Posts tagged Digg

Twitter is a popular social networking site and is taking over the globe drastically. In a way we all have a vested interests in its success so all the tweet’eers are considered to be virtual stake holders. Facebook is likely to dominate over the social stream as Google has done with the search. But that is not good for anyone, including Facebook.

Many discussions are held with the people about the face-off between Facebook and Twitter and also for the probable Google and Twitter deal. Erick Schonfeld at the Real Time Stream Crunchup event responded about Twitter giving Google their firehose feed. He said :

they could do that if they don’t plan to sell their company in the future. In other words, it is my humble opinion that if Twitter was a publicly traded stock its value would drop by 75% the second that deal was announced and for good reason.

Twitter has a remarkable impact on the internet history and has earned up consumer behaviors very quickly, created a new form of media consumption and connectivity. By now Twitter has such a strong hold over the new form of real time consumption that it can dominate over this category. But new competitors such as Facebook is coming in a fast stream too.

The experience of real-time communication and search, that sense you get of unfolding streams of relevant information to your interests and queries flowing in a digital river has arrived with Twitter coursing first through the rapids. But now that we have arrived at this new medium, what next? Does Twitter become an example of a utility that is followed by others that already have a monetization engine, leaving Twitter to ultimately drift to a respected place in Wikipedia like Netscape? Or does it continue to push the boundaries and create a sustainable and growing business that will allow it to continue to ride the whitewater?

If Twitter wishes to be distribution medium rather than communication medium it will surely give up the ghost. By correlation Google has business not as a search engine but as an advertising business that is getting profits at extraordinary rates. Google does this by owing a  distribution rate in digital age. Google, as the entry point for such a vast audience, effectively owns the distribution on the Internet as a business leader and brand. Its lead continues to grow as the audience grows.

Google’s economy is its intent. Its search drives money when users purchase a product or service. The context of the users’ actions and interests map to an intention which advertisers are eager to pay for. And the heart of Google’s success is fulfillment of user queries next to relevant content.

This is what missing in the communication platforms. For example AIM which once struggled to monetize its audiences, was a universal juggernaut of a product now falling back to footnotes in internet history. Same is with hotmail and Gmail the communication platform providers, look further into innovative news providers like Digg, Google news , and Techmeme and you will see that it is quite hard to generate significant revenues in news, certainly for pillars like New York Times, big online profits are indefinable. So there are not many prospects for building a sustainable multi-billion dollar business for Twitter either as a communications platform or a news discovery engine. So there are not many prospects for building a sustainable multi-billion dollar business for Twitter either as a communications platform or a news discovery engine.

The only way Twitter can thrive is to tap into the economy of intent. New type of useful advertising can be established in new form of discovery which for the moment can be unique. If Twitter strives for business now, than its value may be diminished. By doing a deal with Google that might give unregulated access to real tie results from Twitter in Google search, Twitter will for sure be losing in the war. For if consumers needed the same experience that is currently unique in Twitter on Google, why would they prior Twitter to search? If Twitter’s search is over looked, then Twitter is not participating in the Economy of intent and soon it will end up its value to the single digit million.

Twitter may have many ways to make money. Think of the simple impact of auto-complete in the search box to # tags. This is but one simple move which could start to drive traffic to focused streams of information, which could also map to useful advertising, just like on Google. By adding another layer of usefulness in geo tagging which gives nearby locations, warnings and recommendations. As Twitter make these changes users will automatically start focusing on discovery and will alter their behaviors to search queries. There can be so much done in this domain if critical mass of audience is present.

Twitter has to start soon to build up that place in time for the face-off competition for the advertisers. It has the unique and innovative way to establish new forms of useful advertising helping users and advertisers. They should make themselves the go-to place for in-stream advertising.

For Twitter to sign the deal with Google knowing all the prospects at this stage is equivalent to suicide and can be defined as a form of creative laziness. There are so many things they could be doing short of giving up and serving up on a silver platter. If they must do it, if they do sell data or themselves to Google, Twitter should make ample pay, for Google can afford it.

If Twitter did not create a solid way to make money, they can’t survive on their own.