Nick Bilton thinks he’s solved the Twitter revenue riddle.
He figures that Twitter will be able to deliver ultra-relevant advertising – better than Google – based on the idea that the more you Tweet about who you are, what you do, where you live, what you like, etc., the better job Twitter can do. This will make Twitter super-attractive to advertisers who now have to depend on crude tools such as cookies.
In theory, that makes sense. If you lots of about someone, then you should be able to deliver ads they’re interested in. There is, however, a huge flaw in Bilton’s theory. While he may Tweet about where he works, what he reads, what his does for fun, what he’s looking to buy, and where he travels, not everyone provides this much information.
Personally, I don’t use Twitter that way. I don’t use it as a digital diary, providing people with the nitty-gritty details of my personal and professional life. I figure no one is really interesting in what I had for breakfast or whether I’m thinking about going away. To me, it’s more of a resource and a tool to share ideas.
If Twitter can accurately deliver ads based on this kind of information more power to it but don’t expect me to spills the beans on every facet of my life.
Technorati Tags: advertising, google, twitter
3 Comments
I wonder what proportion of twitter users are actually using the Twitter web site? I rarely do – I use TweetDeck. Would API client be required to display ads as well?
I think it's likely Twitter will be sold to someone and become a loss leader for them, kind of like Microsoft IE used to be there to force people to use Windows, Twitter will encourage people to use some other brand.
According to some stats that are generated from the public tim…, the web interface is what makes up a little less than half of all tweets posted. There's no knowing exactly how accurate this is, though, since all tweets posted using the Twitter API post 'from web' by default (unless, like most developers, they request a source parameter).
According to some unofficial stats that are generated from the public timeline, the web interface is what makes up a little less than half of all tweets posted. There's no knowing exactly how accurate this is, though, since all tweets posted using the Twitter API post 'from web' by default (unless, like most developers, they request a source parameter).
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[...] Evans at Twitterrati, the recently launched blog about micro-blogging, highlights what he sees as a huge flaw in Bilton’s theory: “While he may Tweet about where he works, what he reads, what his does for fun, what he’s [...]