Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site that's been in search of a business model, looks like it's getting serious about finding one. In a job posting on JobScore, Twitter wrote this:
About this Job
As Twitter's first product manager
focused on revenue generation, you will play a defining role in the
formulation of Twitter's business. Your job will be to lead the
definition and execution of the products and features that will lead to
monetization of the Twitter platform.
Responsibilities
Define products and feature sets of commercial-oriented Twitter application
Manage the prioritization and development of new products and features
Work closely with engineering to develop product functionality
Work closely with customer support to solve issues and maximize user satisfaction
Do customer research to inform product decisions
Create detailed cost and revenue models
Define product positioning and marketing plans
Analyze and report product success
Earlier this year, I interviewed former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. We ran through a few business model ideas. Here's what I wrote in that post regarding business models.
So, what are Twitter's business models?
Obviously, there is a potential business model around paid search, one form of monetization that Jack and I discussed in this interview. In this interview, Jack talks about when this may be introduced. But we also talk about a number of models, including charging Whole Foods, JetBlue and others to use Twitter to capture market research about their customers. In the case of CNN and other news outlets using Twitter, it's very conceivable that Twitter will make money much like news wires make money - meaning licensing the data.
Jack also talks about
how Twitter makes money today - through SMS - and that even though his
team thought the mobile phone would be the predominant platform through
which updates are made, it's not. Finally, Jack talks about whether
Twitter will allow for video updates, much like Seesmic, and how he
sees the competitive landscape.
Founder and CEO of Vator, a media and research firm for entrepreneurs and investors; Managing Director of Vator Health Fund; Co-Founder of Invent Health; Author and award-winning journalist.
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Steven Loeb
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Twitter is an online information network that allows anyone with an account to post 140 character messages, called tweets. It is free to sign up. Users then follow other accounts which they are interested in, and view the tweets of everyone they follow in their "timeline." Most Twitter accounts are public, where one does not need to approve a request to follow, or need to follow back. This makes Twitter a powerful "one to many" broadcast platform where individuals, companies or organizations can reach millions of followers with a single message. Twitter is accessible from Twitter.com, our mobile website, SMS, our mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, our iPad application, or 3rd party clients built by outside developers using our API. Twitter accounts can also be private, where the owner must approve follower requests.
Twitter started as an internal project within the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, and engineer, had long been interested in status updates. Jack developed the idea, along with Biz Stone, and the first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly in August of 2006. The service grew popular very quickly and it soon made sense for Twitter to move outside of Odea. In May 2007, Twitter Inc was founded.
Our engineering team works with a web application framework called Ruby on Rails. We all work on Apple computers except for testing purposes.
We built Twitter using Ruby on Rails because it allows us to work quickly and easily--our team likes to deploy features and changes multiple times per day. Rails provides skeleton code frameworks so we don't have to re-invent the wheel every time we want to add something simple like a sign in form or a picture upload feature.
There are a few ways that Twitter makes money. We have licensing deals in place with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft's Bing to give them access to the "firehose" - a stream of tweets so that they can more easily incorporate those tweets into their search results.
In Summer 2010, we launched our Promoted Tweets product. Promoted Tweets are a special kind of tweet which appear at the top of search results within Twitter.com, if a company has bid on that keyword. Unlike search results in search engines, Promoted Tweets are normal tweets from a business, so they are as interactive as any other tweet - you can @reply, favorite or retweet a Promoted Tweet.
At the same time, we launched Promoted Trends, where companies can place a trend (clearly marked Promoted) within Twitter's Trending Topics. These are especially effective for upcoming launches, like a movie or album release.
Lastly, we started a Twitter account called @earlybird where we partner with other companies to provide users with a special, short-term deal. For example, we partnered with Virgin America for a special day of fares on Virginamerica.com that were only accessible through the link in the @earlybird tweet.
What's next for Twitter?
We continue to focus on building a product that provides value for users.
We're building Twitter, Inc into a successful, revenue-generating company that attracts world-class talent with an inspiring culture and attitude towards doing business.