Tweeter Pan
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Tweeter Pan
Everybody wants to know how Twitter will make millions. But what if it doesn’t want to grow up?
Posted Wednesday, October 8, 2008 - 12:14pm
So, Twitter's dilemma has taken the shape of an Ouroboros. The soul of the site is still rooted in the community ethos of the idyllic Web. Trying to make money off the service, they fear, will alienate the community and rob the service of its plucky aura. But in order to build the best product possible, it needs investment capital. And with investors comes a responsibility to turn a profit (whether by revenue or a buyout). But turning a profit means monetizing the community. And monetizing the community means stripping the aura. Around and around we go.
I asked Stone whether the two forces-idealism and capitalism-are mutually exclusive. He assured me they were not and that there's a way to live within both worlds. Google, of course, is the shining example of a tech company that has figured out how to straddle the boundary. For now, though, Stone and Twitter are firmly rooted in only one, too comfortable to try and find that happy medium. Some friendly, parental advice: It's tough to grow up without taking a few leaps of faith.
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Comments
User base broad enough?
This was a very solid analysis. As a Twitter fan, I have to say that I sometimes wonder about its long term prospects. Though as you mention they have improved a lot of their server/scaling issues, I still wonder if Twitter is merely for tech nerds and the journalists and bloggers who are more than happy to keep writing about them. Facebook is a broad social networking technology, thus making monetization much easier in many cases and making its long term outlook more secure. But I wonder how/if the Twitter will hit a broader audience (http://tinyurl.com/5lgvpk).
Thanks again for this post.
-Chris
twittering dollars
The beloved upstart has yet to bring in revenue. There should be no problem incorporating advertising as it grows. People love twitter!
Venture Capitalist, or Patron?
I wonder if Twitter is really viewing the Venture Capitalists who poured $15 mil into them as people they'll have to pay back 10-fold, or if they're viewing these moneybanks as renaissance-style patrons interested in attaching their name to a cultural legacy. Google has provided a pretty good model for how Web-patronage can be successful: use profit to supplement services that can't ever possibly be profitable (Google Earth, Chrome). Twitter COULD easily be profitable (even if they just sold shirts and tote bags with pictures of the Fail Whale on them), but by foregoing profitability they're establishing themselves as a service more akin to a NY library than Times Square. Eventually they can grow to the extent that someone like Google or Comcast may just buy them for a ton of money simply so that their name can be associated with the success.