
RIP Twitter - buckpost
http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/10/15/rip-twitter/
======
smoody
There's a difference between not having a business model and waiting for the
proper time to spring it on your customers.

In the case of twitter, the author is being a little bit short sighted. More
and more companies are using twitter to form tighter relationships with their
customers. It is a no-brainer for Twitter to charge them once it becomes
common practice. That's just one example. I predict that Twitter will become
one of the net's great success stories and people will have a hard time
remembering that when it first launched, it was nothing more than a couple of
hundred people twittering "I'm bored."

As far as Seesmic goes, well, it's a little tougher to guess, but my guess is
that they're hoping that their video commenting service becomes so addictive
and important to companies that they'll pay to have video comments included on
their sites. Will they succeed? Unclear. But it's not like when asked "what's
your business model" that they said "uh, we don't have one" and it's short
sighted to think that. Seesmic also owns that twitter client. Downloadable
clients are trojan horses. Once you get enough people using them, almost
anything is possible.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_There's a difference between not having a business model and waiting for the
proper time to spring it on your customers._

Precisely. Monetizing Twitter is a no-brainer if it _has_ to happen. If the
company runs out of money, they could do a token layoff of a couple people,
issue a desperate plea to their user community with the headline SAVE TWITTER,
and a bunch of us will pony up $19.99 a year.

I don't expect them to do that. There are all sorts of more subtle ways to
bring in money, and I expect that they will try all of those first, serially
or in parallel. They're trying to be very sure not to set a price so high that
they can be undercut. If they avoid that mistake, they can own their niche for
a decade or more.

It's also obvious why we haven't seen any attempts yet: Twitter is still
recovering from the effects of the Fail Whale phase.

Now that Twitter operations are stabilized, I believe they still have a bunch
of smaller competitors. It would be a mistake to drive traffic to those
competitors by inelegant monetizing. It would be a better idea to let the
competition die from lack of oxygen first. It would be even _better_ if some
of Twitter's competitors, driven by necessity, were compelled to experiment
with charging money before Twitter does. Some of the best market research is
that which your competitors do for free. And, best of all, one of the
competitors might succeed in _finding_ a monetization model that can keep them
alive... and then Twitter can copy that model, but with a massive advantage in
network effect and scalability.

~~~
smledbetter
How nice does your board have to be if their response to, "I'm waiting for my
competitors to come up with a monetization model" is "OK, Twitter. Here's a
bunch more cash for you to burn through."

------
josefresco
I recently bitched on Twitter about my bad HD service from Comcast, within
minutes I had a reply from a Comcast rep on Twitter offering to fix my
problem. Within hours I had a phone call from another rep who left me her
direct line and told me to call anytime the symptoms appeared.

If Twitter can make Comcast connect with their customers better, anything is
possible.

~~~
alecco
That is actually a very good idea. A truly independent open channel for
business to consumer. Public image matters more than ever, specially in this
turbulent times where people are reconsidering paid services.

But I still don't see how Twitter can cash in without impacting the freedom
and openness of its service. Why would Comcast start paying them something
they get for free?

~~~
dcminter
It's an idea that an acquaintance of mine already had. It strikes me as a good
one too: <http://www.niggle.co.uk/>

------
michaelneale
I don't know how many people twitter has, but I bet if it was done in dotcom
days, it would have 20 times people/servers/resources/burn rate that it does.

So I think things will be different this time.

~~~
netcan
Are we using dotcom 2.0 yet?

------
iamdave
_That concept is as dead as the Detroit Lions’ playoff hopes._

I somewhat wished bloggers would stop with the irreverent use of cultural
icons with no substance value other than some blind synonymous nature of what
they're reporting on. Not everyone wakes up with the analytical, yet still
commentary skills as Chuck Klosterman.

~~~
raganwald
Well, do we want Mark writing in his "speaking voice" or not? He and I used to
play on the same Ultimate team. I don't recall him using that phrase back
then, but if--and I say if--he would use that phrase in conversation to
describe an Ultimate team, or a stock, or my chances of monetizing my own dead
blog, then I'm okay with him using it in his blog.

Of course, if it's an affectation thrown in their to foster some sort of
forced hippery or phoney commonality with his readers, then I agree it ought
to go.

~~~
iamdave
Given the surrounding context, it was just a poor analogy to draw.

"Twitter is as dead as a football team that's doing poorly"

It doesn't even make sense, if the only comparison to be made is that both
seem to be without direction, and that's what gets to me. Everyone is
demanding Twitter have some kind of grand scheme, plot, or plan. They seem to
be doing very well so far without any of it; and that little distinctive
remark really just doesn't help solidify the argument in this post that
Twitter is in any definition of the word 'dead'.

The Lions comment just felt _very_ kitschy and could have very well been left
without; while I disagree on the premise of the article, the delivery
otherwise is presentable.

~~~
raganwald
I see your point now, thank you.

------
sfamiliar
it's also possible to use twitter to cross-promote a product to a wide
userbase. pushing ads for their other products through twitter would be
simple. letting other people do it would also be simple.

even failing that, the success of twitter gives the people who are currently
working on it a lot of credit for future products. it's not a revenue-
generator immediately, but it builds faith. i think the author's focus is a
little too short-term.

