Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Paid Subscriptions, Merchandise, Enterprise Level App, Advertising. Hmm. These aren't really specific to Twitter, these are all pretty generic ways that most apps try to monetise (or think they can monetise) themselves through.

They each present inherent problems.

1) You can't add a paid subscription level easily as the technology is too simple to clone. If you add a paid level, someone out there will create a site with the functionality of the paid level, but free. It's not like flickr where a user can quantify what they are spending money on (i.e. space to store photos).

2) Personally I don't think Twitter has a strong enough brand yet to exploit merchandising. The site has very little identity apart from the logo.

3) I think attempting to compete with Google and / or the thousands of other companies attempting business apps is a big mistake. There are too many other companies out there - it's far too saturated. That and, you could create a really great product only have Google make it 6 months later and really throw you a curveball. Twitter should concentrate on its core competency, the alpha-geeks and the social networking generation.

4) Is probably one way they can monetise in a small way. Not going to pay people's salaries though, I don't think.

Twitter is a lot of fun (and that's massively important) but it's another app that seems to not really have a business model and is simply aiming for network effect / acquisition as an exit strategy.