Comments on: Britney Spears is on Twitter!

By: Kacey

Kacey — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:18:19 +0000

Britney Spears is simply the best pop singer. i like her superb stage performance and her sexiness

By: Eric Warnke

Eric Warnke — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:17:56 +0000

Dub5, a company in Edmonton appends simple text ads to the end of their SMS messages. I am willing to bet that most tweets don’t max out the SMS limit of 160 chars (I think).

Another thing they could do is sell their data to market research firms. I’m sure Twitter could paint a pretty picture for whatever hot topic you’re looking for feedback on.

By: Mack D. Male

Mack D. Male — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:06:55 +0000

Honest answer: I don’t really know. I think I’d try a few things to see what sticks.

Couple ideas:

Twitter as a platform has potential. Why not charge enterprises for the ability to build things on top of it? Not just simple API access, but for extra things, such as access to the XMPP feed and a support plan of some kind. I don’t think it makes sense for Twitter to build a separate enterprise version of Twitter, but there is a chance that they could help enterprises leverage the public Twitter.

I don’t think putting ads on Twitter makes sense, but I see no reason why they can’t put ads on Twitter Search. I think that’s a more appropriate place for advertising, so long as it’s clear what’s an ad and what’s not (just like on Google).

By: Rob Davy

Rob Davy — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:01:38 +0000

The biggest ‘problem’ with Twitter is it’s SO simple. Google, Facebook, etc are relatively complicated and deep things. Twitter is simple. There’s so few opportunities within your interaction with Twitter to, say, put ads. A lot of people don’t even interact directly with Twitter, but through a 3rd party, making it even harder to give them ads.

The 1-in-20 messages is an ad thing is a stupid idea imho, especially if they’re being SMSd to people. But at the same time, it’s the most obvious. Then you start wondering what else they could do, and there isn’t much.

How would *you* monetize twitter? Not just ‘put ads’ or ‘enterprises version’, but details. It’s the details that make most plans for Twitter fail.

(get a kick back from cell providers is the only somewhat plausible idea, but suffers from the old ‘why would they providers bother giving you money’ problem)

By: Mack D. Male

Mack D. Male — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:53:47 +0000

Well judging by what Fred Wilson wrote on his blog, I think that’s the correct way to read it actually.

It sounds a little out-to-lunch, but I think the strategy is a good one. Google didn’t figure out its business model right away, and you could argue that Facebook hasn’t yet either. Yet they have turned out okay.

By: Rob Davy

Rob Davy — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:51:27 +0000

“Apparently they will be doing something on the business model front next year”

lol. I read that as “Apparently they will be thinking about developing a business model next year… whether they’ll find one or not is un-known”

By: Mack D. Male

Mack D. Male — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:17:28 +0000

Apparently they will be doing something on the business model front next year. See the discussion here: http://www.techmeme.com/081018/p26#a081018p26

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:15:55 +0000

Does this really matter if Twitter doesn’t have a revenue model?

By: Mack D. Male

Mack D. Male — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:59:04 +0000

As I pointed out, it’s not just Britney updating the account.

And actually, I disagree with you. When it’s just text anyway, can you tell the difference between updates that Britney writes herself or updates that someone else writes? As far as the vast majority of people are concerned, that account = Britney Spears. And that’s enough to get more people to sign up for Twitter.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:56:21 +0000

I think it’s a really huge difference between being ‘On Twitter’ and having your publicist be ‘On Twitter, on your Behalf’.

John Cleese is ON Twitter.
Britney Spears has marketing people ON Twitter.

It’s not mainstream, when it’s being uses purely as a marketing tool.