The first signs of life of a business model for Twitter are finally showing.
The company has hired Kevin Thau away from Buzzwire, where he served as Vice President of Sales & Business Development, to become the company’s first business development director, as the updated position in Thau’s LinkedIn profile attests. In the blog post announcing the hire, the startup says Thau is actually becoming the Director of Mobile Business Development, but later in the post actively working on their mobile business strategy is listed as an ‘also’, next to “assessing all opportunities” and “picking up ongoing threads” from the “crushing amount of partnership opportunities” Twitter receives on a daily basis.
Kevin Thau has experience dealing with carriers, phone manufacturers and content providers & distributors from his previous positions, so Twitter is likely taking the logical route of attempting to monetize the service through partnerships with that type of companies as well as sponsored corporate accounts. Thau was hired late last month and has been eating his own dogfood as an active Twitter user for some time now.
This isn’t the only business position Twitter was trying to fill: there’s still room for that product business manager and one that seems like the most important one if Twitter ever wants to start making money: a director of strategic partnerships.
(Photo from Flickr)
Evan Willians, in this video from Web 2.0 summit conference, talks about the Future of Media and opportunities that Twitter has to capture that segment and maybe they can monetize in that area somehow.
http://tweetube.com/s
-Marcio
It’s going to be so difficult for them to monetize. The reason for some of their large success is that they don’t advertise themselves, and everyone on Twitter is able to promote their work, product, service, or company. If Twitter had a “pro” program kind of like Flickr, that might be much cooler. Maybe extra account features for “pro” users, much like Pownce did.
do any of the standout Web 2.0 companies advertise? Twitter doesn’t, and I don’t think Facebook or Google do either.
Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing with me? It seems as though you are almost confirming what I said.. Haha
A pro account (at a cost) could be very cool. I’m sure Twitter could make some extra features that would be worthy of this sort of thing.
It’s about time. Twitter already has countless businesses using it as a business model and trying to make money off it.
How many business do you think are really making a profit?
Any business that hopes to STAY in business should be making a profit. At least, it should be generating revenue with hopes of making a profit at some point.
Otherwise, it’s not a business, it’s a charity or a hobby.
Completely agree with you Tony.
One great marketer puts it this way: “Nothing moves without a sale.”
Make money? Hmmm, what a novel concept. I love Twitter but I don’t see how this becomes a profitable business. Best of luck to them though.
Could this be a business model already? Invest, let it grow, think about monetizing. I like the idea of a pro membership on Twitter, it can be aimed at businesses who use Twitter for marketing.
“Someone to work on the crushing amount of partnership opportunities” — what a position to be in. Having a backlog of people to talk to – that are interested in what you are doing – now that’s a biz dev professionals dream job.
I agree. The biz dev manager for a well known company does not have to create new revenue channels. He has to sort through the dozens of proposals submitted by other companies and pick the ones that best align with the company long term strategy.
I hope he’s bringing a team of people with him…..I don’t think the job of figuring out how to make money @ twitter is a one person job!
You guys must have tried to find a bad picture of Kevin. Whats up with that? He is so handsome in most pictures. This picture makes him look like someone who woke up after a 3 day nap.
Kevin at work: http://www.flic...ice/3182346139/
there, better?
Actually it was hard to find one in the first place.
I think there is a business model in there somewhere and I’m very curious to see what it becomes and how they can make it happen without frustrating their existing users. Social networks like Twitter are very valuable … that is what they really have to monetize not the technology.
1. Too early. Leave niche twitter clones open field.
2. @patrick monetizing is easy. Staying dominant is the tricky part.
3. Best wishes. Just hope you do some more creative than microsoft banner ads … @kevinrose
Kevin,
Glad to see your career really taking off. After getting to know you at Air2Web, I’m really not surprised.
Why hasnt Twitter simply incorporated Adsense on profile pages and search results?
Good comment – something like I said below. But I am not sure if it would work with users in two ways. 1. The user might not want it on their background or 2. People using twitter might not click enough on AdSense for it to generate enough business -but who knows. I think they should try it with a share revenue model with the user. What do you think?
I don’t think they have anything to lose by trying at this point. Twitter clearly has momentum and is on the verge of a tipping point, all this, despite the crappy sign-up process.
The fact that they havent made search more visible/prominent on their site just makes me question their ability to scale for the masses..
@nemrut read last part
http://www.tech...h-list-q1-2009/
Well I hope we don’t have to start paying for Twitter. I will be VERY interested at seeing what business model come up for this vast project!
Whatever helps Twitter become more functional, is good news in my book.
Now just let us back up our messages, follower/ing lists and organize them so we can manage them better! Please!
Subscribe to the RSS feed of your Twitter stream, and you will have your messages “backed-up”. The rest of what you want can come from the API (there may be a 3rd party service/tool for this purpose, ask Winer).
I would pay a monthly fee ($5-10) to be able to go to 280 characters. That’s my mini-revenue model.
Twitter is already an indispensable business channel for us.
Boom! See there ya go, a great “Pro” feature. Doing something like that would keep the dominance (@wan bob kim) and that would help build some revenue. Great job Martin!
Twittelator Pro, developed by Biz Stone, one of the Twitter partners, sells the app for 4.95 for iphones. I bought it. On Twittelator Pro there is a “Featured Tweeters” link that brings up heavy hitting Tweeters like MCHammer, Britney Spears, Whole Foods…and on. I imagine you have to pay to become one of these “Featured Tweeters.” It seems to be the business model for many social networking companies… pay to stick out from the rest.
I think “large legitimate businesses” should have to pay to sling their wares on Twitter, keep it free for the art/ design /development community. How you would determine who is who… not sure.
correction… apparently there’s a Biz Stone (Twitter) and an Andrew Stone (Twittelator)
brothers perhaps?!?
They should have charged for companies using their API.
Their creation will end up making a lot of other people money. In many ways I can see twitter not existing as such in a few years time, but what they created, i.e. the method of communicating, will be around for a long long time.
Twitter is a great business communication tool and maybe some businesses will pay a small amount per month to tweet but I think you loose a great deal of people if you charge individuals. If you loose individuals for charging them then you loose businesses. You can do advertisement on the front page but that might not be worth it for advertisers? They can create a share revenue model and allow individuals to make money off allowing advertisers to place advisements on their twitter background – while they get a percentage of every deal. As one of the people should above they can charge more for tweets more than 140 characters. Besides something like what I am saying I don’t see them making money –so I hope this new guy is real good.
I still think my idea is the simplest and most obvious way to monetize Twitter. Charge a $1 a month or $10 annual in advance for personal accounts and maybe more for business accounts and allow people to sponsor accounts for people who can’t even afford the &10 or give a subscriptions as a gift. More would put people off and less wouldn’t really be worth doing, or maybe less on such a huge membership would work…
The problem w/this approach is not cost per say but inconvenience of online payment and trust. Users have to be reassured that their personal info wont be breached as easily as Twitter accounts were during the incompetent admin/fiasco last week.
It was really a silly and sloppy mistake made by a company that has received $20M in funding…they really need som new leadership imo…
I’d adsense the right side of the page. The shear volume of clicks should help fund the company soda fund at least if not the vacation condos.
The idea of expanding to a charged model…$1.99 per month. Once again the shear volume of users will put a substantial amount of money in the bank and it’s not like the number is shrinking. The clones out there are offering some freaky replacements and I keep coming back to twitter itself as the simplicity factor is hard to beat.
And if they need someone who really likes the service to step in and work with them, make me an offer. I love the company and coming back to San Francisco would be a real treat for us.
Michael Murdock
Business model? Who needs it? They’ll live on hopes and dreams and fluffy hybrid bunny/unicorns.
http://agitatio...goes-mainstream
I think this is a smart move on the part of Twitter. They need to make money one way or the other, so hire a guy who has the experience, and hopefully the skills and connections who can do it. Kudos to Twitter.
I’m curious to see how this pans out. As a daily user of twitter, I have no interest in filling my stream with businesses hocking their wares. If twitter becomes just another junk engine, I would drop it. That said, I support their efforts to become profitable. The new guy has his work cut out for him.
I always thought there should be a separate stream for “business” accounts. People who are interested in such would flock there. A variety of revenue streams come to mind. A protection could be “business” accounts come with an option to NOT show in your stream if you so wish.
Wrote a post about this subject not to long ago.
http://www.flairjax.com/?p=60
1. Twitter can dominate the news. I mentioned news page, who better to get the news from then those involved. Kobe twittering his response to the last the game. Earthquake survivors. Twitter can own the news and the twitters stories for a fee. Forget CNN what is Twitter saying.
2. Twitter shopping…make all purchases flea market or more appropriately a bazaar.
see the post at http://www.flairjax.com/?p=60
They need to fix their search before making money..
What’s wrong with search?
Well done Kevin! Great hire by Twitter!
Thats a very interesting article. Ya Twitter should also think of something to make money.
Yogindernath
http://www.soft...stinggenius.com
next they should hire somebody whose job it is to keep the f*cking site from crashing every half hour
They should be giving people more reasons to pay for the service, offer a premium service with more features, find a way to sell ads and launch some more services to the Twitter community
My advice to Twitter: Don’t clutter the user interface with ads, but let users pay a little fee that doesn’t hurt – maybe $1 per month. I pay 6 Euro per month for my premium account with Xing (something like LinkedIn), and already I get a lot more out of Twitter, although I only signed up about 4 weeks ago. So here, Twitter, if you read this – I’m volunteering to pay for your service!
Yaa Twitter crashes too often. I want them to address this issue very soon.
Jackie
http://bio-gene...ix.blogspot.com
Just read this guys twitter, and he repeatedly gets your and you’re mixed up. Not a good sign.
I think Twitter is struggling to find anyone of real quality to hire.
I must admit i think Twitter will be pretty much dead by the end of 2009 contary to popular opinion.
Twitter: Why Couldn’t They do This Before? {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/eiGeLCsEob_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Twitter: Why Couldn’t They do This Before? ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/Eiq5F7O8P6″}}}
I just cannot figure out a way that these guys can make the money they are going to need. They are in real trouble. Nobody is going to want their phone spammed and they’re not going to pay to use twitter.
He goes from a VP at a company making money to a Director at a company without a revenue model? And no employs, just himself to try to figure it out? Talk about a career step down. Guess he wanted fame instead of money.
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why not twitter incorporate adsense in its profile pages