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business newsI Tweet, But I Don't Know Why
By
Kevin Wassong
May 04, 2009 9:50 am
Twitter has everything it needs - except a business model. And revenue.
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I’ve worked in technology and the Internet for almost 15 years; I’ve seen companies come and go. I’ve lived through the dot-com boom, the bust, and the resurgence. There have been a number of occasions where I’ve asked, “What am I missing?”
Twitter is one of those occasions.
I tweet, but I have yet to figure out why. I have also yet to figure out how Twitter can make money.
What am I missing? Twitter is a $250 million company? Really? It’s actually just instant messaging, but it's semi-useless unless you have a tremendous amount of time on your hands, or took an Evelyn Wood speed-reading course.
Are people willing to pay to broadcast the most mundane crap about their daily lives? The better question is: Don’t we have something better to do than read about the mundane crap that happens in someone else’s life?
Investors are practically throwing money at Twitter in the hopes that it’s the next Facebook. Well, Twitter, I know Facebook, and you, sir, are no Facebook.
This brings me to my point: There’s a trend emerging that feels awfully familiar. It’s the trend of chasing the next big shiny thing.
In 1999, I was running the interactive division of J. Walter Thompson. I had started its outpost in the New York office. The oldest advertising agency in the world was devoid of any technology or interactive-marketing unit. The 30-second spot ruled the day.
About 2 years after starting this division, a senior executive who'd just left CNN (TWX) to join a company called All Advantage approached me. He took me, my head of account services, and my media director to lunch and put an offer on the table.
“I want to hire the 3 of you: marketing, business development and sales,” he said. He explained the business model, and at the end of the meal, he said, “What do you think?”
I asked him 2 questions: “What am I missing? How do you ever make money?”
I told him no matter how many times he tried to explain it, I still didn't get the idea. I couldn't figure out how the company would ever make money. My head of account services and the media director both left to join the startup. All Advantage raised over $200 million.
The concept was this: Download a small application to your desktop. Set up a profile. Start watching ads and get paid for the ads served that were based on your profile. More targetable, higher receptivity, shared revenue with the viewer. That was the theory.
No positions in stocks mentioned.
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