearly every area of its business seemingly excuses such minor offenses.

Twitter, on the other hand, has seen few successes since its public offering in 2013.

Rather than right its ship, second-time CEO Jack Dorsey has seen Twitter’s stock nearly halve since his return last October.  

As evidenced by the company's sorry stock price, investors don’t seem to be impressed by Dorsey’s direction, from Twitter’s first hardware investment to plans to give up its defining 140-character limit.

Along with slumping user engagement, Twitter is failing to meet analysts’ revenue expectations. Late last year, in fact, the company said it expected fourth-quarter revenue to reach between $695 million and $710 million -- considerably lower than analysts’ estimates of nearly $740 million. 

Meanwhile, Facebook is poised to take up Twitter’s market share with Notify, its recently launched app that encourages users to subscribe to push notifications from various content providers.

No small side project, the new Notify app debuted with more than 70 big-name publishers, including Bloomberg, Comedy Central, CNN and The Weather Channel.

While Facebook has yet to reveal early adoption figures for Notify, Twitter’s mounting missteps can only be helping its rival's cause.