Twitter P2P
From mj:
They break out the infrastructure and make it P2P. This could shift the responsibility for uptime to others and allow them to host their own options for advertising or value-added services. Maybe even license the software out so there are a bazillion twitter servers out there. This would be the method by which Twitter could sneak up and murder Instant Messaging in it’s sleep. I tweeted recently that Twitter was not Broadcast IM. But, of course, it is.
Reminds me a bit of Zed’s UTU project.
To speak to some of the other points that mj makes (and bear in mind I’m only a recent Twitter user), I think that Twitter could monetise easily enough. There is definitely a stigma against running adverts on your website - I know I don’t do it on any of the sites that I run, even though I know I would make some money. But consider the sorts of users who use Twitter a lot - they are the same sorts of people who are happy to pay $10-$25 for an app to allow them to use Twitter more easily.
Twitter haven’t charged anything for their API or the right to use their service as a platform for making money, which no doubt has earned them a lot of kudos and is probably another reason for the large uptake. I’m certain that a portion of those people who use their service every day, n times a day, would be willing to pay that $10-$25 for improved services. I think mj is right with things like being able to add pictures, having URLs automatically “tinied”, being able to make their own look and feel to posts and so forth. Would it make enough?
I don’t know how many users Twitter has, but I’m willing to be that all of the active ones fall squarely in “Early Adopter” (if you subscribe to the Crossing the Chasm metaphor). In using the Twitter site, I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by it’s functionality. Keep the free service, improve it gradually, but innovate like crazy in a pay-for service.
One possible ego-stroking mechanism. Make it such that you must be on the pay-for service if you have more than 100 people following you.
The problem being that Twitter and these free services get their audience because A-listers join them and convince others to follow.
If you start charging for these services, the A-listers will leave. Mark my words.
The more famous they are, the cheaper they are.
April 25, 2008 @ 3:00 am