Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Theresa111 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:23:27 -0000

Twitter is much more engaging than Facebook, plus ... it isn't complicated in the least. Twitter would be wise to hold onto this baby for a good long while. I feel it in my gut!

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Donald Williams — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:53:10 -0000

Twitter maybe just opening its "play book". I think a viable business model is in sight but the site has not reach critical mass nor has it been accepted by businesses as a viable advertising channels.
http://donaldrwilliams.blog...

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

BaronToler — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:33:34 -0000

Twitter has limited potential for real-time search. It would require advanced AI to parse all the txt spk and broken english that results from the 140 character limit. Context is a key value indicator in all search.

That is why Google kills everyone else...the search results are relevant.

Tweets simply do not provide enough information to derive relevant context.

For example...type "Twitter" into the useless real-time search engine Tweetfeel.com.... According to the results...50% of people on twitter hate it right now... however, if you look at the tweets that it returns, they are all simply based on the word "Twitter" being in the body of the tweet. Most posts are neutral towards the search term, and many are completely irrelevant. It gets even worse when you search for products...

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Stephen Robinson — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:47:23 -0000

If it does sell it really could go badly.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

panzgarcia — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:01:44 -0000

I would sell, take the money and enjoy my life even if twitter was my baby! You only get one life to live why spend it working hard on a social media platform if you don't need to?

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Paul Allen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:58:24 -0000

In my opinion the team behind Twitter has done what they are good at (innovating and creating something new and saleable) but monitising Twitter is not what they are good at. They should sell now and go on to develop and innovate something new! Always stick to what you are good at, especially when big money is at stake!

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Brian_S — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:49:26 -0000

They should probably sell if someone is dumb enough to buy a company that has not made money, is not making money, and has no plan to make money. Respect to the Twitter founders if they can make a hell of a lot of money before everyone realises a business is not a business if it doesn't make money.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

@gcrush — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:42:20 -0000

well, as far as I can see it is this,

twitter still allows other parties to post links to the adult network, and seems to be more open to adult content, facebook is a lot more opposing to this case, so regardless, the adult world always needs a voice, and I would say that we can all agree, that regardless of what level, the adult world has a large voice in this universe, so where will all the adult worlds go if it is quite easily to be deleted by facebook because of their policies, and if twitter can provide for everybody to be a participant, surely the adult world represents a large demographic. some of us truly need to interact on a daily basis as an adult, and not just as a robot....wether it be with our fans or with our idles......easily efficiently and effortlessly

for the record spam accounts about web cams and register to see my naughty pictures don't count, just as much as claiming to be an SEO and selling you aggressively without humanity doesn't count, keep it even in the debate about the adult world always :)

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Anton — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:18:03 -0000

Thanky Blog Süperr

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

evidences — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:13:20 -0000

Poll is hard to say: depends on what are the goals of former founders. No secret about the fact they are limited in terms of development, facing FB+FFeed, Google and Yahoo/BIng, heavy weights and fast movers. But for me, the most essential thing is to think "next step" for user centrics aspects: microblogging was a freak wave, but it's now time to change twitter value purpose (sorry, no hope for "premium" expensive accounts nor going on making companies pay for using it). Twitter has to face to several things:
- what next idea to make improvements in using, navigation, interface and services?
- spam and ads: world has turned to microblog, to escape to IM, e-mail and so long spamming and disguised ads, while the trash wave is gonna invade them again...
- probably resources, as any kill app next idea, will potentially cost a lots, for jump to real innovation, again

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

James — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:43:45 -0000

No way. Twitter owns Facebook,, it shouldn't worry about its wannabe counter-part.. and instead focus on continuing to update and upgrade its features. Facebook 'SUCKS' in comparison and even though I use both, there is no secret that I spend far more time on Twitter.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Saeed Khan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:31:03 -0000

Should Twitter sell? What are they stupid? They are if they think they can create a business that is sustainable on their own, based on a simple messaging platform. Twitter is a feature. It's not a product.
It's a useful feature, but still a feature. It's a 1 hit wonder, it's investors should realize that, and after Biz Stone's interview on Colbert (http://tr.im/wGPU), it pretty much sealed the deal that Twitter isn't about to generate revenue soon.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Josh — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:22:16 -0000

IMO, Twitter should hold off for now and see what the future holds for them. They have the potential to be one of the big players in social networking and with Facebook's recent acquisition of FriendFeed, I don't think that Facebook should take over yet another social network. Because that would leave really only one major competitor: MySpace...and that's not saying much since MySpace is collapsing on itself.

The Google idea is a great one, but I'm still kind of skeptical...

Just hold on to Twitter! See where this can take you!

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Max Richardson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:46:30 -0000

There's no way Twitter should sell now, it's still in its infancy. It's going to get very interesting when both Facebook and Twitter both have working payment methods and allow the transfer of money between their users and external sites.

Max R

http://twitter.com/maxrichardson
http://facebook.com/maxrichardson
http://maxrichardson.com
http://tweetspinner.co.uk

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

plasticmadness — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:32:29 -0000

Very well said, I couldn't agree more. Each social media tool has it's target public. Twitter has peculiarities, it's not for everyone. My father recently entered twitter and he's doing very well. For my mom, on contrary, twitter is a no. She's a social network person. Me? I cannot see the point of social bookmarking, for instance. Sometimes I remember to save things to my Del.icious account, but I rarely, if ever, check it. You know, to each his own...
Truth be told, it's hard to know what Twitter is about until you try it. One can explain to you about twitter, but it's not the same as if you use it. Many sign up just to see what's this twitter up to. Others assume it's just like any other social relationship site, and once they realize it's not, they quit. That's why I suppose there will always be a high number of twitter quitters. As long as twitter keeps a stable growth rate, I don't see it having problems any time soon.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

plasticmadness — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:11:43 -0000

*shameless passionate discourse on*
I say no. I hate this pasteurization of the web. Where is it written 'everything on the internet is better that belongs to Google or Facebook'? Truth is everyone loves the safety of being backed up by Google money. True bravery and pioneerism are resistant to that. I say let Twitter be, strong and independent of other internet sharks.
*shameless passionate discourse off*

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

aussiewebgirl — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:00:17 -0000

In reply to Loud3r - you've really just confirmed what I said. Different strokes for different folks. I was talking about the appearance of YouTube vs the appearance of Twitter. I prefer simplicity without intrusion and others (such as yourself) don't mind the masses of content (I like to call them supreme pizzas). Granted Twitter (just a humble little cheese pizza) has it problems with downtime, follower counts suddenly reducing to 0, follow backs not working etc but show me a perfect app anywhere... Twitter has it's rightful place in the www and we need to acknowledge that.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Brandon Mendelson — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:32:00 -0000

I'd love to see a partnership formed between Google and Twitter. Not an outright purchase, but a limited holding company (sort of like what the New York Yankees had for a while with the New Jersey Devils and New Jersey Nets). Everyone is still independent, but you could count on your partner and use their infrastructure if you needed.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Ben Newton — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:13:02 -0000

The answer lies above. Until you move that Facebook Share button to the top and the re-tweet button down, twitter still has value.

Until Facebook opens up and allows you to follow non-friends' updates that you are interested in like twitter allows you to do, twitter has the upper hand. BUT, when Facebook does open up and allow real-time searching and allows you "follow" updates from non-friends that allow it, twitter will suddenly become the next myspace in Facebook's wake. When that day comes, and it will, if Twitter hasn't become part of something bigger ie. Google, they will forever regret it.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

loud3r — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:08:44 -0000

I have to disagree about YouTube. The UX team has continually improved YouTube post acquisition. It's a much more usable product now than when it was independent. Another key point has to be the economics. YouTube would have flamed out if it had stayed independent. The servers and bandwidth charges burn money.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Scott Barrington — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:50:25 -0000

don't sell. as long as they can make it profitable soon!

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Andrew MacDonald — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:25:09 -0000

Personally i dont think Twitter should sell right now. It has a lot of great prospects for the future, and it needs to explore revenue potential before they jump into a situation where they could loose money by selling the company right now.

Andy
http://www.cherylanncole.co.uk

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

Hesham Zebida — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:18:31 -0000

They have their rights to make a few dollars!

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

illet — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:06:02 -0000

Youtube did not change much. Just use an ad block, and you won't see ads. I have not seen an ad in months in different sites.

Re: Is It Time for Twitter to Sell?

jyothiprakash — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:53:34 -0000

Personally, I would love for twitter not to sell. Although twitter is not growing as fast as FB has been these last few months, I think there is enormous potential in twitter. One of the areas in which twitter has an advantage over facebook is in how easy it is to communicate with celebrities; Given this fact, celebrities are likely to spend more time on (and endorse twitter more than FB). By celebrities I dont just mean authors, artists, actors etc., but also academics, industrialists, independent consultants (Like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki etc.). Also, busier people are more likely to use twitter more frequently than FB.
So, in summary, it can only get better from here for twitter.

~ http://jyothiprakash.wordpr...