A study conducted by sociologists working for Yahoo concluded that 50 percent of all the tweets come from just 20,000 users. “It’s really dominated by this media-celebrity-blogger elite,” says Duncan Watts, one of the researchers. “It’s a small number of users who are hyperconnected, and then there’s everybody else just paying attention to those people.”
To continue the broadcast metaphor, these people are the show users came to see. And Twitter is learning that it has to tend the talent as carefully as any entertainment company. In the planning rooms of Twitter, the most prolific and widely followed tweeters are called “influencers,” or “power users,” and they are at the core of its business. If it loses them, it becomes, essentially, MySpace—a digital graveyard where a party used to be. So while they race to retool the tweeting experience for the masses, Costolo and Dorsey are on a parallel campaign to keep Twitter’s star attractions, celebrities and politicians and the media, chattering away on Twitter. ...
The reason Twitter wants James Franco tweeting is to sell his audience to advertisers. And if it can figure out how to insert a Starbucks tweet into the Francosphere, and prompt people to buy coffee without stifling their intimacy with Franco, Twitter wins. This advertising model is still in the dream stage. But what a dream it is.
Monday, October 3, 2011
HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY DOING THIS? THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE—VOLUME: Big NYMag story this morning on making Twitter profitable. Sample:
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The thing is, a lot of celebrity Twitterers are already monetizing it, but not for Twitter's financial gain--their own. There were stories a while back that Lohan was demanding money to tweet about certain products, Ashton Kutcher has regularly used his Twitter to promote not just his acting but tech companies he's invested in, and Diddy (or whatever he's calling himself these days) uses his Twitter to spread viral/endorsement videos for products he's paid to sell. The question is how Twitter gets into that monetary stream without disrupting the "authenticity" of the feeds.
ReplyDeleteNon-celebrity bloggers monetize it too. See, e.g., http://selfishmom.com/full-disclosure/.
ReplyDeleteThe insane monetization of personal blogging has made me much less likely to read those blogs. One of the things I most value about this site is how ad-free it is.
and that's why Twitter is stupid. Someone trying to sell you coffee as the price of being able to access James Franco's every thought.
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty myopic view of Twitter. It's a great way to carry on wide-reaching conversations with any of a host of fascinating people (including many members of the ALOTT5MA community). Althetes and celebrities (or their publicists) can interact directly with the public, for better or for worse, and it's opened up a lot of avenues for incredibly creative people. If something cool, that I'm interested in, is going around Twitter chances are someone I follow will pass it on.
ReplyDeleteI joined Twitter back in '09, and I've formed friendships entirely through that medium. When I think of my e-migo Andrew, I often first think of him as @thegnc. I met up with a long-time correspondent, @OMDQ, because he surmised from my tweets that we were at the same baseball game. Twitter is, much like the Navigators from Dune, twisting the fabric of space to bring people closer together.
If the price of admission is having to look at a few ads here and there, well, I guess I'm willing to absorb that cost.
<p><span><span>That's a pretty myopic view of Twitter. It's a great way to carry on wide-reaching conversations with any of a host of fascinating people (<span>including many members of the ALOTT5MA community</span>). </span></span><span><span>Athletes</span></span><span><span> and celebrities (or their publicists) can interact directly with the public, for better or for worse, and it's opened up a lot of avenues for incredibly creative people. If something cool, that I'm interested in, is going around Twitter chances are someone I follow will pass it on. </span></span><span>
ReplyDelete<span> </span>
<span>I joined Twitter back in '09, and I've formed friendships entirely through that medium. When I think of my e-migo Andrew, I often first think of him as @thegnc. I met up with a long-time correspondent, @OMDQ, because he surmised from my tweets that we were at the same baseball game. Twitter is, much like the Navigators from Dune, twisting the fabric of space to bring people closer together. </span>
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<span>If the price of admission is having to look at a few ads here and there, well, I guess I'm willing to absorb that cost.</span></span>
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eh. i don't like all the abbreviations.
ReplyDelete“It’s a small number of users who are hyperconnected, and then there’s everybody else just paying attention to those people.”
ReplyDeleteThat's not what it is to me. The celebs are good for a giggle or two, but mostly I use Twitter to hear from "normal" folks like me. I don't expect celebs to follow back, and I have no problem dropping them if I'm having a bad day and they post something that even slightly annoys me. I do expect non-celebs to follow back, and I'm not so quick to drop them because I actually care about their feelings.
If their research tells them that Twitter's all celebs and the fans who love celebs, then they're wrong, and they'll never be able to get the monetizing thing off the ground.