Twitter Needs to Keep Shopping

A few months ago, I wrote a post suggesting that Twitter aggressively expand its features – an idea that didn’t resonate because many believe simplicity was the beauty of Twitter.

With that in mind, Twitter’s acquisition of Summize (editor’s note: has the acquisition of a tiny search engine ever got more coverage?) suggests that I was correct. In fact, I’ll argue that Twitter should keep on making acquisition if wants to build a stickier, more attraction, sustainable and viable business.

With $15-million of venture capital, Twitter not only needs to harden its infrastructure but snap up interesting services within the Twitter-sphere such as Twellow, Twistori and Twitter Karma. In other words, Twitter needs to build a multi-feature “portal” where the Twitterati can do a variety of things – everything from micro-blog to search and entertain themselves.

As much as Evan Williams likes the idea of charging for commercial activity on Twitter, Twitter also needs to capitalize on its growing popularity by creating a platform that appeals to advertisers. Making Twitter multi-faceted is a pretty good way to keep Twitter using coming back and, as important, stick around – two things advertisers love.

Truth be told, Twitter has no choice but to go down the advertising path. Unlike Skype, I can’t see people paying to use Twitter as a communication tool. Skype had an advantage in that people were used to paying for telephone calls, which makes it easy to offer a premium service. Meanwhile, consumers have never paid for e-mail so getting them to pay for a premium service is going to be a tough sell, even among all those people who moan and complain whenever the Twitter whale appears.

The upside for Twitter is going on a shopping trip shouldn’t cost very much. There’s a healthy Twitter ecosystem so it’s just a matter of wisely picking and choosing the application that best fit into the new strategy.

Update: Jennifer Leggio did an interview with Twellow lead developer Matthew Daines after the Twitter-Summize deal was announced.

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