Fast Talk

February 17, 2008

Q: Will Twitter ever make money? | posted by Saabira Chaudhuri

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29 Total

February 17, 2008 at 11:59am

Shyamala Rajaram
Yes it can

February 17, 2008 at 12:11pm

Jimmy Gardner
It seems that everyone but twitter will make $$ using Twitters developed API and platform. Odd isn't it ?

February 17, 2008 at 3:51pm

Sheikh Imran Ahmed
Everything is possible.

February 17, 2008 at 4:08pm

Gary Mead
I think Twitter is not an idea that will last very long. I have never used the service myself. This is just a trend and will fade - in time.

February 17, 2008 at 8:23pm

Chris Heuer
ev and biz will sell the service which will then be integrated as part of a 'bundle' so they will make money, though I dont think the service itself will...

February 17, 2008 at 8:40pm

Andrew Field
Maybe, buit not because it is a good idea. Who really wants a larger number of shallow relationships in their life? Personally, I'd like a smaller number of "friends," and deeper relationships with each of them.

February 17, 2008 at 9:19pm

m e
Revenue - costs = profit (Overhead fixed costs and variable costs) "Free" services really arent free and more and more, we will have to learn enough legal terminology to if we as users can tolerate what's being sold. Ads or location based ads or summary data or outright user info They will have to earn revenue somehow. Cost cutting mode usually leads to a down spiral and quality and feature loss. Perhaps the Twitter part is a loss leader and another independent product or service is sold to get revenue.

February 18, 2008 at 2:26pm

Seth Kravitz
This isn't the business model of a company that was ever meant to make money. This is the web 2.0 business model which is to reach critical mass and hope to get bought by a larger company looking to vertically or horizontally integrate. Its options as it stands are third party ads, display ads, direct sales (which requires hiring a sales team) or selling ads in a newsletter. Unless it plans on selling millions of twitter tshirts, I doubt you will see any significant revenue. That leaves you with the final rev option which is email list rental or sales. They obviously have a ton of emails and could generate tens of thousands a month renting their list. Obviously, the backlash would be quite severe when the users caught on. Oh well, hopefully they get bought, otherwise their infrastructure costs will slowly deplete their VC funding down.

February 18, 2008 at 2:27pm

Lukas Soukup
I think it will - I can image people to pay for being able to follow a day of their favourite movie stars or sportsmen - see what they are doing to compare or just simply get some inspiration...

February 18, 2008 at 3:51pm

alex harris
I don't think it will be tough for Twitter to turn their model into a profitable one.

February 18, 2008 at 3:58pm

B Chappell
The twitter application has great potential to anyone who can utilize it for business use. The ability to post both online and via a mobile unit allows important content to be shared and posted to a web page in real time.

February 18, 2008 at 4:41pm

Ram Tantaloor
Does that really matter? The real question, what real and tangible value does it serve? I am not entirely convinced.

February 18, 2008 at 7:10pm

Chris Messina
Probably, but not much.

February 18, 2008 at 7:12pm

Matt Halfhill
I honestly have no use for this service what so ever and find it to be rather annoying. Some ad network execs put the annoying thing on our site and it was happily removed after a week or two. I am sure twitter will be one of those *cool* 2.0 apps that no one cares about in a year or two.

February 18, 2008 at 7:59pm

Brad Trnavsky
As popular as it is today I think it will eventually die out.

February 19, 2008 at 1:05am

Yasa Ali Reza
Wish for a better difference!

February 19, 2008 at 1:44am

Christian Gammill
whenever it wants to...

February 19, 2008 at 3:41am

randulo randulos
Yes, but only they know how at the moment :)

February 19, 2008 at 5:49am

Gautam Ghosh
i am a twitter user and I think any ad or other monetization systems they add might actually detract from the value of the service. I would rather hope that the technology gets integrated into a larger bouquet of social network services.

February 19, 2008 at 10:59am

Marc Stender
I certainly hope so! On the other hand...I really couldn't care less for if this sort of communication is of any value to mankind it will last, with or without Twitter.

February 20, 2008 at 9:56am

Kevin Milden
Yes. Twitter has become a way for the public to report the news in real time from multiple points of view. Imagine how useful it could of been during September 11th. When it is used to breaks the news first about a historical event then it will become a household name and very valuable.

February 20, 2008 at 9:59am

Hashim Warren
Twitter will make as much money as AIM does - none.

February 20, 2008 at 5:49pm

Ron West
What if we didn't care how much money Twitter made. What if like some other public services it was funded to just exist. It is a great mechanism for the public to report information. Can't we just have a great product with no advertisements that doesn't cost anything?

February 21, 2008 at 5:57pm

Brandon Houston
I don't imagine Twitter will start to generate revenue. Anything they do at this point will no doubt be scrutinized. It's always harder to take a service like this and turn it into a money-maker after the fact than if they had a revenue generating system in place in the beginning.

February 25, 2008 at 7:16pm

James Belle
they could try adsense for mobile! there must be a way to monetise it.

February 29, 2008 at 2:25pm

Aimee Westbrook
That isn't the point currently - great article in March INC mag - http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080301/anything-could-happen.html

March 19, 2008 at 9:12am

I dont think Twitter will ever make money.. but maybe they might if they sell to Google :)

March 20, 2008 at 10:35pm

Alex Williams
I think a great way to monetize it would be to charge andy for profit co. to have an account. That way, people who wanted to hear from that brand via Twitter, which there a lot of brands who would have that pull, would have to pay to have an account.

March 22, 2008 at 2:12pm

Justin Ross
Why not place a text ad for every 10 or 15 tweets in your feed