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So much pessimism in the comments about the viability of Twitter as a business model. I've heard multiple sources (Chris Sacca, Ron Conway) not only say that Tw
by austenallred 13y ago
So much pessimism in the comments about the viability of Twitter as a business model. I've heard multiple sources (Chris Sacca, Ron Conway) not only say that Twitter has perhaps the best monetization opportunity of any web 2.0 company but dump as much money as they can into the stock. I've advertised on Twitter for quite a while, and the returns destroy Facebook and Adsense.
Advertising makes a lot of money if the audience is big enough. Twitter's audience is huge, connected, well sorted, and interested.
- yapcguy 13y ago> dump as much money as they can into the stock They would say that wouldn't they!
- austenallred 13y agoSure, you can look at it as Ron Conway pulling a long con by investing in a stock and lying about its monetization potential. Or you can look at it as Ron Conway putting his money where his mouth is.
- bolder88 13y agoAdvertising makes money when the audience has intent. People search google for "Best washing machine". Google shows them adverts for washing machines, customer buys washing machine. Where is the intent on twitter? To gossip? I just don't see it. If someone is about to buy something, they're likely to go to google and search. They're not likely to go to twitter. Google gets them at the crucial point before they buy something.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago"I just bought a #WashingMachine from @SomeWebshop for #cheap, #omg!!111#one~!", where @SomeWebshop paid Twitter to have positive-sounding tweets for SomeWebshop appear more prominently on the #washingmachine hashtag and elsewhere. (disclaimer: I don't know twitter and never got into it.)
- austenallred 13y agoAdvertising makes more money when the audience has intent. That's why a google click for someone who is searching for "mesothelioma" costs $130, and why Google makes money faster than it can spend it. But what if no one is looking for you? What if you are trying to gain new audiences? There's still plenty of money to be made there. Maybe not Google money, but enough to build a company that's worth tens or perhaps eventually hundreds of billions of dollars. Reputable sources (http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/03/27/report-twitter-to-hit-1-billion-in-ad-revenues-next-year/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/03/27/report-twit...) have Twitter's estimated revenue to be at $1 Billion next year. And the monetization is just getting started.
- joshma 13y agoSecondary to intent, but still pretty valuable, is interest. With Twitter, interest is VERY clear. If you want to target web developers, or fashion lovers, or car enthusiasts, you just have to look at who they follow to figure it out.
- debt 13y agoOne of these companies(FB, twitter, YELP, Goog, etc) is going to rethink and reinvent advertising. All these companies use old models on the web(playing an ad before a video like tv, banner ads are like magazine or classifieds ads). That's kind of the name of the game. "How can we show people ads in a new way that integrates seamlessly with their experience?" What if Twitter found a way to do it? Facebook seems to be getting the hang of it with their newsfeed ads.
- kybernetyk 13y ago> "How can we show people ads in a new way that integrates seamlessly with their experience?" Imho Google does this pretty well with Adwords (those that you see in the search results).
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoI'm bullish on TWTR(?), and will definitely buy into the company at some point (likely after their first lockup expiration), but I am, for one, not the least bit surprised that two people who have a ton of money on the line say they think Twitter has a solid business model, and that of course you should buy their stock.
- jknightco 13y agoI'm really, really hoping its TWIT...
- cynest 13y agoIs # an acceptable character?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jzwinck 13y agoSort of, but only as a suffix, and only for specific types of securities: http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=CQSsymbolconvention http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=CQSsymbolconventi...
- dublinben 13y agoI think Leo Laporte might have a problem with that.
- cowsandmilk 13y agobecause he's going to have an IPO soon? and his trademark in anyway can be conflated with twitter's?
- jaredsohn 13y agoTWTTR would be interesting since that was the original name of the service.
- foobarqux 13y agoNobody wants to know if the stock is worth something, they want to know if it is worth the IPO price.
- tinbad 13y agoI read an article a few years back about how Twitter could potentially be of great value as a peer-to-peer PSP. It's more of a long shot (and they probably should've started a long time ago) but I did find it an interesting model. I just don't see advertising work at the scale that they'd need to justify a ginormous valuation (just as FB isn't very convincing with their ad network). http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/6/how-twitter-will-be-worth-a-billion-in-a-year http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/6/how-twitter-will-be-wo... Also, just realized that Square is set to go into this direction.
- wslh 13y agoCan you elaborate about AdWords vs Twitter Ads?
- eps 13y ago> I've advertised on Twitter for quite a while, and the returns destroy Facebook and Adsense. Well, go on already... This is far more interesting than the original subject :)
- simonswords82 13y agoWe've advertised on Linked In and Facebook but haven't thought of trying Twitter. Would you mind sharing a bit about what you've advertised on Twitter and the type of results you've experienced? Thanks!