Old Twitter (TWTR) Engagement Metrics Drew SEC Interest

Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) has had a tough time selecting the right measure to convey activity on its platform, having dropping "timeline views" last year as its primary measure of engagement.

According to the WSJ late Monday, the U.S. SEC sent a letter to Twitter asking whether it planned to use "alternative metrics [to] explain trends in user engagement and advertising services.

Twitter said that it started to disclose how often users took action in response to an advertisement and how much advertisers pay for such actions.

Following the response, the SEC dropped its inquiry. Twitter began using the new metrics when in reported Q1 results last April.

But, the new metric doesn't exactly address user engagement, which CFO Anthony Noto had a tough time explaining on the company's recent quarterly call. In part, the CFO said Twitter uses several metrics to evaluate engagement on the site. Measures include monthly active users, the number of private messages sent, and the number of searches conducted, amongst others.

Shares of Twitter are positive in early trading Tuesday.

The SEC inquiry letter follows:

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