Co-founder Biz Stone told Marketing: 'We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.' He would not be drawn on the level of charges.
Stone said it could also create revenue-generating features to tap into the way brands use Twitter as a hybrid marketing and customer-service tool.
But Bob Pearson, vice-president of communities and conversations at Dell, said: 'If it becomes complicated and costly, our instinct would be to move elsewhere.' Robin Grant, managing director of social media agency We Are Social, said Twitter could charge for display ads or to access customer information for marketing.
Responding to a Marketing Twitter post asking whether they would continue to use the service if charged, brands were unconvinced. However, DVD and game rental company LoveFilm said: 'It depends - on price, demand and what else is around.'
Stone insisted Twitter would not charge individual users.
Twitter
- Twitter has raised about $20m in venture capital and is backed by Union Square Ventures, Digital Garage, Spark Capital, and Bezos Expeditions (led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos).
- It is reported to have turned down a $500m acquisition offer from Facebook.
- A new round of venture capital funding is said to value Twitter at $250m.
Why Twitter should charge on Gordon's Republic blog
Comments
Fair enough, but will they class 'celebrities' as businesses too? I think they should. Lets face it they are only on there to raise and maintain their public profiles, which in turn helps maintain their bankability. Lest face it, Twitter has become a bit of a celebrity fuck fest...
How about 'Pay2Follow': charge ppl a minimal fee to follow their fav celebs and take a cut?
...follow me for free at http://twitter.com/myeverymove
And what about publications? They're businesses too, so would they have to pay. Companies will just promote through individuals. Michael Dell could just tweet on behalf of Dell just as well. It's the same problem that every web start up encounters - how do you monetise it? People expect things for free now.
I had quite a long philosophical conversation with Fiona about this when she was writing the article, which is not entirely summed up with the quote above \(I've got some work to do on the pithy sound bite front, obviously).
The challenge Twitter will face is that there's such a grey line between personal and commercial use.
Aside from the celebrity issue, where they are clearly individuals, but using the service for commercial gain, it's grey elsewhere too.
If I spend a lot of my time on Twitter talking about business related stuff, where does that leave me?
For brands overtly using Twitter, it's not black and white either. Look at Ford's Scott Monty for example \(@ScottMonty), who uses his personal account to represent Ford. Even the account we run for Skype \(@PeteratSkype) is an individual not a brand \(as is the same for all of Dell's accounts). And of course Zappos famously have hundreds of employees on Twitter
Let's face it, Twitter is popular because it's such an interesting mix of both your personal and your business life - if fact, unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, it lets you be the whole you. Twitter will be risking a lot if they try to change this.
It's not that difficult to work out, if an account is explicitly branded or has a hight numbers of followers/ing + mad traffic... then it's kinda easier to work out.
I totally agree with Robin.., Nathan, what about Ross/Brand/Fry? They all have serious numbers of followers, large amounts of traffic and as each of them trades under there own name they couldn't be more explicitly branded.. yet they are also individuals?
So if you do it as a celebrity 'individual' you would do it amongst 'friends' ie people that you really 'know' or have a legitimate connection to in real life right, not 166,000 + star fuckers? I think its pretty easy to differentiate between individual vs in it for some gain. Anyway, Fry, Brand Ross as all BRANDS, they are clebrity BRANDS right?
I guess so... although the issue is that anyone can follow anyone else so even if Stephen Fry \(for example) wanted to be an 'individual' and follow only his friends there's nothing to stop anyone from following him. The answer would be a Facebook style model where you have to befriend people to get their updates, wouldn't that just kill Twitter though and make it a social network and not a micro-blogging platform?
excactly. so maybe they shouldn't charge. jesus, anyway, its only the bloody internet. right I'm off to make lolcats.
Twitter needs to make money at some point which is fair enough. Charging brands could be one area although I would suggest promoting their search tool and associating some PPC to this area might be a quicker revenue stream \(which is also ultimately paid by brands.) I also agree with the sentiments shared here - we are in a time of personal brands as well as corporate brands - @wossy is promoting his personal brand at every step - does he get charged? What about Robert Scoble - does he pay for his twitter or do the brands he promotes pay for it? Too many questions..
An important element for brands will be credibility - at this time there are no checks on brands claiming who they are which [if used badly] could have brand detriment which derails the whole twitter/brand bandwagon.
www.twitter.com/jamieriddell :-)
Interesting.
One could equally make the case that Twitterers should be charging Twitter. It is they who create the content that creates the traffic. I don't go to Twitter to marvel at its amazing functionality or gaze at its lovely design. Stephen Fry alone must have created considerable value for Twitter and all from the goodness of his generous soul.
This is the dilemma isn't it. People embrace and promote Web 2.0 developments in an idealistic quasi-religious way, but then get shocked that someone wants to make money out of their input.
When 2 business people go to a restaurant and discuss business the restaurant doesn't charge a supplement just because they've used the location for business purposes. Very tricky territory I think.
For Twitter to make this work simply, they should add an opt in premium account version that sits within Twitter, then anyone can have the premium version if they want, be it corporate, celeb or individual. Add extra features for the premium version, such as filtering, allowing you to use key words to filter incoming tweets, or ways to group your followers or those you're following, or ways to delve into the demographics of your followers, their locations, their amount of activity, their gender etc. All useful stuff for a corporate's marketing department and something they'd happily pay for!
An alternative business model would be to treat Twitter as any other media owner and sell targeted ads within the stream, like Facebook do. Most users will accept some advertising as a necessary evil if it allows a good service to remain free, and targeted, relevant ads can actually be a good thing.
All valid points above. The one thing I would say is Twitter with all its venture capital MUST have had a plan for making money out of the idea, or at least Facebook will have done if they offered $500m? It seems all a bit vague.
HI Jude
I'm not so sure that advertising is the way to go with twitter, or with many sites & services like these. I feel adding an extra layer of services worth paying for is a better approach, as long as it doesn't alienate or lessen the initial free service. Think of Flickr or Wordpress as good examples of this, the free services are excellent, but the pro or upgraded services offer additional benefits. Plus over time, many of the paid for services filter there way down into the freemium service as new features are added to the premium service. Either way, let's see how this all pans out, won't stop my twittering!
Is Twitter really a business or is it just an online phenomenon? Wrestling with the notion of revenue generation seems a bit bizarre at this stage and, certainly, will involve some sort of dilution of the proposition.
I'm not convinced it will benefit from an Ads supplied by Google type box and the idea of charging businesses for an enhanced account also seems like a bit of a challenge. Ironically, the less business-like a brand is on Twitter, the more likely its tweets are to succeed.
Maybe we should just enjoy Twitter until the money runs out and something else comes along ...
Oh dear Nathan, has anyone said you come across as a somewhat bitter individual...
yes. every day. but it keeps me in business. anyway, as i said, lolcats....
I agree with the points about celebrities- but feel that this spreads further out to other brands. Where is the line in the sand going to be drawn celebs/ websites/ blogs?
Furthermore I feel that a lot of users promote their brands/companies through personal accounts and not just via a company specific one so its not so black and white. Its a shame as being a very small company on the platform we could be financially forced off- which is ironic considering what a financial level playing field twitter and social media can be in terms of marketing and building an audience.
I agree with Alan. I think at this early stage Twitter is on-line phenomenon. It right for them to be thinking about how to monetarise it but they should probably wait to see how it evolves/is used as it becomes more mainstream.
@RobinGrant ... I don't think the real value is in charging companies for display ads. It is a conversation, and brands/products want in on it. Not easy, but relagating them to the sidelines as posters is not a very good option. Access customer information for marketing, on the other hand, is certain to have tremendous appeal.
They should offer custom templates and other nice things to make things look good ... You know how marketing directors get when it comes to being "on brand" and all. That'll make 'em a ton of $$$.
And I'd make it really easy for savvy companies to create and deliver "command line services" like the unofficial ones from the rail and @myflightinfo ... Tons of utility there which is bound to create brand love and bucks.
Special kudos to Fiona for getting Biz to spill the story. Way to go!!!
~G~
Brendan is spot on. A premium account option similar to Flickr would certainly be the way to go. I suggest a simple maximum number of tweets allowed per month before you have to pay a small amount to upgrade to more tweets.
Offering multiple account options would also be wise to keep users content with what they are paying for. This is exactly how most mobile companies offer sms and texting, which is easily connected to Twitter updates. Hopefully, Twitter will stay away from the mobile companies...
@Nick Myers You're suggesting that it would be better to charge the average person for the right to follow a celeb than to charge the celeb for the right to access a huge audience? I'd have to heartily disagree...
What about offering special incentives to non-profits. That is 501\(c)x organizations?
@TESS ALPS I like your idea -- twitter should be charging twitterers :) !! That's the best idea I've heard thus far :)
Or not:
http://blog.twitter.com/2009/02/nothing-to-report-just-yet.html
@Abdulrahman Rafiq
Thanks, but in fact I suggested the opposite: that Twitter should pay Twitterers. But not very seriously!
Give the downturn in the ad market, and the number of brands joining Twitter at the moment, it seems like a sensible idea to me. It's not going to deter users from using the service and brands get a fantastic communication tool. Good luck to them
one of the things about twitter that interests me is how celebrities are using it to promote their profile and ventures. they are not explicitly a brand but are behaving like one. will twitter charge celebrities? how will this kind of use be treated. i'm thinking more of people like TV/radio presenters flagging up their shows and there's a few celebs using it to promote their websites but coming across in a more personal, informal, chatty way.
oh yeah, and you can follow me at @anilkapoor !
@ TESS ALPS - I actually think you're on to something with the "Twitter paying Twitterers" thing...Just look at what YouTube have done with their Partner Programme \(http://www.youtube.com/partners). However, that doesn't solve the ultimate problem of where the revenue comes from in the first instance - I think that @ Brendan Mitchell is the closest on this...
Nick - @nickfell
*reads 31 comments and wonders what all the fuss is about
it is too arbitrary to charge for "commercial use." they are going to need a less ambiguous metric.
Comments
nathan williams - 10/02/2009
Fair enough, but will they class 'celebrities' as businesses too? I think they should. Lets face it they are only on there to raise and maintain their public profiles, which in turn helps maintain their bankability. Lest face it, Twitter has become a bit of a celebrity fuck fest...
Nick Myers - 10/02/2009
How about 'Pay2Follow': charge ppl a minimal fee to follow their fav celebs and take a cut? ...follow me for free at http://twitter.com/myeverymove
Phil Szomszor - 10/02/2009
And what about publications? They're businesses too, so would they have to pay. Companies will just promote through individuals. Michael Dell could just tweet on behalf of Dell just as well. It's the same problem that every web start up encounters - how do you monetise it? People expect things for free now.
Robin Grant - 10/02/2009
I had quite a long philosophical conversation with Fiona about this when she was writing the article, which is not entirely summed up with the quote above \(I've got some work to do on the pithy sound bite front, obviously). The challenge Twitter will face is that there's such a grey line between personal and commercial use. Aside from the celebrity issue, where they are clearly individuals, but using the service for commercial gain, it's grey elsewhere too. If I spend a lot of my time on Twitter talking about business related stuff, where does that leave me? For brands overtly using Twitter, it's not black and white either. Look at Ford's Scott Monty for example \(@ScottMonty), who uses his personal account to represent Ford. Even the account we run for Skype \(@PeteratSkype) is an individual not a brand \(as is the same for all of Dell's accounts). And of course Zappos famously have hundreds of employees on Twitter Let's face it, Twitter is popular because it's such an interesting mix of both your personal and your business life - if fact, unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, it lets you be the whole you. Twitter will be risking a lot if they try to change this.
nathan williams - 10/02/2009
It's not that difficult to work out, if an account is explicitly branded or has a hight numbers of followers/ing + mad traffic... then it's kinda easier to work out.
Dan Bye - 10/02/2009
I totally agree with Robin.., Nathan, what about Ross/Brand/Fry? They all have serious numbers of followers, large amounts of traffic and as each of them trades under there own name they couldn't be more explicitly branded.. yet they are also individuals?
nathan williams - 10/02/2009
So if you do it as a celebrity 'individual' you would do it amongst 'friends' ie people that you really 'know' or have a legitimate connection to in real life right, not 166,000 + star fuckers? I think its pretty easy to differentiate between individual vs in it for some gain. Anyway, Fry, Brand Ross as all BRANDS, they are clebrity BRANDS right?
Dan Bye - 10/02/2009
I guess so... although the issue is that anyone can follow anyone else so even if Stephen Fry \(for example) wanted to be an 'individual' and follow only his friends there's nothing to stop anyone from following him. The answer would be a Facebook style model where you have to befriend people to get their updates, wouldn't that just kill Twitter though and make it a social network and not a micro-blogging platform?
nathan williams - 10/02/2009
excactly. so maybe they shouldn't charge. jesus, anyway, its only the bloody internet. right I'm off to make lolcats.
Jamie Riddell - 10/02/2009
Twitter needs to make money at some point which is fair enough. Charging brands could be one area although I would suggest promoting their search tool and associating some PPC to this area might be a quicker revenue stream \(which is also ultimately paid by brands.) I also agree with the sentiments shared here - we are in a time of personal brands as well as corporate brands - @wossy is promoting his personal brand at every step - does he get charged? What about Robert Scoble - does he pay for his twitter or do the brands he promotes pay for it? Too many questions.. An important element for brands will be credibility - at this time there are no checks on brands claiming who they are which [if used badly] could have brand detriment which derails the whole twitter/brand bandwagon. www.twitter.com/jamieriddell :-)
TESS ALPS - 10/02/2009
Interesting. One could equally make the case that Twitterers should be charging Twitter. It is they who create the content that creates the traffic. I don't go to Twitter to marvel at its amazing functionality or gaze at its lovely design. Stephen Fry alone must have created considerable value for Twitter and all from the goodness of his generous soul. This is the dilemma isn't it. People embrace and promote Web 2.0 developments in an idealistic quasi-religious way, but then get shocked that someone wants to make money out of their input. When 2 business people go to a restaurant and discuss business the restaurant doesn't charge a supplement just because they've used the location for business purposes. Very tricky territory I think.
Brendan Mitchell - 10/02/2009
For Twitter to make this work simply, they should add an opt in premium account version that sits within Twitter, then anyone can have the premium version if they want, be it corporate, celeb or individual. Add extra features for the premium version, such as filtering, allowing you to use key words to filter incoming tweets, or ways to group your followers or those you're following, or ways to delve into the demographics of your followers, their locations, their amount of activity, their gender etc. All useful stuff for a corporate's marketing department and something they'd happily pay for!
Jude Brooks - 10/02/2009
An alternative business model would be to treat Twitter as any other media owner and sell targeted ads within the stream, like Facebook do. Most users will accept some advertising as a necessary evil if it allows a good service to remain free, and targeted, relevant ads can actually be a good thing.
Mark Cadbury - 10/02/2009
All valid points above. The one thing I would say is Twitter with all its venture capital MUST have had a plan for making money out of the idea, or at least Facebook will have done if they offered $500m? It seems all a bit vague.
Brendan Mitchell - 10/02/2009
HI Jude I'm not so sure that advertising is the way to go with twitter, or with many sites & services like these. I feel adding an extra layer of services worth paying for is a better approach, as long as it doesn't alienate or lessen the initial free service. Think of Flickr or Wordpress as good examples of this, the free services are excellent, but the pro or upgraded services offer additional benefits. Plus over time, many of the paid for services filter there way down into the freemium service as new features are added to the premium service. Either way, let's see how this all pans out, won't stop my twittering!
Alan Munro - 10/02/2009
Is Twitter really a business or is it just an online phenomenon? Wrestling with the notion of revenue generation seems a bit bizarre at this stage and, certainly, will involve some sort of dilution of the proposition. I'm not convinced it will benefit from an Ads supplied by Google type box and the idea of charging businesses for an enhanced account also seems like a bit of a challenge. Ironically, the less business-like a brand is on Twitter, the more likely its tweets are to succeed. Maybe we should just enjoy Twitter until the money runs out and something else comes along ...
RandHobart - 10/02/2009
Oh dear Nathan, has anyone said you come across as a somewhat bitter individual...
nathan williams - 10/02/2009
yes. every day. but it keeps me in business. anyway, as i said, lolcats....
Marie Foulston - 10/02/2009
I agree with the points about celebrities- but feel that this spreads further out to other brands. Where is the line in the sand going to be drawn celebs/ websites/ blogs? Furthermore I feel that a lot of users promote their brands/companies through personal accounts and not just via a company specific one so its not so black and white. Its a shame as being a very small company on the platform we could be financially forced off- which is ironic considering what a financial level playing field twitter and social media can be in terms of marketing and building an audience.
ANDREW WEIR - 10/02/2009
I agree with Alan. I think at this early stage Twitter is on-line phenomenon. It right for them to be thinking about how to monetarise it but they should probably wait to see how it evolves/is used as it becomes more mainstream.
George Nimeh - 10/02/2009
@RobinGrant ... I don't think the real value is in charging companies for display ads. It is a conversation, and brands/products want in on it. Not easy, but relagating them to the sidelines as posters is not a very good option. Access customer information for marketing, on the other hand, is certain to have tremendous appeal. They should offer custom templates and other nice things to make things look good ... You know how marketing directors get when it comes to being "on brand" and all. That'll make 'em a ton of $$$. And I'd make it really easy for savvy companies to create and deliver "command line services" like the unofficial ones from the rail and @myflightinfo ... Tons of utility there which is bound to create brand love and bucks. Special kudos to Fiona for getting Biz to spill the story. Way to go!!! ~G~
Peter Landt - 10/02/2009
Brendan is spot on. A premium account option similar to Flickr would certainly be the way to go. I suggest a simple maximum number of tweets allowed per month before you have to pay a small amount to upgrade to more tweets. Offering multiple account options would also be wise to keep users content with what they are paying for. This is exactly how most mobile companies offer sms and texting, which is easily connected to Twitter updates. Hopefully, Twitter will stay away from the mobile companies...
Danny Nathan - 10/02/2009
@Nick Myers You're suggesting that it would be better to charge the average person for the right to follow a celeb than to charge the celeb for the right to access a huge audience? I'd have to heartily disagree...
Abdulrahman Rafiq - 10/02/2009
What about offering special incentives to non-profits. That is 501\(c)x organizations?
Abdulrahman Rafiq - 10/02/2009
@TESS ALPS I like your idea -- twitter should be charging twitterers :) !! That's the best idea I've heard thus far :)
George Nimeh - 11/02/2009
Or not: http://blog.twitter.com/2009/02/nothing-to-report-just-yet.html
TESS ALPS - 11/02/2009
@Abdulrahman Rafiq Thanks, but in fact I suggested the opposite: that Twitter should pay Twitterers. But not very seriously!
Anil Kapoor - 11/02/2009
Give the downturn in the ad market, and the number of brands joining Twitter at the moment, it seems like a sensible idea to me. It's not going to deter users from using the service and brands get a fantastic communication tool. Good luck to them
Anil Kapoor - 11/02/2009
one of the things about twitter that interests me is how celebrities are using it to promote their profile and ventures. they are not explicitly a brand but are behaving like one. will twitter charge celebrities? how will this kind of use be treated. i'm thinking more of people like TV/radio presenters flagging up their shows and there's a few celebs using it to promote their websites but coming across in a more personal, informal, chatty way.
Anil Kapoor - 11/02/2009
oh yeah, and you can follow me at @anilkapoor !
Nick Fell - 11/02/2009
@ TESS ALPS - I actually think you're on to something with the "Twitter paying Twitterers" thing...Just look at what YouTube have done with their Partner Programme \(http://www.youtube.com/partners). However, that doesn't solve the ultimate problem of where the revenue comes from in the first instance - I think that @ Brendan Mitchell is the closest on this... Nick - @nickfell
AwallafaShagba - 11/02/2009
*reads 31 comments and wonders what all the fuss is about
Ryan Evans - 11/02/2009
it is too arbitrary to charge for "commercial use." they are going to need a less ambiguous metric.