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Can Twitter Make Money?

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twitter.jpgThis is something I pointed out the other day: there’ll always be a market for instant blogging services such as Meshly, Jaiku, Tumblr and Twitter, though at some point they have to monetize. Download Squad has outlined six ways that Twitter can earn money. Evan Williams, the founder (and who founded Blogspot), offered a couple of those suggestions. Here they are below, with my own comments:

(1) Twitter Pro. Paid service, with lots of addtional features. Very cool.

(2) Merch. T-shirts, etc. I’ll pass – rather boring logo. If they come up with a graphic, maybe so. I’m not a big “t-shirt with logo” type of person. That doesn’t mean this won’t work.

(3) Biz. Twitter for business? Hmm, very interesting. This could work for employees to stay in touch. But then it’d be up against established players like Lotus Notes’ IM and others. Pimp Your Work offers some other ways to use Twitter for business.

(4) Forums. Ad-supported. Really? Would you spend time in a Twitter forum rather than just tweet? Seems odd and time-consuming in comparison. On the other hand, it’s hard to “talk” to another member if they are not one of your followers. I follow 27 people but only have 10 followers. That’s fine, but if one of the other 17 tweets something I’d like to reply to, they’ll never see it. Forums might work. I should point out, however, that I do have other means of contacting these people, but a quick tweet in reply is more appropriate than an email.

(5) Ads on site. Obviously, with a great volume of users, this will pay off. Will it pay off enough? Will current users get pissed and quit, maybe move to Jaiku, etc.? Probably, but that’s normal. I never “get” those people who think everything should be free for their taking.

(6) Biz, part 2. Charge a fee for marketing/commercial use. There are a few sites, such as Woot, who are doing that. I don’t know if they’re paying, but since this suggestion (and #5) are from Evan Williams, they might soon be.

(7) Sell it. This from a reader in the comments. Of course, someone is waiting, no doubt, to scoop up Twitter and monetize the traffic.

Originally posted on April 26, 2007 @ 2:30 pm

New Media Wire – Wed Apr 25, 2007

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NewsvineBuild Your Own News Site With Newsvine
If you build it, will they come? If you think so, then check out the newly relaunched Newsvine, which lets you create your own news site. We’re talking going beyond something like Pageflakes- or Netvibes-like customization because apparently your customizations are reflected on the homepage. Techcrunch explains.

Our Hive Mind
Brady Forrest reflects at O’Reilly Radar on Jordan Schwartz’s writings about bees and the hive mind and how humans exhibit similar behavior online, especially at social websites.

Twitter Beginner’s Guide
I can’t imagine that it would take much to learn how to use Twitter, but Robin Good has produced a very indepth beginner’s guide to Twitter, detailing what it is, why use it, how it’s being used, why people love it, why people hate it, and a big list of tools to extend Twitter – including many I’ve never heard of.

Of interest to those (such as me) who wish Twitter could pull in feeds from elsewhere, there’s TwitterFeed and RSS2Twitter. I was also complaining about the lack of search. Well, there’s TwitterSearch. And there’s even a way to insert ads into your tweets. That’s a bit much, but if you get the urge…

Originally posted on April 25, 2007 @ 12:25 pm

Meshly: More Twitter Alternatives

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Meshly - IM text nanobloggingBlogging, microblogging, miniblogging, moblogging, vlogging. What next? Humans are social creatures, and as such, we like to express ourselves, usually verbally, but print will do, whether on paper or online. Science Fiction legend Harlan Ellison wrote a story called I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, which isn’t relevant other than for me to suggest that Twitter and its alternatives will always find a following, even if we end up with a dozen of these tools. (Though there must be some saturation point, since at some point they have to monetize their service. I doubt all of them can be profitable.)

The latest to the collection of Twitter-like digital soapbox tools is Meshly. Webware describes Meshly as a “nanoblogging platform” built around instant messages. And Meshly lets you vote on each item posted. Right, sort of like Digg, but on each tiny little message. Sorry, but you’d have to have no life whatsoever to want to watch and vote on minutiae of thoughts. (Am I missing something?) Take away the silly voting, however, and I think this could actually be useful.

So we have Twitter/ Jaiku/ Tumblr from a web browser, MySay from cell phones, Meshly from IM clients, and who knows what else. And I’ve just registered a domain where you’ll soon be able to post to your lifestream thoughts and posts just by imagining your text. You will, however, have to attach a USB cable to your noggin. Then anyone can know all of your thoughts, all of the time. I have a mouth and I plan to scream.

Originally posted on April 25, 2007 @ 1:04 pm

Jaiku: A Better Twitter Alternative?

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Jaiku - micro-bloggingTwitter fans may be upset by this, but even though I like Twitter-watching, I don’t tweetr all that much. The feature set doesn’t suit me. I do maintain a Twitter feed and follow about 25 Twitterers, but I find the 140 character limit restrictive. I’m also an RSS evangelist elsewhere, so any new application that allows web feed importing/ aggregation catches my attention.

I’ve recently come across Tumblr, which is more like mini-blogging than the micro-blogging of Twitter. It lets you add images, video, quotes, links, IM chat text, and regular posts. It also lets you import feeds, including your Twitter feed. Except that there are no social features. Soon, but not yet.

Then there’s Jaiku, which like Tumblr lets you import feeds. Jaiku also differs from Twitter in that you can add an image or an icon (from presets) to distinguish your current activities. Your Jaiku stream’s background color can be set as well. It’s all eye candy, sure, but Jaiku is both more customizable and more robust than Twitter. It does not have quite the same feature set as Tumblr in terms of the type of content you can quickly post. So it is micro-blogging like Twitter. However, Jaiku has stronger social features than Twitter, including being able to get “presence” information about your friends: availability, location, calendar – providing they are running Jaiku Mobile on their phone.

Ken Camp, a VoIP blogger who writes a great deal about mobile presence applications,  refers to Jaiku as a lifestream aggregator. (I’m sure someone else made the same comment about another tool, but I can’t find it.) Its tie-in with mobile devices make it more appealing to some people, though you can use it just from a regular web browser. Something for everyone.

Now I should point out that Jaiku, like Twitter, does have a 140 character limit for each message. However, in Jaiku you can add comments to each message. Oddly enough, if you comment in your own message, you can exceed the 140 character limit. What’s really odd, though, is that this comment then shows up in your Jaiku stream completely intact. (You can also comment on other Jaiku users’ messages.) So comments on your Jaiku messages “live” in two places.

It seems to me, then, that Jaiku is a far more robust variation of Twitter. I kind of wish, though, that Tumblr had their social networking features already because my feeling is that it would then be the better of the three choices. Oh, and of course, there’s a Jaiku API, so that if you get the urge, you can come up with your own Jaiku-based applications and mashups.

By the way, if you want to publish a lifestream but don’t feel like signing up for yet more web services, there’s hope. If you’re running a WordPress blog, you can use Elliot Back’s WP Lifestream plugin to create a lifestream on your site. Here is BinaryBonsai’s lifestream, as an example.

Originally posted on April 23, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

New Media Wire – Tues Apr 24, 2007

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Watch Your Back Technorati?
Valleywag of all places has an interesting explanation of where Technorati is getting traffic from. Yes, from Google, but even for terms “Wikipedia”. That’s because of all those Technorati tags thousands upon thousands of bloggers add to the bottom of there posts each increase Technorati’s ranking for those keywords. It’s also why many more experienced bloggers stopped adding Technorati tags. (My own blogs never suffered as a result of doing so – that’s for different reasons.) So when you type in some terms in Google, and possibly in other search engines, Technorati ranks very high. Though as Valleywag says, probably not for long.

Power Twittering
The other day I complained that Twitter is not very robust, and that I find Jaiku better. Well 30Boxes has created a Firefox plugin called Power Twitter that lets you beef up what you can do with Twitter, including photosharing with Flickr, adding video, and a tie-in 30Boxes information for members. [via GigaOm] In related news, Valleywag has a snarky, humorous look at how non-revolutionary Twitter is, in the form of a diagram showing the history of blogging.

MySay: Audio Alternative To Twitter?
MySay - voice twitteringI’m not sure I agree with this, but Mashable describes MySay as a sort of Twitter for talkers. You record audio snippets and post them via phone. Friends can listen online or subscribe via phone. So it’s great for reaching a group of friends easily, if they know to subscribe to your MySay stream. As far as I can tell, however, you cannot post from a web browser, but you can embed players on a variety of web pages (social networks, blogs).

Still, this actually could be a fun, even useful tool. Remember “Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey”, a skit on Saturday Night Live a few years back (during David Spade’s time, I believe)? There are several possibilities: positive thoughts, short jokes, mini-sermons. The only drawback is that you have to call a long-distance number to record your snippets.

Originally posted on April 24, 2007 @ 7:53 pm