4 ms·

Well, I think that for a social network to be free, ads are the only/best/most solid source of revenue.

kek918 10y ago
What about; increasing the text limit by 30 extra characters for "Premium" (paying) users? Idea of the century, you're welcome TwitterHQ :)
- corin_ 10y ago
  It could well be idea of the century if you mean the idea I've heard suggested the most often in "how should Twitter monetise" conversations this century ;)
- karimdag 10y ago
  Would you pay for that?
  - sreyaNotfilc 10y ago
    Someone would. I don't think that having that offer will set Twitter fans off either. $.10 for 30 more characters would be a huge benefit for Twitter.
ascagnel_ 10y ago
There are other ways to monetize Twitter beyond ads. The firehose is probably the most valuable thing they've got, moreso than their current ad platform, and it can deliver instant feedback across a wide cut of demographics and locations. Nothing customer-facing, but plenty of possibilities attractive to research and business. For example: I used to keep an eye on Twitter during major product launches that would generate lots of traffic (namely, iPhone preorders). Some simple searches, refreshed every few minutes, would give me an idea as to how the launch was going and if the website stayed up. If anyone tweeted a problem, I forwarded that to the PR and customer support teams, so that person would get a response within minutes instead of potentially missing out on the preorder window. The ability to integrate something like that into a customer support ticketing system would be pretty awesome.
corin_ 10y ago
I don't mind ads (I work in marketing!), but I can't stand Twitter's ads. Biggest issue is that they seem terrible at targetting. They're a social network, they should have good enough data to show me adverts that might be interesting to me, and I have genuinely only seen two adverts ever that might even remotely interest me. On top of that, many of the ads feel scammy - the "make it seem like authentic content" idea might sound good in theory, but to me comes across as pretty yucky. Out of sites like Facebook, YouTube, etc. etc. Twitter is the only one that, on a daily basis, makes me wish I could pay to not see their shitty ads.
- narag 10y ago
  Why should the ads be directed to people? I mean... they could be related to the tweets instead so they would be perceived as less creepy.
  - corin_ 10y ago
    Sorry I don't quite understand what you mean? With any advertising, the goal is for the advert to be shown to people who might be interested in it. If I hate sports and you show me an advert for football tickets, you've just wasted a tiny bit of that advertiser's budget because they will never make money from me. If I love football and you show me that ad, there's a chance that might be an ad impression that gives ROI. I don't find the ads creepy at all, I find them absolutely irrelevant to me. And Twitter should have enough data about me - I've been talking about myself on there for years - to do better at guessing which adverts might interest me.
    - narag 10y ago
      I meant ads related to the contents of the tweet instead of related to the history of the person reading the tweet. You might like sports, folk music and deers, but when reading a tweet about Donald Trump, you'll see ads for barbwire.

What about; increasing the text limit by 30 extra characters for "Premium" (paying) users? Idea of the century, you're welcome TwitterHQ :)

corin_ 10y ago
It could well be idea of the century if you mean the idea I've heard suggested the most often in "how should Twitter monetise" conversations this century ;)
karimdag 10y ago
Would you pay for that?
- sreyaNotfilc 10y ago
  Someone would. I don't think that having that offer will set Twitter fans off either. $.10 for 30 more characters would be a huge benefit for Twitter.

ascagnel_ 10y ago

There are other ways to monetize Twitter beyond ads. The firehose is probably the most valuable thing they've got, moreso than their current ad platform, and it can deliver instant feedback across a wide cut of demographics and locations. Nothing customer-facing, but plenty of possibilities attractive to research and business. For example: I used to keep an eye on Twitter during major product launches that would generate lots of traffic (namely, iPhone preorders). Some simple searches, refreshed every few minutes, would give me an idea as to how the launch was going and if the website stayed up. If anyone tweeted a problem, I forwarded that to the PR and customer support teams, so that person would get a response within minutes instead of potentially missing out on the preorder window. The ability to integrate something like that into a customer support ticketing system would be pretty awesome.

corin_ 10y ago

I don't mind ads (I work in marketing!), but I can't stand Twitter's ads. Biggest issue is that they seem terrible at targetting. They're a social network, they should have good enough data to show me adverts that might be interesting to me, and I have genuinely only seen two adverts ever that might even remotely interest me. On top of that, many of the ads feel scammy - the "make it seem like authentic content" idea might sound good in theory, but to me comes across as pretty yucky. Out of sites like Facebook, YouTube, etc. etc. Twitter is the only one that, on a daily basis, makes me wish I could pay to not see their shitty ads.

narag 10y ago
Why should the ads be directed to people? I mean... they could be related to the tweets instead so they would be perceived as less creepy.
- corin_ 10y ago
  Sorry I don't quite understand what you mean? With any advertising, the goal is for the advert to be shown to people who might be interested in it. If I hate sports and you show me an advert for football tickets, you've just wasted a tiny bit of that advertiser's budget because they will never make money from me. If I love football and you show me that ad, there's a chance that might be an ad impression that gives ROI. I don't find the ads creepy at all, I find them absolutely irrelevant to me. And Twitter should have enough data about me - I've been talking about myself on there for years - to do better at guessing which adverts might interest me.
  - narag 10y ago
    I meant ads related to the contents of the tweet instead of related to the history of the person reading the tweet. You might like sports, folk music and deers, but when reading a tweet about Donald Trump, you'll see ads for barbwire.