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Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal (I believe it was at SXSW). It was a huge pu

Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal (I believe it was at SXSW). It was a huge publicity bonanza, the message was that Twitter is Historic. Don't believe us, believe the Library of Congress. They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it was excellent publicity. (Probably the LOC did it for that reason too.) And we have a say in this in the US, since we pay for the LOC.

wtvanhest 14y ago
Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal You cannot assume companies always act logically. In this case they could have agreed to it just because it was "cool". They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it was excellent publicity. This is probably accurate, but it doesn't give them a long term advantage. It probably gave them a small boost in marketing (I say small because I have never heard about this). Marketing doesn't hold up without investment. (for those of you who say iconic brands will hold up, keep in mind that every iconic brand advertises constantly.) Further, the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly. In many cases much more so than Twitter. I agree that any subsidy (whether monetary or otherwise) should be examined, but in this case it seems to be a complete nonissue to me.
- davewiner 14y ago
  >>the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly And people object to it constantly.
Camillo 14y ago
I don't know, to me it says that Twitter is small. How big is it in Libraries of Congress? Less than one!
eli 14y ago
Sure, it's great PR. I'd love to be able to put out a press release with my name and LoC on it. But you really think it is affecting users' actions now months later? I'd be surprised if anyone considers LoC archiving a feature that keeps them locked into Twitter instead of starting a blog. (Notwithstanding LoC's efforts to archive all sorts of digital content... you make it sound like Twitter is an outlier.)

wtvanhest 14y ago

Well there certainly is a business advantage. Or why would Twitter have done it, and done a big rollout of the deal You cannot assume companies always act logically. In this case they could have agreed to it just because it was "cool". They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it was excellent publicity. This is probably accurate, but it doesn't give them a long term advantage. It probably gave them a small boost in marketing (I say small because I have never heard about this). Marketing doesn't hold up without investment. (for those of you who say iconic brands will hold up, keep in mind that every iconic brand advertises constantly.) Further, the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly. In many cases much more so than Twitter. I agree that any subsidy (whether monetary or otherwise) should be examined, but in this case it seems to be a complete nonissue to me.

davewiner 14y ago
>>the government arbitrarily "subsidizes" businesses constantly And people object to it constantly.

Camillo 14y ago

I don't know, to me it says that Twitter is small. How big is it in Libraries of Congress? Less than one!

eli 14y ago

Sure, it's great PR. I'd love to be able to put out a press release with my name and LoC on it. But you really think it is affecting users' actions now months later? I'd be surprised if anyone considers LoC archiving a feature that keeps them locked into Twitter instead of starting a blog. (Notwithstanding LoC's efforts to archive all sorts of digital content... you make it sound like Twitter is an outlier.)