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Twitter: Our business model will be add-ons, not ads
Twitter is probably the hottest startup around without a business plan. Over the past few years, Twitter has gained millions of users, become a media darling, and started attracting celebrity tweeters like nobody's business. But the company isn't really set up to make money... yet. But Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says that's all coming soon.What's interesting is that Stone says Twitter will buck the trend set by other web services by staying ad-free. Instead, the plan is to make money from "various add-on-tools and services" for business and professional users. For example, analytics tools, or a directory of commercial Twitter accounts. Some of those tools could be available by the end of 2009.
Stone says the company doesn't plan to show ads next to messages because a) it's not "interesting," and b) because it could tick off users. The first point sounds a bit odd, but the second one makes sense. While Gmail users have long been used to seeing ads near their email messages, imagine if every fifth message you received on an instant messaging client was an ad.
[via The Inquistr]
Comments
11
Subscribe to commentsDraccMay 19th 2009 5:05PM
TweetLord, a Twitter based MMO from Multi Axis Games (http://www.multiaxisgames.com) just launched it's public beta. This is exactly the sort of add on Twitter is talking about, only it is already available, and best of all, it is totally free. TweetLord is a great socially engaging casual game with cool artwork and lots of expansions coming in the future. Send a tweet and add @TLgame at the end to create a character, then check out how to play, and view your character sheet at http://tweetlord.com. Then you can invite your friends and followers simply by engaging them in an action. You'll gain experience while keeping everyone updated.
requiredMay 19th 2009 5:46PM
Wait a sec, wasn't your post an ad? By the way, what the heck is a tweet if not an ad? Silly.
QuikboyMay 19th 2009 5:07PM
Honestly, ads aren't that annoying if you learn to ignore them. I've pretty much got used to looking at where the content usually is, instead of scanning around the page and picking up ads.
I still don't like the ads in Gmail, because sometimes I mistake the text ads as part of the user interface. Ads are still ads.
CharlesMay 20th 2009 9:59AM
Twitter is completely insane here. 20,000,000 uniques, the site is just now going mainstream, and they arent going to sell AD space to make money. #fail.
Let me get this right, you are NOT going to sell ad's next to search results?
And what exactly is the little box that shows up below the followers/followings/ updates stats on the web? Is that just a "promotion". That space is pretty valuable with 20,000,000 uniques.
On top of that, Twitter has the ability to have targeted ads that users will actually not be annoyed with both on a local and national level.
So let me get this straight. If Twitter does actually give us Groups, like they told us a long time ago...those groups are not going to be "sponsored"?
Biz is correct when he says they dont have advertising people at Twitter. Well, Biz you might want to get some business people on board to make money before someone builds a clone and offers all your "premium" services for free to businesses.
Paul NicholsonMay 19th 2009 6:04PM
I don't get how they can offer premiums unless they start locking down their insanely open API. There's very little they could offer in the way of analytics, etc that aren't either already available or couldn't be easily replicated with a sophisticated app.
eye-shuhMay 19th 2009 6:25PM
Oh God....don't give Google ideas. I'm sure they would love to insert google text ads into our gmail chat logs.
Saint SeminoleMay 19th 2009 9:11PM
And *some* Gmail users haven't seen ads in a long time. The Firefox add-on "Customize Google" gets rid of the ads in Gmail.
PigSpigotMay 19th 2009 10:33PM
hats off to Twitter for trying to find some premium services. but Charles is dead on - why would I stop using tweet deck, tweetie, etc? that said - advertising is a hard way to earn a buck. if they can get people to buy stuff more power to them. Twitter NT (a corporate version) - I could see something like that making a lot of sense.
kirby145May 20th 2009 7:32AM
Customize google? Adblock plus does much more my friend, much more indeed.
whiskeyMay 20th 2009 7:32AM
Oh, I can honestly say that ads could become a welcomed addition if they offered some sort of opt-in.
Let's say they partner with google and they let me use my adsense account on one block of my choosing and they get another one (and we forget the third so we can keep it simple when splitting the tips).
aleafinthewindMay 21st 2009 1:13AM
RE: required
My post is not an add. I was simply trying to spread the word. Also TweetLord is not officially connected to Twitter in anyway. The point that I was making is that if Twitter doesn't offer these services, other companies, like ours, will. Also, TweetLord is free as I mentioned and has zero ads on the site.