How Much Is Twitter Worth?

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1. Patrick Altoft
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:07 am

   I think the potential here is that Twitter has a real chance of going mainstream because it’s actually useful to normal people who want to chat with each other.

   Forget all the other apps that are just for tech geeks.

2. Ryan Merket
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:08 am

   Once Pownce goes SMS, I think they will catch up to Twitter.

3. Will Johnston
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:08 am

   “Their biggest non-payroll expense is supposedly SMS fees, although they have hit a ceiling and no longer pay a marginal fee per message as the company grows.”

   That must be a freakish amount of text messages, and I wonder why the phone companies allow it.

4. Max
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:09 am

   Michael,

   You are addicted my friend.

   Get off the Twitter reporting for a week.

   Just one week… please, for your own good.

   If you don’t you’ll be giving bjs for twitter news on the streets before you know it.

   Regards,
   Max

5. Andrew
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:13 am

   What does twitter really offer that mainstream users can’t get from facebook?

6. Deelip K
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am

   Everyones now addicted to twitter.
   Even me.
   Twitter definitely worths 60 M.

7. ceejayoz
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am

   @3 Why wouldn’t they allow it? The phone company makes $0.10-$0.15 per message sent or received by the users. Twitter’s sending mass amounts of cash their way!

   @5 Simplicity.

8. tsx
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am

   Stupid question : how much revenue has twitter ?

9. gilltots
   

   April 28th, 2008 at 11:22 am

   twitter isn’t going to be doing so hot when gas costs $15 a gallon and nobody can afford to buy food anymore, and everyone cancels their $60 a month cell phone subscription….is what the doom and gloom people would say.

10. Erik
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:26 am

    What mainstream traction do you see that makes you think Twitter will be a mainstream hit? The digerati like it (and the wannabes), people who don’t know who Robert Scoble is (most of them), don’t see the point.

    We’ll leave monetization for another day.

11. Twitterfans
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    $60M - $150M only? That’s cheap — seriously.

12. Jamie
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:30 am

    I just wonder where the monetization is. I love Twitter, but how can you leverage it to actually make any money?
    That’s the $64 (or $60 million+) question, I guess

13. Mark
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:33 am

    Nothing.

14. Alan
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:34 am

    Twitter is full of spam. I get 4 to 5 new spammers following me each day, that’s about it.

15. Cavenger
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:35 am

    Mainstream how? Nobody outside of the tech sector even cares

16. Rodney Rumford
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:39 am

    Mike,
    The real issue here is not what they are “worth”, rather the issues are how will they use the money to develop a more reliable infrastructure & monetization model.

    Twitter is rapidly becoming a communication utility for many. The third party services that are leveraging the API are also straining their infrastructure.

    How do they monetize is the 60-150 million dollar question. I am sure they could offer a tiered service but they have opened Pandora’s box by opening their API in many ways.

    Twhirl and many other services are built on the twitter API. What happens if twitter cuts them off to preserve costs? Or starts to charge per API hit? Just something to ponder.

    Rodney Rumford
    http://twitter.com/rumford

17. Dave Litsky
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:39 am

    Twitter is a great toy, but I agree with @5 (Andrew).

    @7 (ceejayoz) Simplicity is a subjective term. To mainstream consumers, Facebook is simple because it offers a wide-range of services in one spot. And don’t rely on the techies to support Twitter, because they will jump ship to the next best thing in a year.

18. Chris
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    echo @15

    I recently had to get a new mobile plan in the LA metro area, and the cheapest I could find was this one at $24.95:
    http://www.virginmobileusa.com/rates/month.do

    Metro PCS, Verizon and Sprint have out of control monthly fees.

    Forget texting. Am I going to pay $10 a month extra to use Twitter? Oh hell no. I was on Fido with my RAZR until I moved here and was paying $20 a month for mobile access. The iPhone AT&T plan is over $100.

    Twitter will go mainstream when texting isn’t a nickle and dime business, and when there is a twitter button on the phone. Plus twitter is annoying.

19. Doug
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am

    If you sign up a new user, look at the rss ID, and subtract the last digit. Pretty sure that is the total number of users on twitter. Pretty sure they had a digit to the end of the count.

20. Chris
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am

    How many people use the Seesmic button on this wordpress blog now that the initial buzz from Arrington has died down? The same goes to Twitter. People that use it, use it just to say they’re using it. It’s not a totally useful service like MySpace was in 2003 to connect to long lost friends.

    It will never jump. The investment valuations are purely speculative in nature.

21. Sunil
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am

    Who has time to give updates . Twitter is good, but not that great. TechCrunch is full of Twitter news, 3-4 in a day.

    Michael,

    You are addicted my friend.

    Get off the Twitter reporting for a week.

    Just one week… please, for your own good.

    If you don’t you’ll be giving bjs for twitter news on the streets before you know it.

    Regards,
    Max

22. Derek Gathright
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 12:01 pm

    “Once Pownce goes SMS, I think they will catch up to Twitter.”

    That’s a joke. Twitter had an 18 month head start, and when the mainstream explosion hits, Pownce will be left in the dust.

    ==

    “It’s not a totally useful service like MySpace was in 2003 to connect to long lost friends.”

    Someone apparently hasn’t “got” twitter yet.

    ==

    @Cavenger - Umm.. that’s what this post is about, “when” twitter will go mainstream. The growth patterns show it is going to expand beyond the tech sector soon. My gf uses it to tweet with her friends, local radio stations use it, a couple NBA players have begun using it. Everyone points to the moment Paris Hilton signs up as the moment Twitter will explode.

    ==

    @Andrew - Twitter replaced Facebook as my social network of choice. I want rapid communication, and twitter is so simple that it does that perfectly. Facebook is still tied to the desktop (in the way 99% of the people use it).

23. Tim G
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    Twit Crunch…this is getting sad.

24. JT
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    The normal way to value a business is through free cash flows…

    Based on this, I suspect Twitter is worth -$30 mil or so…

25. John
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    Twitter really owes Mike Arrington and the folks at Techcrunch a lot of $$, if they ever make it to a successful exit round (IPO or aquisition).

    The amount of free advertising and promotion they get form here is honestly quite staggering.

26. Mark
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

    I just don’t get these valuations. So many companies getting millions pumped into them without having a solid monetization model and making barely any revenue. I think that companies are only worth as much as the revenue they can potentially bring in. With Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and the solid collection of companies collecting alot of hype these days this potential revenue is still not clear.

27. Dave
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    Twitter is making the jump. If you go out and look at a various communities out there on the Internet you will see that Twitter is starting to be used by the none techies. Penny Arcade just did a comic on Twitter exposing the service to many who had not heard of it. I have seen Twitter usage among the owners of various fan sites (Harry Potter, Twilight etc.) become prevalent. As the owners of these communities start using Twitter to stay in touch with their members the members are embracing the service as well.

28. Will Johnston
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    @7 My question was more why the phone companies capped the number of messages they billed Twitter for, seems they would just keep billing.

29. MistOne
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    facebook should buy twitter - its all about the connecting people and sharing info - not such a clear fit with others, except maybe yahoo’s new social/open strategy they announced last week.

    @techcrunch - what do you think of possible acquires?

30. Marty
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    I’m surprised it took this long for Twitter to start garnering this kind of attention. As smart phone technology improves (the iPhone when it goes 3G will be a big driver for growth) Twitter will be mainstream. It will be interesting to see which big media company will ultimately snap them up.

31. Fede Req.
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

    Its just so easy to monetize this service, just make some premiun features, like photo uploads, super stats, lauyot customization, for i dont know 5 dolars per month, just like fotolog.com does. The rest of the people see normal advertise. If it really goes mainstream the cash will just fly in the air.

32. Brian2
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

    /agree @15 - And some of us in the tech field have a life and/or don’t want to tell people what we’re doing.

    Main stream? Maybe, but not how it’s done now. I talk to people in the main stream and 100% said that is stupid or again, why would I want to tell people what I am doing and why would they care?

    I think what some people forget is, most people have a lives, but maybe their’s a market out there, I mean I’m here replying.

33. ajadoniz
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    I would pay… one Million DOLLARS!!

34. 9ice
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    Its good for them. twitter makes a lot of sense

35. maenki
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    if I were Twitter, I would cancel sms. Nobody needs it… But everyone needs Twitter…

36. nellabara
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    twitter is great though it has a lot of slow/down time. this and the new rounds of funding just might convince a few entrepreneurs to make more and improved twitter clones. some will be successful and twitter wont be alone for much longer.

37. Les Nessman
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    I will give them $50 for their code (and a few million for their network of users). Actually, scrap that, I won’t give em a nickle for their code, flaky piece of @#!$

38. loproman
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

    They better take whatever money they can get now. As flavor of the month and a novelty at best, if they don’t find a way to monetize the service quickly they’ll soon be nothing more than yesterday’s news.

39. Ontario Emperor
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    It is appearing that my initial assessment was wrong. (See link.) I was initially pessimistic about Twitter’s viability, but was assured (via a Twitter direct message) that things looked better at Twitter than I initially imagined. I also received a public comment from Charlie Anzman that was equally positive.

    So I guess the question now is, what next?

40. Louis
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    This might be a dumb question but as I recall it, the nature of an investment is to help a company cover expenses and grow revenue. With 17 employees and SMS fees as their biggest expenses…how on earth is Twitter going to spend all this money?

41. Dianelle
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    Twitter is about as mainstream as Seesmic… Nuff said.

42. Kstraw
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 6:16 pm

    Always wondered - why and who? Saw a great “how to” video at http://commoncraft.com/Twitter coutesy of http://www.communityguy.com/ - Jake McKee. Now I know the answer to both

43. Miles (SEM iCluck)
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

    Twitter is addictive but is also just a nice social app. Where are they getting their revenues and how may they get more money other than through investments? Another thing, why need more investments? Greater technology and bandwidth? It’s just a status alert company that should turn into other avenues of social networks

44. RS
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 9:49 pm

    This much

    *makes ‘Subway’ footlong hand gesture*

45. Andrew
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    its worth the amount the tels bring in for txt msgs.

46. Dana Koor
    

    April 29th, 2008 at 2:55 am

    I thought true worth is based on revenue, gross profit and net profit. Speculative worth, why not say a billion. Real worth 17 salaries, oh but then you’d need to add a decent system architect to that.

47. Glenn AKA Wired Pig
    

    April 29th, 2008 at 8:04 pm

    Worth is also based on what the service gives to its users.

    Right now Twitter doesn’t even enforce its own Terms of Service. I’m not the only person who has basically been told to deal with it. Why does Twitter even bother with the facade of a TOS that they only expect their users to follow? The way i read their TOS is that its two way. They expect certain actions from us and we expect them to uphold the TOS. Or am I way off base?

    Read about my experiences here http://blog.wiredpig.us/2008/0.....-isnt-tos/

48. Edoardo Piccolotto
    

    May 2nd, 2008 at 1:21 am

    How worth is twitter? there are a couple of facts to consider, like for example how easy is to clone it, how much is used all around the world (A lot for sure), if there are any competitors, how strong they are, and how many money they gain in a year… Considering those and other many factors you can understand how much is worth. In my opinion we talk about Millions of Dollars… but for sure not Hundreds of Millions of dollars…

49. Ryan
    

    May 6th, 2008 at 6:51 pm

    Were some postings deleted here? A question that I posted a couple of weeks ago is gone.