Another day, another member of the Twitter family throwing out another idea of something that would give it a business model.
This time, it’s Todd Chaffee, a Twitter board member and general partner at Institutional Venture Partners, who told the New York Times’ Bits blog that Twitter could get into the e-commerce business by providing links to products and turnkey payment mechanisms.
“Commerce-based search businesses monetize extremely well, and if someone says, ‘What treadmill should I buy?’ you as the treadmill company want to be there,” Chaffee. “As people use Twitter to get trusted recommendations from friends and followers on what to buy, e-commerce navigation and payments will certainly play a role in Twitter monetization.”
Last month, Twitter was talking about premium services such as analytics, while sort of dismissing the idea of running advertisements.
While trying not to be too cynical, it’s hard not to get the feeling Twitter and its investors are making this busines plan stuff on the fly – throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.
The way I see it Twitter has little idea about how it’s really going to make revenue. People like Twitter because it’s a valuable and useful communications tool but who knows how Twitter will squeeze revenue from them.
I think there’s a group who find Twitter so useful they would be willing to pay for premium service, which could in-depth analytics. The question is how much would they be willing to pay – $5? $10? $25?
Until Twitter actually starts selling a service, all the talk is just talk as opposed to walk.
Throwing Business Ideas Against the Wall
Another day, another member of the Twitter family throwing out another idea of something that would give it a business model.
This time, it’s Todd Chaffee, a Twitter board member and general partner at Institutional Venture Partners, who told the New York Times’ Bits blog that Twitter could get into the e-commerce business by providing links to products and turnkey payment mechanisms.
“Commerce-based search businesses monetize extremely well, and if someone says, ‘What treadmill should I buy?’ you as the treadmill company want to be there,” Chaffee. “As people use Twitter to get trusted recommendations from friends and followers on what to buy, e-commerce navigation and payments will certainly play a role in Twitter monetization.”
Last month, Twitter was talking about premium services such as analytics, while sort of dismissing the idea of running advertisements.
While trying not to be too cynical, it’s hard not to get the feeling Twitter and its investors are making this busines plan stuff on the fly – throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.
The way I see it Twitter has little idea about how it’s really going to make revenue. People like Twitter because it’s a valuable and useful communications tool but who knows how Twitter will squeeze revenue from them.
I think there’s a group who find Twitter so useful they would be willing to pay for premium service, which could in-depth analytics. The question is how much would they be willing to pay – $5? $10? $25?
Until Twitter actually starts selling a service, all the talk is just talk as opposed to walk.