TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

monetisation

Listorious is quick off the mark to find best Twitter Lists

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With about half of Twitter users able to access Twitter Lists as they’re rolled out to everyone, independant Twitter list directory Listorious has been quick to launch and offer curated lists on a range of topics.

It’s interesting to see whether the relatively peer-led recommendation of Twitter lists will displace directories of individual users grouped by category such as WeFollow and Twellow. Obviously there are concerns about both the follower-inflation that everyone has seen from the Suggested User List presented to new users, as well as individuals worried about being pigeon-holed and lists becoming reciprocal favours rather than recommendations.

It’s also likely to diminish the value of the longstanding Twitter tradition of #followfriday.

From a business point of view it makes utter sense for Twitter to have some input/control of listing users – all the examples above have been relatively successful. What’s the betting that an option to promote a specific list could be in the monetisation plans? Spend some cash and your list could be promoted to everyone, or possibly replace the Suggested User List for a period of time?

Suddenly they’d have a route for grabbing sums like the $250,000 offered earlier this year by Jason Calacanis, without it being flagged up as obvious in a list of just 20 or so people.

And obviously list pages themselves offer individual sponsorship/promotional oppportunities…

As a user of Twitter, I’m undecided whether lists will be a positive thing on balance, but as a Twitter observer it’s one of the biggest steps they’ve made in a long time towards making money.

Mashable monetizes Twitter in an innovative way

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One way to monetise Twitter seems to be using feeds/information outside of the site itself – good news for sites and businesses, if not for Twitter directly.

Probably the best use so far is by Mashable, revealed today. In conjunction with viral scientist, Mashable contributor and Twitter uber-analyst Dan Zarrella, the site now has a widget displaying ‘Twitter Brand Sponsors’.

Quoting from Mashable:

‘Twitter Brand Sponsors is a small step towards our sociable ads goal. Here’s how it works: a limited number of brands (and one charity!) looking to engage with the social media community can have their latest Tweets syndicated into the Mashable sidebar, and interested visitors can choose to connect with those brands on Twitter.’

The first sponsors are Jetblue and Mailchimp, indicating that there’s interest at launch – it will be interesting to see how many companies are engaged with a suitable Twitter presence to benefit.

And it also removes the questions around the previous example of Glam’s Twitter feed widget, which displayed moderated #Oscar tweets in a widget with advertising:

Is it right to profit from user-generated content created on another site, and without the awareness of those creating the content?

Would advertisers, even those related to the target audience/subject get enough value from display advertising around Twitter content.

Instead, the Mashable approach allows people to see interaction from businesses (and charities), and decide whether or not to engage.

I have to admit, I’m wondering whether they’ll white-label the Twitter widget, as I’d be keen to run something similar!

Did Twitter play a part in Facebook rolling back Terms of Service?

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An interesting post on the Twittown apps and widget community blog suggested Twitter ‘Took on Facebook’s Zuckerberg and Won‘.

It tracks the timeline between Facebook updating the Terms of Service for the social network, and rolling back to the original terms due to the outcry over ownership of content uploaded.

And while I don’t believe that Twitter outcry alone led to the decision to move back to the original terms and consult users about updates – Google blog search shows the outcry through full length blogging – the Twittown post does suggest that Twitter opinions had a significant effect.

And I would expect the Facebook team to be monitoring Twitter alongside all other channels – especially as FB considered Twitter important enough to try to buy it!

And it shows how monitoring and responding to probably the largest, and certainly the quickest online focus group makes sense for adding value and monetisation, whether it’s by Twitter, or third-party applications like Tweetdeck.

Twitter is rich, even before monetisation

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There’s a lot of coverage of the new funding Twitter has received – despite not actively looking for more money.

For a sample of the coverage:

Venturebeat. Techcrunch. Mashable. ReadWriteWeb. Fred Wilson. Wired. Twitterati. Techcrunch again.    Oh, and the official Twitter blog.

And those are just the some of the sources in my RSS feed! What echo chamber?

But does it affect anything?

Mark at Twitterati suggests Twitter could now fund its 20 employees at $100,000 a year for the next 15 years with current funding – that’s a healthy window!

Plus there are the options to fund new services, buy existing external services etc.

But the biggest implication may be that the team behind Twitter are unlikely to ever sell – after turning down an offer from Facebook, and Ev’s sale of Blogger to Google, I get the feeling this one is a keeper – perhaps showing a move from the almost traditional start-up route of planning around an exit strategy.

And with discussion around real time information perhaps becoming a threat to Google, it’s entirely possible the Twitter team might be aiming to evolve into a longterm internet property (playing with Google, Yahoo, Myspace, Facebook etc).

I’m really interested to see what comments and suggestions come out of this for possible innovation and acquisition – should Twitter buy Tweetdeck for example? Will this fund radical new services? Or is this just additional breathing space before the problems of monetisation might kick in?

Most importantly – is this more evidence to back up Ev’s statement that the current access and functionality of Twitter can remain free?

The Christmas wishlist

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Normally the list of what I’d like for Christmas would be a 50-50 split between technology and entertainment, but the responsibility of being a new homeowner and a new parent in the current financial climate means the end of the gadget list.

Instead, I want to list some of the things I’d like to see happen – some of which I could actually play a part in catalyzing. (Although, if you do want to gift me a gadget, I’ll accept: smartphones,laptops,netbooks, a flip mino, digital slrs, or digital video cameras!).

  • Health and financial security for my family – One most parents would subscribe to, and why I’m quitting smoking right now.
  • Increased speed and data limits for UK broadband without raised costs – Everyone loves the BBC iPlayer until they realise going over their limit cost them £200 last month. And everyone would love to download a good film quickly. But unless you’re with a decent ISP (I’m with Zen Broadband – 20GB limit per month), you end up with enough to watch one video. Slowly. If the Government wants technology and innovation to help get us out of a recession, superfast broadband is an essential resource.
  • More innovation in the media and entertainment industry – It’s starting to happen, but only in isolation. If not, the music industry might as well bow to Steve Jobs now, whilst text, image and movies will be the toys of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
  • Successfully quitting smoking: After about 14 years, I think it’s long enough – at least until the child has left home and I’m too old to worry about impotence or my breath smelling. (Can’t wait to see the ad google places next to this post!)
  • More success for my friends and people I respect: My social networks really have made true the idea that the success of my friends benefits me in some way – better quality back links if nothing else!
  • Twitter monetisation: We’ve talked about it for long enough, and all I want to know is how the plans will affect my usage of Twitter.
  • Developers who have spare time/desire to do new things: Like most people in digital, I have various ideas for services and applications which may be successful. Also like most people in digital, I’m not in a position to pay for development work, and although I know that a developer working for a revenue share shoulders most of the work and risk if it fails, I’d love Santa to find me one or two who fancy risking some time and effort.

There’s probably more, but that will do for now! I’m quite intrigued to see what some other people would wish for, so I’m asking Dave Cushman, Chris Brogan, Jonathan MacDonald,  and Neil Perkin.

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