One-hundred and forty-three. That’s not the new character limit or the number of heads of product Twitter has employed over the few years (though close). That, rather, is the amount of times the new fellow filling that role has tweeted over the course of the past nine years — a number that includes two recent updates from the past couple of hours acknowledging the gig, one of which was enthusiastically retweeted by Jack Dorsey about an hour or so ago.
Yes! Keith and team are joining Twitter to help lead and strengthen our service! https://t.co/5aFouFxTsh
— jack (@jack) December 1, 2016
The role, which has been vacant since the summer, has seen a number of names come and go as the service has struggled to figure out the ideal way forward in the face of new competition and mounting user complaints. The gig was filled, most recently, by Jeff Seibert, who went back to his previous job at Twitter development platform Fabric, back in June.
The new VP of Product, Keith Coleman, steps into the role as part of Twitter’s purchase of seven-person mobile app startup Yes, Inc., where he served as CEO. Prior to that gig, the exec worked as a product manager for another little startup called Google.
Yes, Inc.’s other half-dozen employees will also be joining the Twitter staff, with design and product roles at the company. Yes, meanwhile, will be shutting down its own offerings in the coming weeks, in anticipation of the transition. That should give Coleman some time to engage a bit more with the platform he’ll be helping lead. Only 6,100 or so until he catches up with his predecessor.
