There have been some reports (specifically a story in The Telegraph) that Twitter is seriously thinking about generating revenue by making companies pay a “membership fee”. This got the Twittersphere and blogosphere all agog given that how Twitter is going to make money remains as big a mystery as the Caramilk Secret.
Just when you thought Twitter was finally about unveil the revenue part of its business plan, co-founder Biz Stone wrote a blog post to assure everyone that, in fact, Twitter has no plans to charge anyone.
There was a sudden burst of news early this week surrounding some ideas we’ve shared publicly for quite some time. We’ve been thinking out loud for more than a year about the growing use of Twitter by companies, brands, and other commercial organizations. It’s great that both individuals and organizations are finding value in Twitter and there may be ways we can enrich the experience. In fact, we hope to begin iterating on revenue products this year.
However, it’s important to note that whatever we come up with, Twitter will remain free to use by everyone—individuals, companies, celebrities, etc. What we’re thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services. We are still very early in the idea stage and we don’t have anything to share just yet despite a recent surge in speculation. When we do, we’ll be sure to let you know.
Well, that must be a relief to everyone who is using Twitter and finding more value from it.
What I wonder about, however, is what everyone will be talk about after Twitter tells the world how it’s going to make money? Will the discussion turn to whether the options it selected are the right ones, or whether they’re charging too much or too little? Or will the “revenue discussion” disappear?
4 Comments
I think they can roll out a business model by enhancing the search functions and other tools that help corporations tap into the conversations, analyse and measure the reactions.
Twitter is at a fragile state of growth where charging the average user would stifle the growth they would need to become mainstream.
They need to foster growth by making it easier and sell the average person on the benefits/purpose of using twitter, the business model will come in by allowing organisations the ability to track and engage the conversations more effectively.
Twitter could make a business tool for enterprises that basically is a LIVE IM for an entire companies organization where anyone can instantly communicate with anyone else, or have groups of people discussing and troubleshooting over a private enterprise twitter.
It should tie into LDAP or active directory and automatically create an account for each person, would be vastly superior to corporate AOL or JABBER systems in its functionality.
I think an enterprise service that would allow for private/internal microblogging makes senses. Companeis such as Yammer are already trying to get into the market, and I think that the more mainstream that Twitter becomes, the easier sell it will be to business.
What worries me the most is this part of the quote: "We are still very early in the idea stage.." This makes me think more that they have no idea what they are doing.
I've always said that if ever Twitter releases it's monetization plan, or anything that is intrusive to the user experience, that is ths perfect time for another competitor like Identi.ca to really make a big release of their own and take advantage of disconcerted Twitter users.
Just like Friendfeed did when Pownce users no longer had a service to use.
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