Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter was in San Diego last week and was interviewed by the local paper. I have attached the article if you want to read it. In the article there is also a link to the entire 55 minute interview.
There were a couple of key things I was looking for:
First, was Twitter a visionary foresight or just a lucky shot? I have my opinion but you can decide for yourself.
Second, is it making anybody money? Not a penny so far. In fact, they have invested $57M.
Third, how do they plan on eventually making money? Targeted advertising. How are people going to feel about that.
Fourth, how are they going to grow the product to keep people interested? To me, it sounds like they are moving closer to the space currently occupied by the Facebooks, Flickrs and You Tubes of the world. If that happens we will probably see a consolidation in the market of similar businesses.
Anyway, I thought the article was cool because it offers a peek into the business side of Twitter.
I am interested that Twitter has made no money yet and that advertising will be their salvation. How long can advertising continue to be the source of our online experiences?
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting questions about consumer behavior. How can you get people to pay for online content they clearly enjoy? Unfortunately, because of the way the internet came about, people have this view that content is 'free' to produce, and therefore there is no need for them to pay. But, as you point out, it is unclear how far advertising can go to keep businesses afloat.
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