

Twitter monetization advice: Be the next Microsoft, not AOL. Focus on developers. - brkumar
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2009/04/twitters-monetization-strategy-developers-developers-developers.html

======
charlesju
The only problem I see with this analogy is that Microsoft makes money when
developers pull new users onto their platform ($50 per Windows license), which
makes it a much more symbiotic relationship.

I am interested in seeing if these Twitter apps are still going to be pumped
out in such a ferocious speed once Twitter starts to charge per use of their
API.

------
johnbender
$600 dollars for visual studio, yah Microsoft loves devs.

Free for personal use, I'm going to keep suggesting it until I turn blue in
the face.

~~~
jlsonline
Actually that's for the PRO edition (actually it's currently $799 USD.) It's
$299 USD for the standard one.

I absolutely defy you to come up with a better IDE with better support (MSDN,
etc.) It is a joy to work with.

They DO take care of their devs and always have.

~~~
johnbender
I still don't see a justification for charging the at home devs for this. The
benefits of a more vibrant development community around MS software FAR
outweigh the peanuts they get from charging us that 300 dollars.

On the bright side they can still charge their corporate customers for the
seats which is where all the VS revenue's come from anyway.

Running around screaming about "It's the best IDE evar!" doesn't justify
charging independent devs for it. Provide the tools so that devs can build
your ecosystem.

~~~
jlsonline
FWIW they provide an almost completely functional Visual Studio Express
edition for free (that is a relatively new thing) and have even started
including things like JQuery. It's a pretty slow process but I think they have
always listened to their devs.

Incidentally, I do think it's the best IDE out there but I'm not a MS fanboi,
and have spent plenty of time in other IDEs and even vi :-)

