Since it’s launch Twitter.com has been a free service, something that users can enjoy free of charge, without a ton of advertising or other commercial clutter in it’s interface. With Twitter’s growing popularity all knew that they would have to make money at some point. Nothing’s free forever!
This past week Twitter has made it’s first foray into becoming a commercial venture, making its first real money – courtesy of Microsoft. Microsoft is sponsoring a new stand alone twitter site where they’ll be featuring only executives who twitter. It’s called Exectweet.com
Exec Tweets about page has this to say:
ExecTweets is a resource to help you find and follow the top business executives on Twitter. Created by Federated Media, in partnership with Microsoft, ExecTweets is a platform that aggregates the tweets of top business execs and empowers the community to surface the most insightful, business-related tweets.
Exec Tweet looks nice on the surface, and incorporates the Microsoft branding efforts without being too in your face. While it looks nice, I’m not sure how successful it will be because people who might be interested in reading the tweets of executives who use twitter, probably are already following them anyway, using a nice filtering tool like Tweet Deck. What this page adds the the equation I’m not quite sure.
What’s Next?
While this may be the first foray into Twitter’s money making ventures, it certainly won’t be the last. What’s up next? My guess? Ads underneath your profile information on your homepage. Like where the blurb for “tweetie” appears below:
Other Monetization Ideas:
- Fill empty characters in tweets with text ads.
- Sponsored search results.
- Regular CPM and CPA advertising.
- Premium accounts for business partners.
What other ways do you think Twitter will use to try and monetize their service? Let us know in the comments!
