For quite a while now everyone and their brother has been lobbing the “when are you going to really monetize Twitter” bombs into the micro-blogging giant’s front yard. It’s a popular thing to do but as of late that cry has lost a little steam (in part due to having real business people like Dick Costolo at the helm) and the latest move by Twitter could put a dent in one of the Internet industry’s favorite pastimes for sure.
The Next Web first reported the new Twitter for Business section and reported
The new version of business.twitter.com will provide business owners with twitter success stores, ideas, tips, tools and resources. Some of the tools included are information on promoted products and tutorials one how to communicate with customers using mobile.
Twitter’s business tools range from basic tips “What is Twitter” to more in-depth information on analytics, case studies, API integration etc.
The main page looks like this and the big attention getter is on the right side, which might as well read “Give Us Your Wallet”
Twitter is no longer just giving advertising a try with a few select folks. Now it’s official that Twitter is really open for business. It’s kind of sad to watch the old “Twitter is cool but hasn’t made a red cent” days go away. Now we have to look at Twitter as a legitimate business. Now whether what they do is meaningful is whole other story.
Along with this new way to get into advertisers pocketbooks, Twitter has updated its Twitter 101 offering with a new presentation of its old material and additional updates.
It appears now that Twitter is moving into the next phase of its development. How well it will work remains to be seen. Does advertising on Twitter give advertisers the best bang for their buck? Will more advertising be a positive or negative influence on the overall experience? To listen to Jason Falls tell it to ReadWriteWeb you certainly get one possible side of the argument clearly.
“Selling trending topics is like gaming Digg,” Falls said.
“Twitter is inviting marketing money bags to completely ruin the organic nature of the tool. When I look at something like that, I tell clients, ‘They’re just whores for your money.’ It’s obvious they’re making Facebook-like errors to try and compensate for the fact they never had a business model in mind when they built this thing.”
Yikes.
It’s too early to tell anything at this point but it does appear as if 2011 will be the Year of Real Revenue Generation for Twitter. If it isn’t then how much longer will investors put up with the excuses / reasons for not making much to this point?
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