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Twitter’s Revenue Riddle
By Mark Evans | December 3, 2008
Admittedly, we’ll all far too fascinated with how Twitter is going to make money, which is understandable given its popularity and the current economic landscape.
That said, part of the fun in trying to figure out when and how Twitter is going to pull in cash is how CEO Evan Williams is playing a great game of business model cat and mouse with everyone. When speaking in public, Williams does a nice job talking about Twitter’s revenue plans without really talking about Twitter’s revenue plans.
Yesterday, for example, at the Churchill Club in San Francisco, CNet’s Rafe Needleman wrote that Williams started by saying “We will make money, and I can’t say exactly how because…we can’t predict how the businesses we’re in will work”, before going to add that Twitter has a revenue plan, it’s talking with large consumer products companies, and will have revenue in the first-quarter.
My sense is Twitter will go corporate by trying to sell an enterprise version that comes with more features and a more reliable performance than regular Twitter. Twitter’s acquisitions provide some insight into where it might be headed. This would leave regular Twitter as a showcase/loss-leader and a way to bring a broad audience into the Twitter community.
Of course, I could be totally wrong but, as you know, Williams isn’t tipping his cards yet so you’re guess is as good as mine.
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Topics: Web 2.0 |