Saudi Prince Alwaleed invests $300 million in Twitter

By Andrew Couts December 19, 2011

Prince-Alwaleed-Bin-Talal — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his investment firm, Kingdom Holding Company, have made a $300 million joint-investment in Twitter, the Kingdom Holding’s company announced early today. The jackpot investment comes just after Twitter rolled out a new advertiser-friendly redesign across all its platforms.

Kingdom Holding Company, of which Prince Alwaleed is the Chairman, currently has major stakes in a number of other American companies, including Apple, General Motors, and Citigroup, reports Bloomberg. Its investment in Twitter is seen Kingdom Holding as securing a “strategic stake” in the popular microblogging platform.

“We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years,” said Eng. Ahmed Halawani, Kingdom Holding Executive Director of Private Equity and International Investments. “Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend.”

Prince Alwaleed reiterated the company’s bravado in the deal, saying in a statement: “Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact.”

The investment is, of course, great news for Twitter from a business standpoint. Some analysts predict that the Alwaleed-Kingdom Holding money injection gives Twitter a total value of around $10 billion. This is helped by the estimate by EMarketer Inc, which foresees Twitter boosting revenue by 86 percent in 2012, thanks to additional advertising.

[Image via]

Topics

Twitter

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…

Social Media

Bluesky barrels toward 1 million new sign-ups in a day

Social media app Bluesky has picked nearly a million new users just a day after exiting its invitation-only beta and opening to everyone.

In a post on its main rival -- X (formerly Twitter) -- Bluesky shared a chart showing a sudden boost in usage on the app, which can now be downloaded for free for iPhone and Android devices.

Computing

How to make a GIF from a YouTube video

woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Social Media

I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.