Twitter lays off 9 percent of its employees

The nest is getting a little emptier at Twitter.

Plagued by sluggish growth in its user base and disappointing advertising revenue, the San Francisco social-media company announced Thursday that it was laying off 9 percent of its workforce.

Nearly 350 employees will lose their jobs, USA Today reported Thursday. “We see a significant opportunity to increase growth as we continue to improve the core service,” the paper quoted a statement by company CEO Jack Dorsey. “We have a clear plan, and we’re making the necessary changes to ensure Twitter is positioned for long-term growth.”

Twitter has seen a roller coaster ride on the trading floor since late September as rumors of a possible sale to Salesforce.com — and of potential competitors for the buyout including Google and Disney — boosted the stock price.

Those dreams were dashed in early October as Google and Disney bowed out, and Salesforce followed suit on Oct. 14.

At a tech conference Wednesday in Laguna Beach, California, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told attendees why his company had to walk away from the sales table.

“We’ve never had a deal leak before; we don’t really understand that dynamic,” Mr. Benioff said, Reuters reported Wednesday. “We had to stop because I’m running the business in partnership with my shareholders.”

In addition to Thursday’s round of layoffs, Twitter also announced it was discontinuing the company’s Vine smartphone video app.

Vine was purchased by Twitter for $30 million in October 2012, a purchase that came even before Vine officially launched as its own company.

The demise of the service Thursday has launched numerous obituaries all over the internet, many complete with collections of the “best vines” of all time.

For his part, however, Vine founder Rus Yusuprov reacted not with a 6-second video clip but rather four simple words of advice for fellow entrepreneurs: “Don’t sell your company!”