Morning Reads: Yahoo Layoffs Commence, Twitter Full of Quitters

Yahoo has begun layoffs of between 600 and 700 employees, according to tech and gossip blog lalawag. The cuts are on schedule, as Yahoo said during its Q1 earnings call eight days ago that it would notify staffers within two weeks.

More than half of Twitter joiners fail to return to the service a month after signing up. Nielsen Online reports retention rate for micro-blogging service is now about 40 percent, posing a challenge to its prospects. That’s actually up from a retention rate below 30 percent over the past 12 months. Those bleak return-rate will make it hard for Twitter to achieve reach in the long term. According to Nielsen Online VP David Martin, “a retention rate of 40 percent will limit a site’s growth to about a 10 percent reach figure. To be clear, a high retention rate doesn’t guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite.”