• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 7, 2016

Trying to make it mark on more properties around the mobile Web, Twitter is making it easier for publishers and app developers to embed timelines.

“Whether you want to programmatically generate thousands of timelines at once, or you’re just looking for the quickest way to add a single Twitter timeline to your site, we’ve got you covered,” Mollie Vandor, senior product manager at Twitter, notes in a new blog post.

Twitter has officially let publishers embed timelines on their properties since 2012. Then, this past March, it upgraded the embedded timeline with a more modern design.

With what Twitter calls “factory functions,” publishers can now generate timelines for any Web app, as well as use new Embed API to integrate profile, list, like, or collection timelines directly into their CMS.

Publishers now have the added option of going straight to publish.twitter.com to customize their own embedded timeline display.

“As part of these improvements, we’ve also removed the need to create and save widgets to your account,” according to Vandor. “All you need is a public profile, list, like, or collection URL to get started.”

Separately, Twitter on Tuesday also refreshed its Android app. Among other changes, a tab bar at the top of users’ screen can have swipe functionality so they ca more easily move between their Home timeline, Notifications, and Direct Messages.

 

Late last month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told BBC News: “We’re making progress.”

At about the same time, Twitter announced plans to simplify tweets by no longer counting photos and links in its 140-character limit.

 

Just a few days later, word got out that Twitter was losing its head of media and commerce, Nathan Hubbard, along with its head of business development, Jana Messerschmidt.

 

Making matter worse, Hubbard’s exit -- to go launch his own company -- came just months after he replaced Katie Stanton.

 

Stanton left in January -- along with Twitter’s SVP of engineering Alex Roetter, VP of human resources Skip Schipper, VP of global media Katie Stanton, SVP of product Kevin Weil, and Vine general manager Jason Toff.

 

Taking over for Hubbard is Ali Jafari, who most recently headed up Twitter’s Amplify ad business. 

 

In Dorsey’s defense, he has been able to turn around Twitter’s usership issues since returning to the company about one year ago.

During the first quarter of the year, Twitter boasted 310 million monthly active users -- up from 302 million in the first quarter of 2015.

 

Unfortunately, Twitter also reported profits of 15 cents per share on revenue of $595 million, during the period. While that beat The Street’s profit expectations, analysts were hoping for $608 million in revenue.

 

Worse yet, Twitter slashed its second-quarter revenue guidance to $590 million from $610 million -- nowhere near analyst expectations of $678 million.

The problem is that brands are failing to show up to the party, according to Adam Bain, chief operating officer at Twitter.

 

“Overall, brand spend didn’t grow as quickly as we expected,” Bain recently said of the first quarter.