• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, July 1, 2014

It's D Day for Twitter -- or should that be M Day, for mobile? At last its MoPub service can be used by app developers to advertise their wares to Twitter users direct to their mobile news feed. As ever, the timing is very interesting. Right at the start of Q3, it gives the service a full three months to prove its worth.

And how it needs to. Although ad revenue nearly doubled in Q1 to $250m, the site has yet to post a profit and looks very similar to the way it has always looked, with mobile ad revenue being dangled as the bait that will get advertisers biting and revenues flowing. Investors and analysts have been keen to show their concern resulting in the company's stock levelling out now at around $40 -- nearly half the level reached in the heady days after its float last year. However, a point worth noting is that now it is within 10% of its that initial price, meaning it was about right. All that has been taken out of Twitter's stock price is the hype surrounding its first couple of months post-float.

So how will it fare now that its mobile network, MoPub, is launching mobile app advertising slots? Well, actually, the omens appear to be good. The Wall Street Journal estimates that such adverts now account for more than half of Facebook's mobile advertising revenue -- up to 60%, in fact, from a 30% share just a year ago. So there is clearly a huge opportunity. 

As I mentioned, the timing is very interesting. One can only assume results for Q2 will not be exactly what investors and analysts have been looking for but will show an improvement with a promise that Q3 will see a big turnaround, or the start of one, with the launch of mobile app adverts. 

So we can almost certainly expect a lot of interest in Q2's numbers from Twitter -- and will almost certainly see the future of its CEO Dick Costolo come under serious question again.

In a clever move, Twitter has bought time. It has three months from now to turn around the numbers -- or at least indicate sufficient promise to be able to assure they will be turned around by the end of Q4.

This makes the next quarter make-or-break time for Twitter, and Costolo.  

He has been cited as the one CEO who can't afford to deliver another quarter that falls below heightened expectations -- but with this launch, he possibly can, and just may well have to.

However, after that, the promise that mobile will see the cavalry riding to the rescue will either be proven or shown to be unfounded.

No more promises. Come the end of Q3 we will know -- or at least have a very good idea.