New Comm Biz

5 years from now the non-early adopters will be using dozens of services built on top of Twitter and they won’t even realize it

Q: When will we stop talking about Twitter’s business model?
A: Never.

Why do you think we’ll stop talking about it once they have a business model? Heck, a week doesn’t go by when I don’t read a story about Google, Microsoft or Yahoo’s business model why will Twitter be any different?

I recently posted on Twitter a link to a post I did encouraging people to build the features they wanted on top of Twitter and had a great dialogue with a friend in Seattle.

tacanderson: Want new Twitter features? Build them yourself. http://bit.ly/MRd03

philoking: @tacanderson I think if Twitter’s plan (which I doubt) is not innovate and allow 3rd parties to create the value for the service, it dies.

tacanderson: @philoking sitting on all that cash i think Twitter will acquire the services that provide monetization.

philoking: @tacanderson This may sound silly, but Twitter’s advertising health will have a lot to do with how many celebrities they can get to tweet.

tacanderson: @philoking that’s assuming Twitter wants to go the advertising route. (I don’t think they will) but you may be right if they do.

philoking: @tacanderson how would they stay solvent? Selling premium accounts like Pownce? That worked. lol

tacanderson: @philoking there are more ways to monetize the web than premium subscriptions and advertising

While some people find it amusing that us rank and file social media types have derived years of pleasure and blog posts about Twitter and their plans for monetization (Twitter VC Laughs at the Idea that Twitter Has No Business Model – ReadWriteWeb) I personally think Twitter finds itself in a similar situation as Microsoft or SalesForce.com.

Even if Twitter develops a way to monetize (which I’m sure they will) there will be huge amounts of money left on the Twitter table.

With an open API, more buzz than most think they deserve and a boat load of VC cash I think eventually Twitter will go on a shopping spree. They’ve already demonstrated the ability and desire to do this with their purchase of Summize and Values of N (while the latter was really just a talent acquisition).

In recent posts I’ve talked about Twitter as the last bastion of Web 2.0 innovation (yes that’s a gross exaggeration) and the rise of the micropreneur.

Why do I geek out so much on Twitter? I see Twitter as the future of communication. OK, to be fair I see all social media that way but I think 5 years from now the non-early adopters will be using dozens of services built on top of Twitter and they won’t even realize it.

Old model: build large audience get acquired by Google. New model: monetize large audience someone else has built.

So the answer to my initial question: Yes. Twitter and many others will acquire startups that can monetize Twitter (or any other social network).

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