Comments on: Doubts About Twitter the Business

By: John McTigue

John McTigue — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:54:46 +0000

I think the text-based approach will probably work, after all a large proportion of tweets are already ads – tweeters promoting their blogs, bootcamps, etc. We're already used to that and accept it as part of the deal.

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Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:49:06 +0000

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By: chris

chris — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:47:01 +0000

I think it's interesting that everybody besides Twitter is trying to find ways to monetize Twitter.

By: Daniel Tenner

Daniel Tenner — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:53:33 +0000

Funnily, I've clicked on those ads already. And since they were interesting things, I'm likely to keep an eye on that area for the foreseeable future, to see if anything else neat crops up.

Seems like a masterful roll-out of ads… first, make the users look at the area where you'll place the ads, and then put paid ads there.

By: Gillian Brouse

Gillian Brouse — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:15:00 +0000

Yes… I've worked with a number of companies that turned down money that was not quite good enough (too much dilution, usually) and lived (just) long enough to regret that decision.

By: Mark Evans

Mark Evans — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:08:19 +0000

Good points. There were many companies during the first dot-com boom that turned down cash thinking the good times were going to last. Only later did they realize that you taking it when it's offered.

By: Gillian Brouse

Gillian Brouse — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:50:33 +0000

Twitter followed the number one rule for companies, especially tech companies in fast-changing technical and competitive landscapes.

Don't raise money when you need it; raise it when you can. Can't fault them for that.

I still think they stand a good chance of inventing a business model that will work. I remember when no one thought Google would invent a business model that would work. And then questioned that business model (text link ads) when it was rolled out.

Twitter's funding gives them a bit more runway and a few more options about how they proceed.

By: John Samuel

John Samuel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:32:09 +0000

There are a lot of discussions about the business model of Twitter. As Chris says, the text based ads won't be a successful idea. Though statistics show that nearly 50% use Twitter from the web, but with new desktop clients and mobile applications coming up every day, text based ads will not be a huge success.

By: Chris Charabaruk

Chris Charabaruk — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:06:46 +0000

They are already running ads, but they are quite discrete, text-based ads which don't get in the way of any tweet streams. And they've been doing so all week.

Given that they're practically invisible, however, it's likely that they will eventually either become more intrusive, or be removed in favour of other monetization schemes. Such as selling positions in the recommended users page.

By: Debt-free Scholar

Debt-free Scholar — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:58:27 +0000

I hope that they do not run ads. However, if that is necessary then I do not mind…much.

Thanks,
Nate