I recently got on board the Twitter bandwagon. Now granted, I only have a handful of followers but so far I am in equal part fascinated with the phenomenon and sort of confused and annoyed by it. Here you have this capability to let anyone in your following know what you are doing every second of the day if you so choose. I think of the commercial where the father Tweets that he is “sitting on the patio”. I mean…who really cares? Do our mundane activities really provide any value to those who happen to be following? I am sitting in a coffee shop as I write this and wondering if I should Tweet my followers of that fact. Are they all going to rush over here and join me for a skinny latte?
And yet, I have found some use in it by announcing my blog posts and letting my little group of “constituents” know that I have something perhaps worthwhile to say. So what is this all about? What is it that Twitter will evolve to that will have some lasting and meaningful value?
I read in the Sunday paper this morning that T. Rowe Price and Insight Venture Partners are about to drop $100 Million into the Twitter vault. The company is said to be valued at $1 Billion. Yet Twitter won’t really come straight with the genius behind their ultimate business model. To date they have not made a dime and yet they have managed to raise a huge sum of cash from investors that see this as the next big thing.
In an article in Information Week, David Gardner quotes Paul Holland, a general partner at Foundation Capital as saying “Once every five years or so, a company comes along that has nearly unlimited potential in terms of worldwide users. Five years ago, it was Facebook. Today, Twitter appears to be the next big thing in social networking.” Unlimited potential? Potential for what? To let the world know that I have just given my yellow lab a bath? That I just finished cleaning out the garage?
I just got finished reading the book “Free” by Chris Andersen. It is really a fascinating book although like Twitter, presents an economic framework that I have not yet fully embraced. The concept of a marketplace based on prices that have no price at all is difficult to grasp and more difficult to mobilize into a business model that ultimately warrants market valuations in the billions. Will Twitter eventually make its money by capturing massive audiences and then begin cashing in by building a business model based on advertising, cross subsidies and Freemiums (offering digital products for free and then making money by selling up to premium services)?
Well, I really don’t have the answers and since Twitter is not talking, I am kind of in an economic fugue state. I seem to have forgotten my basic understanding of economics and am sort of wandering through this new economic landscape without a real understanding of who I am anymore or what this new digital marketplace is all about for me. Perhaps I will just Tweet my followers and see if they know!
Enjoy your Sunday!
Pete
Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterdeyoe
Don’t worry, even Ev didn’t foresee all that Twitter would become -http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/evan_williams_on_listening_to_twitter_users.html
Once big businesses, spammers, and other entrepreneurs have saturated it, the new thing will be something else.
Thanks for the link Kym. And I agree…something else will hit the ‘ol hype curve!
Pete
Pete,
You might find -The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business- by Tara Hunt interesting. You build ‘whuffie’ by being: nice, networked, notable. She provides a number of compelling examples (JetBlue, Zappos) of gaining business value (whuffie) through using Twitter.
Check out http://www.vimeo.com/4083813
Whuffie comes from Cory Doctorow’s futuristic science fiction novel -Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom- where whuffie is the only currency used!
Mary
Thanks Mary I will definitely take a read.
Pete
Interesting read Pete, thanks. I’m wondering if when you mentioned the Dad sitting on the Patio you were implying that so much of Twitter is nonsense babbling, that it would seem that most people would not feel compelled to pay for Twitter? While I like some parts of Twiiter, it quite often seems to be a place of everyone shouting and no one listening, hardly a service worth paying for.
I use Hootsuite for Tweeting, and they ran a suvrey last week asking how much I would pay for their service (currently free), purhaps Twitter will make the applications pay and transfer that cost onto their clients.
Cheers,
Jeff
PS – I saw this article via LinkedIn
Jeff,
Yes indeed. I was definitely referring to the “chatter” of Twitter! A lot of idle thoughts seem to be moving around at the speed of light and what for? Like I mentioned…I have not really fully embraced the capability. Perhaps it will become clearer as I get more involved with it…or perhaps not! Thanks for your thoughts!
Pete
Pete,
Thanks for your valuable thoughts. I, up to a large, extent agree with you and unable to understand the best usage of Twitter and why many people are actually interested in knowing what damn thing you are doing. It might be a good broadcasting medium when you want to declare something but that you can do through other social networking site like linkedin, facebook etc. I am still not in to tweeting and all as I don’t think this as a valuable activity.
-Vikas Kaushik
Pete,
I see at least two maybe three sides to this coin.
On the one side the question for me is how can Twitter evolve so users can extract valuable information and track the right followers from the thousands upon thousands flooding their account with noise.
Then on the other is how can twitter track that activity and provide targeted marketing as a service.
Third, what other services can twitter or others provide that help provide value to end users.
In the end it is all based upon value. What value are you providing in your tweets and what service can Twitter offer that provide value to end users and advertisers. All the rest is simply noise.
:-JP
John,
Thanks for your comments. As of now, I have only found value in using it to tweet my followers that I have a new blog entry. WordPress has now made this really easy. Once I post an entry, WordPress automatically sends it out to anyone following me. Other than that I am still searching for the value it provides. In the name of research, I will continue to explore it further.
Thanks,
Pete
John,
Just to add to my previous comment, I have a nephew that is trying to make it in the recording business. He is creating quite a following as he tries to get his songs on the music industry radar screen. He tweets his followers as to the release of his new songs and appearances. Obviously this has proven to be very valuable to his career growth and to his followers.
Pete
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