Twitter Will Start To Earn Money, But Not Yet…
After the dot-com (Web 1.0) bust, financing a web site wasn’t easy. But when we met Web 2.0, the Internet usage started to grow rapidly and investors started to become interested in investing web projects, again. Theorically, a business model with a monetizing income model is a must of a project for being invested in. But some web projects have no business model but something more important than a business model: Popularity.
Twitter is one of the most popular – top 500 – websites in the world, has a Google PageRank of 9 and no income model! Twitter is a privately funded startup with offices in the SoMA neighborhood of San Francisco, CA. Started as a side project in March of 2006, Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging – microblogging service that works over multiple networks and devices. In the world of microblogging, people use the web or their cell phones to blast short updates on their activities to their virtual followers. An update is limited by 140 characters.
Twitter has drawn much attention in the tech world and has been funded two times, Series A: $5M, Series B: $15M and one of the investors in Series B was Bezos Expeditions – the company that manages Jeff Bezos’ personal venture capital investments. What a Paradox! A company with no income model but $20M fund. As Twitter becomes more popular, more gossips about Twitter’s expected income model, come out.
The last gossip was the most discussed one: “Companies using Twitter for commercial purposes may soon start getting charged for that activity, according to an interview British trade magazine Marketing (part of BrandRepublic) held with co-founder Biz Stone.” As you see the news headlines in the image at the left, this news has drawn very much attention in the tech-media. But a reply from Twitter came immediately. Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone has written a blog post related to the rumors with the title “Nothing To Report Just Yet“. He announced that Twitter will remain free to to use by everyone-individuals, companies, celebrities, etc. He’s telling that they’re thinking about offering new value added services to earn money and not imposing fees on existing services.
I think, a business plan is a must to start an internet business but sometimes a unique – niche idea eith no income model is worth investing and Jeff Bezos must have seen the future of Twitter.
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