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Twitter Grows Up and Doesn’t Need @ev Anymore? I Liked @ev’s Twitter Better.

By Tac Anderson ⋅ March 30, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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A few weeks ago I wrote about how Twitter was growing up. It had finally decided on a business model and was starting to lay down the law on it’s developer ecosystem. The cute little Twitter that used to shy away from silly questions like revenue and business models is gone. The figurehead for Twitter during those days of fiscal ambiguity was Evan Williams, a.k.a. @ev, the co-founder of Twitter and founder/CEO of Blogger, which sold to Google back before Google went public.

If you haven’t heard, @ev is out. The other co-founder of Twitter, @Jack, who was ousted as CEO when @ev took over is back in charge of product again.

So why did @ev step aside from being CEO?

I think it’s because he had a different vision of what Twitter’s business model would be. His first company, Blogger, ended up being monetized by advertising. It would have seemed like a natural fit for Twitter but from the very beginning and for years, @ev continued to hold out that Twitter wouldn’t advertise. But then things changed.

Twitter kept raising more and more money. When you raise that much VC money, at some point you have to figure out how to make money and advertising is easy. Especially right now.

As soon as @DickC came on board you could see the tides turning and I’m sure the VC’s loved it. Someone who was going to monetize this cute little monster of a startup and  get them their money back. And one of the first things @Jack wants to do is make Twitter even *more* main stream. <oh joy>

I liked @ev’s Twitter better.

I for one om very curious to see what @ev’s next venture will be. And I’m really, really curious if it’s going to have anything to do with advertising. Based on what I saw from the direction he was driving Twitter in while he was there I think he wants to build a platform for innovation. Something that enables other entrepreneurs and something that doesn’t rely on advertising for it’s business model. But that’s just my take.

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About Tac

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.

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  • http://minimanifestos.com/ Bryan Jones

    Pleasing everyone pleases no one, that’s the trouble with taking a darling mainstream. I’m with you, I hate to see @ev’s influence swept away.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    True. And the more money you raise the more people you do have to please. Thanks Bryan.

  • Anonymous

    Interesting take, Tac. I respect and share your yearning for Twitter to stay innovative, but I can’t see Jack, who also started Square, killing innovation at Twitter. Can’t Twitter reach more mainstream people and be innovative? iTunes?

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