Twitter Fearing To Make Money But Not Afraid to Borrow Money

I am not in charge over at Twitter and perhaps after this post we will know why. I was catching up on reading about news on Techmeme this evening and saw that Twitter was raising more capital. I had the same reaction to this as did Ashkan Karbasfrooshan with his take on the similarities to Facebook.

I cannot seem to grasp why Twitter is not yet making money or having some sort of package for monetizing its business. I had a conversation on Twitter with Cory O’ Brien about our thoughts and both of us had the same confusion. Why is Twitter raising funds when the money is right there in their back pocket.

I am speaking of the possibilities of funding their own growth. They have great opportunities staring them in the face yet they seem uneasy to pull the trigger. I have to admit I am considered a big fan of Twitter and I am a bit jaded, but I think I am not alone when I say, I would pay a premium for the service. I am probably more of a power user than your average person and paying for this service to some may seem ludicrous. Guy Kawasaki said it is integral in his own business, and said he would pay a large amount just for the privilege to keep using. I am not sure of what a “pro account” would entail, but where do I sign?

Now I do understand that Pownce had this feature, and it is a company of the past since being acquired by Six Apart, but I would be curious about the people that had signed up for its premium account. It was a Twitter clone and did not have near the saturation that is being afforded Twitter (yes I recognize the estimated 5 million users is a small percentage of the Facebook users) but I think that those numbers would be interested to apply here.

Cory and I ran a sketch of the numbers and made some assumptions and came up with a way for them to earn $20M a year just by charging $1 a month for a premium account. If I can figure out a way to do that, imagine what the smart people could do with a little effort. I know that by harvesting some of the low hanging fruit now, they could make the big score later.
[photo via jenn_jenn]


Social Media Tools Like Twitter Can Be Tough To Implement

tools.jpg

I have been meaning to write this post for some time and continue to get sidetracked and have my ADD kick in which keeps me from writing (oh look something shiny). It wasn’t until Guy Kawasaki recently wrote a post on Twitter as a business tool or as he refers to it a Twool, that i decided I had to finally get words to a page.

I am referring to Guy’s post of a few days ago called “How To Use Twitter As A Twool.” I had to look twice to see if he spelled that correctly. Normally I do not disagree with Guy. He has about twice the brain power I have and it shows in his success and frankly his bank account. When he speaks people really do tune in and listen to his advice. He is one of the leaders in the world of tech and social media which is why I don’t often disagree with his blog posts. In this instance however, I have to say I think he misses the mark on a couple of things. Not because Twitter should not be used in business as part of your online social media arsenal, but because his advice comes from on high and not down in the trenches.

Guy has paid his dues early and has worked hard to garner the celebrity status he has today. He has launched a few online things that take off immediately just because it has his name attached to it. Some of his things are not too popular as in Truemors, but other things he has are quite cool and do well such as Alltop. I needed to preface my post with all of this because I have seen companies like Guy’s try to launch and get attention and hit below the mark. His companies get instant saturation because he is in the cool kids group. I struggle to help some companies not in the cool kids group get the traction they deserve and help with with the use of tools just like Twitter, which brings us full circle to my point (we had to get there sooner or later).

Guy provides 10 ways to use twitter as a business tool and I agree with nearly all of the points made but I wanted to clarify the point or flat out tell Guy he is wrong. The first of his 10 tips caught my attention immediately:

1. Forget the “influentials.” You must buy into the theory that products and services reach critical mass because mere mortals spread the word for you. This defies the common wisdom that a handful of “influentials” shape what the rest of us try and what we adopt. In the online world, these influentials include Mike “I can go a week without Twitter” Arrington, Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, and to some extent me.

Guy is very much correct in his opinion that mere mortals will make your business a success. The problem with that statement however is the fact that mere mortals do not have the accessibility to the information as much as the influentials like Guy and Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington and Seth Godin. It is easy for Guy to say I can’t make or break your company you have to have a product that doesn’t suck. Agreed Guy, but you have to have the ability for a mass amount of the little people to actually hear of your product and then you can sit back and watch the buzz begin. Not everyone has that luxury. I watched at Blog World Expo when you mentioned a company you were looking at everyone madly making a note to go and see what company you mentioned. Yeah, it was a cool company, but because you mentioned it, I actually had a chance to check them out. My advice is don’t discount getting the info to the people through a megaphone such as those influencers mentioned. It is the somebodies that get the information to the nobodies. I myself would never hear about some of the cool stuff in the tech world had it not been for Robert Scoble having access to things where I cannot get past the door. Yes, Robert Scoble is the Richard Grieco to me being a Butabi brother. This is a blog post unto itself (more to come).

Remember the Motrin debacle? It took a few of the influencers in the Mommy blogdom to get the ball rolling, then the army of the nobodies were able to take the ball and run. Actually that is not true completely as a nobody mentioned it to a somebody and then, well you know the outcome. Getting the influencers to light the fuse is a part of the equation Guy discounts in his post. I think it is one of the more important parts of the puzzle. Guy has never not been invited to the party. He has not stood on the street hoping his name is on “the list”.

I also wanted to touch on the third point Guy makes in his tips:

3. Get as many followers as you can. I recently explained what I do to get more followers. Click here to read about my methods. Ignore people who tell you that it’s the quality of your followers not the quantity. They’re trying to make friends, not use Twitter as a tool. And, truth be told, there are only two kinds of Twitter users: those that want more followers and those that lie. You can follow me here.

The reason you want more followers is the law of big numbers: the more followers, the more people talking about what you do, the more you can reach the tipping point. If you think you “know” exactly who can and will help you, you are deluding yourself.

realitycheck.jpg I purposely ignore those people on Twitter that don’t use the tool as it is intended. This is a fine line you must learn to walk. Guy seems to imply that getting followers is important, and it is (follow me here) but how you get those followers is more of the point. I get many people that follow me on Twitter and when I go to their twitter page they have perhaps 10 updates in the last 6 months or even not at all and they have 3000 people they are following and have about 100

people that have reciprocated that action. This is in no way using Twitter. You have to put a little effort into it to get anything out of it. Yes, Guy is correct, the more followers the larger the reach, but make sure you are not shelved as a Twitter spammer. Your influence will be ignored.

At the end of the day however, pay attention to Guy and what he has to say about things. He had a hard time with twitter at first and I must admit I unfollowed him and ignored any Twitter stream he had. He has since turned that ship around and really uses Twitter as a tool for his own business. I have read a book or two and the man is a genius when it comes to doing things right. Guy’s latest book is Reality Check and I don’t yet have my copy. I’m hoping I can get one of those checks soon.

[tool photo via flattop341]

Twitter Keeps Flying But Magpie Makes The Money

magpie.jpgAs I was growing up in rural Colorado, we had plenty of opportunities to see magpies in their environment. They were usually standing over the latest roadkill. Basically they are scavengers. They get fed from nothing they have done on their own but finding the opportunity. I draw that picture to my own mind and drawing the metaphor of the name and bird over to thinking about the latest company and their attempt to monetize from the efforts of others. I am speaking from the recent launch of a advertising site that is asking people to use their Twitter stream for advertising purposes. I am speaking of Magpie. I had a chance to hear of this from my friend Lucretia Pruitt (@geekmommy) on Twitter itself.

I spoke about the idea of a third party monetizing Twitter earlier today. I think that Twitter needs to get on board with a private beta or an alpha or a something. I know they have been wrestling with this like most others on how they take something and make money at it. They throw ads on it and sit back and hope the sales guys can turn a profit. I’m not in the boardroom of Twitter and this is probably already a part of their behind the scenes workings. At least I hope so given their latest offer of $500 Million from Facebook. To turn down an amount like that you have to have your reasons. I know they say Facebook is overvalued but that is another blog post completely.

Frankly they may do well to have Magpie or another third party prove the ability to make it work and then just take some of the money they have and buy it up. I’m sure that they would not have a problem to make that happen unless of course the price tag of the company was too high and in that respect they merely block the company from the API and not allow them to use twitter for that purpose. The terms of service clearly allows for them to do what they feel is best for Twitter:

We reserve the right to alter these Terms of Use at any time.

Magpie spends the time the effort and energy to monetize the system, gets everyone used to the fact that Twitter now shows up with ads in the streams, or in the background and companies bring the ads and back the money truck up to the Twitter dock.
I have seen and read about the idea that the people on Twitter are calling the Magpie service the PayPerPost (Ted Murphy’s company that used bloggers and their blog content for advertising, now known as IZEA) of Twitter. People forget that PayPerPost was not real popular with the blogging elite or the purists, yet the investors and VC types have been writing checks to the group on a regular basis. I can foresee the same thing happening for the folks at Magpie. They are beginning to get some traction and according to TechCrunch people that use their service are bound to make some decent money.

[photo via Neil Phillips]

Twitter Is The Epitome of Social Media

twitterlogo I have been busily working out my Twitter thoughts here in the last few days as it has become apparent that I have a slight addiction that needs to be fed now and then as it relates to how I use the service.  I have, at this writing, just under 3000 people or organizations I am following and have begun to turn up my drinking from that fire hose of information a little.  I continue to feel a connection with this application, and I am drawn to it much like I was to blogging when I first caught on with it nearly five years ago.  To me Twitter is the epitome of social media.

I joined Twitter about the time Robert Scoble said he had found this new application in late 2006.  I didn’t really get it at first, but I continued to monitor things.  I have joined and downloaded many apps and tools, but this one seemed a little different.  Then I went to SXSW and suddenly I was caught up in the Twitter plague like most of my friends and colleagues.  For whatever reason, the application had gone viral.

I am now at more than 7000 messages or “Tweets” and not looking back.  It’s funny how some applications just seem to catch on with the people that use them.  I think there are a few components that make an application like this work, and it has to do with need obviously, ego which is the driving force for many of us, and lastly it connects us as groups.  This is why I think Twitter is successful.  Looking over my Tweetstats, I see that I am talking to the same friends in my Twitter life as I do in my real life.  This makes it a little simpler to speak to them and I think that is a hook as well.

I was reading Kara Swisher this morning about the possibility of a merger between two giants, Facebook and Twitter, and I don’t see that happening until the two can at least figure out a way to make money.  Twitter is valued at $98 Million and Facebook is exponentially more.

Neville Hobson showed us what we might expect to see as it relates to Twitter putting advertisements on its pages.  Frankly, if they don’t launch something soon, a third party (i.e. Magpie) may be in the works to do it for them. Of course, this may be their thought or plan to have someone else find and fund the way to making money for the company.  I continue to joke about the fact that people like Guy Kawasaki, and I will admit even myself would pay a monthly fee if they wanted to charge for the service.

This post started out being much more in depth but I kept biloing it down to 140 characters or less.  To say the least, it is a beneficial tool for anyone looking to be a part of their network and communicating with that network.  As I sit here hoping that as I type this post my computer does not crash again, I find that many of my Twitter followers are helping me decide what desktop to buy, what third party Twitter client to use to monitor my Tweets.  I also have a good understanding of what all of my friends are doing.  I guess it all starts with that single questions we see as an empty box on that Twitter screen…”What are you doing?”

Social Media From Riches to Rags

I had to jinx myself as a result of my bragging about touching everything and having it turn to gold.  The pendulum has swung as it relates to my quote:

Then after the 4 years we have been going here, I have a week like this one where everything clicks.  Everything I touch turns to gold and nothing could possibly go wrong.

I totally messed up my karmic balance.   You had to know that with a bold statement like that I had a slap of reality coming.

I decided it was time to upgrade my version of WordPress here at One By One Media and at its sister site Bloggers For Hire.  As he upgrades completed, the templates I was using for the design were not compatible with the newest version of WordPress.  My sites had to use a default template.  Not the best of signs for a blogging consultant try to impress prospective clients.  That would only serve to be the first of the payback.

For two days or longer, I have not been able to figure out, my email has been totally borked.  Yes, that is a really good term for it.  I can’t seem to receive email.  I can send it out but I cannot for some strange reason receive it in my Google application of Gmail.  The emails are making it to my server under the domain but then they are not pushed on through to my Gmail application.  I can read them using my Cpanel version, but I can’t make them go to Gmail.  I have no idea why and have as much technical skills in my body to have told you so far what I have found, but have no clue how to fix it.  So here I sit.  My WordPress install is an old version and probably open to being hacked and my email running on less than all cylinders.

I’m hoping with the posting of this blog the pendulum will swing again.  I don’t mind being in middle but the extremes of this spectrum are driving me to drink!

The Death and Perhaps Destruction of a Social Network: A Sad But True Story

soflowlogo In the early part of 2005, I became a member of a social network called Soflow.  This social network was an early vision of its founders.  They could see the future and power of growing one’s profile and gathering contacts for business, and other benefits.  I thought that it was such a good idea, I also invested some of my own time and energy to become a moderator of a group within the network called “Blog Buzz”. 

We would discuss everything doing with the blogosphere and itsblogbuzz_small affect on  business, including advertising, marketing and PR.  The group became 220 members strong and this was before the time of mass invitations we see now with social networks.  There were over 150 forums started and some great conversations took place as a result.  Many advertisers, marketers and PR people were able to enter into the forum and ask simple questions, difficult questions, and ask for suggestions on growing a blog readership, what platforms were available and what blogs could do and what they were capable of accomplishing.  I decided it was important enough of a group to migrate it over and make it a Facebook Group.

Adrants was also a group located in the Soflow network and it had over 4000+ members according to Steve Hall.  It was probably the largest group in the network, but nonetheless, following what people are saying now about the networks’ demise, it’s like losing your favorite pet.  People love to have a place to go and talk with like minded people.  This is what makes social networks so popular.  It’s like a 24/7 cocktail hour. 

 So what are they going to do with all of the data, and all of the information and the gathering of people that have joined in Soflow? At this point it is unclear.  Perhaps the back end will throw a switch and all of that information and wonderful and informative content will be lost.  It this point I know that that principals appear to be moving on to a new application and have asked all of the members to migrate to anwisdmlogo application called Wis.dm.  My feeling is that the people at Soflow could not compete with the likes of Facebook or Myspace, and decided that they could not keep a hold on the people that they had nor could they garner more subscribers.   Wis.dm is obviously not the same type of network as Soflow, but perhaps it was the business model that they wanted to change.  It makes me wonder why there was no purchase of the network or perhaps a merging with Facebook or another network.  The doors close on Soflow on July 31, 2007.  I hope I can resurrect the group to continue the conversation.

 

Too Many Social Networks Causes Headaches

I’ve been hearing of many people getting to the point of overload on the number of social networks they belong to and the number of networks they are following.  I have a handle on the feeling and have experienced the same headaches that many suffer from as a result.facebooklogo

I spent Sunday actually building my community of social networks.  I try to make sure that I always know how to use the tools available and to be knowledgeable about the use of the latest of the networks out there.  The first social network I tackled was Facebook.  This seems to be one of the largest growing social networks lately and I decided I better get on that  bandwagon.  I added friends I knew and some I actually didn’t know personally.  My apologies if I sent you an invite to be my twitterfriend as I ran the easy to ask application that spams all your email files. 

I have been an early adopter of the Twitter social network and have really enjoyed Twitter as a way to follow along with my friends, clients, and peers.  I have spent a long time growing the number of friends and the number of followers to my Twitter page.  This does cause problems when you ever want to switch to another social network that might be very similar or the next generation.  Such a thing happened when I decided to check out the Twitterish type of application in Jaiku.images

Jaiku was the next type of Twitter type social network that offered a different user interface and some other features.  I was not very enamored with the service and barely stayed long enough to see if it was worth my time.  It was not the most favorite of networks following the Twitter explosion, and was launched to close to the same time.  This was not the same with the latest of networks to launch.

pownce_logo The next network I decided to try was Pownce.  This network in my opinion launched at just the right time.  They took the best attributes or the other networks, expanded them somewhat and made it very nice to look at as well as operate.  I was able to grow this community much faster than I was when Twitter first came on and it could be because I promoted the building of my Pownce page and community through the use of Twitter, which in itself is an irony.

www.STADTAUS.com_btn3910742 Tomorrow is our scheduled radio show at Blog Talk Radio.   We will be discussing this new onslaught of social networks and we will talk about the headaches others are having as a result of trying to keep up with the the madness.  We are always going to be able to tell our clients about these applications and how best to keep up with them.  Our most beneficial service is actually providing a social media manager or community watcher for companies. 

UPDATE:  [7-3-07]  Thanks to BL Ochman through Twitter, she points us to an article by Mashable about Mini Blogging, where they compare 8 different applications.

 

FeedBurner FeedFlares give your RSS feeds and posts an added kick

Are you using FeedBurner to republish your blog’s RSS feed?  Yes?  Awesome!  Now are you using their FeedFlare service/feature?  No?  Well you should, not because it’s cool (okay it is, but that’s not why), but because FeedFlares give both your feed and blog posts added boosts that can help promote your blog, make it easier to subscribe to, and make it easier to submit to social bookmarking sites (Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon).  From DoshDosh come their 15 favourite FeedFlares:

If you?re using Feedburner to manage the site feeds for your blog, you might have noticed the Feedflares option, which allows you to include a simple footer at the bottom of each blog post in your feed.

According to Feedburner, this allows your feed subscribers to easily email, tag, share or act upon the content that you?ve published.

These feedflares can promote your blog posts outside the boundaries of feed readers: Utilizing them effectively can considerably impact how your subscribers interact with your blog. Source: 15 Feedburner Feedflares that Promote Your Content and Website

In case you’re wondering, I generally activate these for all our client sites that we design and develop.  Not using FeedFlares is like getting hot, fresh, homemade bread put on the table and not using the butter that is sitting right there.

Can WordPress Compete Against Moveable Type?

I was reading Anil Dash’s post today about the launch of Moveable Type 4. My blog life was born using the Moveable Type Platform. At the time I began blogging, I was of the opinion that MT was the one and only platform for me. It was the choice of many of the top bloggers and had many features that I wanted. When I buy things I do lots of research and checking things out then make my decision based upon my findings. This is what I did when choosing my blogging platform.

Along came WordPress and I heard some great things about that platform. Contributing to a number of blogs over the years, I have seen many different applications, and once I used the WordPress system, I was sold. What was different from Moveable Type? To me it was more user friendly, and the most important reason was spam blocking. I was having a horrible time with Moveable Type’s spam blocking ability. I spent more time deleting spam comments and trackbacks than I was actually writing the posts and reading comments. WordPress was my answer to that problem.

Now Moveable Type has released its newest version of its application, Moveable Type 4. I wonder if they are as user friendly as WordPress and I also wonder about the widgets/plugins/features and whether they have the same coolness as WordPress. I waffled about maybe testing the MT4 Beta, and quickly looked through the site and saw the features offered by MT, and then I finished with the last navigation tab, “Pricing and Purchase”. I was able to quickly make my decision, because one word I did not see…FREE. Until MT decides to offer their application to us commercial users that are on a tight budget, I guess I will have to say that MT will never compete with WP.

 

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Mediasphere Radio: Beginning Blogging 101

Tris and I had a great time talking about how a business or individuals can get into blogging. We talk about the very basics and things to think about and tips on how to get your company up and blogging.

You can go and listen to the show!

Tags: , Bloggers For Hire, , , Hiring Bloggers, , Mediasphere Radio, One By One Media, Professional Bloggers, , , Tris Hussey