Twitter $twit is a game.
There is a LOT of money at stake.
Twitter would get a lot more respect if the had more Customers, but they are not in the same rush as you or me. Twitter for now has chosen the biggest game of all, the media game. Lot’s of money flowing and being disrupted. It is not the customer I would choose, but I am just an armchair quarterback.
I believe I should be a customer of twitter in the following scenarios:
1. I am willing to pay a monthly phone bill like fee. This is an old idea. Whatever customers (followers) I have, I want to keep happy. I will contribute a fair amount yearly for Twitter as a service. That fee may be for me to never see an ad in stream or a recommendation from them if I dont want. How do arrive at such a fee…that’s not my job in this post.
2. PiggyBacktwitter – I am a broadcaster and lucky enough to have followerrs that give back to me directly. Most on Twitter do not havre that luxury. With that in mind, people should be able to piggy back on my abilty to extract feedback. Maybe I should get a ‘cheat sheet’ from Twitter everfy morning or every evening with deals of the day…requests from people that need something. Stuff my followers could give provide the best answers to nd solutions for. Maybe that could happen in real time too.
3. I should be able to PAY for influential followers ‘a la carte’. I believe that I have strong enough content that given the right audience I could be HUGE :) on Twitter.
I should be able to pay for attention. Those with influence should be able to be paid for giving up their attention to me. Maybe its 10 tweets, maybe it’s 50. Only the payee and payor need to know or maybe it’s just public on my profile page that I paid for followerrs.
It’s like the ‘big break’ for everyone in a distributed way…you got your one tweet audition. Better make it interesting.
There should be a fee taken by Twitter $twit for that process. If we can agree on a price, Twitter has the perfect exchange. The ‘attention exchange’.
Others are trying to build it and eventually The Attention Exchange’ will be reality.
Ugh, I would pay to get rid of that brutally annoying “Who to Follow.”
Great post, Howard.
indeed.
we need choices…twitter pro. back to basics.
Nice ideas articulated.
One question that I would ask is who really controls the “the attention exchange”? Is it Twitter in the sense of their raw feed? Is it Google via search? Is it the app provider whose app I use to view my twitter feed? For example, I just signed up to set up a “twitter newspaper” for myself on http://www.paper.li. Great way to have consolidated view of all the blog posts/links that are posted on my twitter feed.
My guess is that the Twittter front end will continue to evolve and be a more rich, smarter organization of the data such that they can control the “attention exchange” (e.g. the new iPad Twitter app). No way they can afford to cede that “flow” to another “attention exchange”
good points i think. thanks.
Ugh, I would pay to get rid of that brutally annoying “Who to Follow.”
Great post, Howard.
indeed.
we need choices…twitter pro. back to basics.
i believe you would have to test but millions feel they have the chops and i
can be convinced of ways to help launch people and as a twitter agent of
sort.
i am talking mostly about others but I still wouyld pay for attention….
it would not be easy but someone needs to start thinking this through. it's
not easy for secondmarket to come into the private market as well. the
attention market is younger but way further along.
good points i think. thanks.
Nice ideas articulated.
One question that I would ask is who really controls the “the attention exchange”? Is it Twitter in the sense of their raw feed? Is it Google via search? Is it the app provider whose app I use to view my twitter feed? For example, I just signed up to set up a “twitter newspaper” for myself on http://www.paper.li. Great way to have consolidated view of all the blog posts/links that are posted on my twitter feed.
My guess is that the Twittter front end will continue to evolve and be a more rich, smarter organization of the data such that they can control the “attention exchange” (e.g. the new iPad Twitter app). No way they can afford to cede that “flow” to another “attention exchange”
or companies that use their API liek stock tweets pay a fee $$ ;)
we fully expected too but than it would have to work. believe me that would
be a better biz model for everyone in the stream.
Twitter is free – there I’ve said it. To add $$ services it has to show how it creates value before it extracts value. I think you already have plenty of attention – your blog, your tweets etc. Could you do with more – sure why not, but then how to you place an exact value on that? Who knows. It’s all pie in the sky – bottom line, show me the value and people will be willing to pay for it. The big problem is making sure that’s a large number of people. It sucks when we’re conditioned to pay nothing for something. Nothing is nothing – no value. And then of course are definition of value is different. Good problems for someone other than me to figure out. In the interim I’ll just use everything for free.
i believe you would have to test but millions feel they have the chops and i
can be convinced of ways to help launch people and as a twitter agent of
sort.
i am talking mostly about others but I still wouyld pay for attention….
it would not be easy but someone needs to start thinking this through. it’s
not easy for secondmarket to come into the private market as well. the
attention market is younger but way further along.
Twitter is free – there I've said it. To add $$ services it has to show how it creates value before it extracts value. I think you already have plenty of attention – your blog, your tweets etc. Could you do with more – sure why not, but then how to you place an exact value on that? Who knows. It's all pie in the sky – bottom line, show me the value and people will be willing to pay for it. The big problem is making sure that's a large number of people. It sucks when we're conditioned to pay nothing for something. Nothing is nothing – no value. And then of course are definition of value is different. Good problems for someone other than me to figure out. In the interim I'll just use everything for free.
or companies that use their API liek stock tweets pay a fee $$ ;)
we fully expected too but than it would have to work. believe me that would
be a better biz model for everyone in the stream.
Howard, a Twitter question for you: when you tweet a link to something, what percentage of your followers typically clicks on it?
My question there has apparently plummeted in the attention exchange.
Less than 1 percent
Sent from my iPad
Thanks. My click rate is similar. But 1% of your followers clicking means you’re still reaching thousands, while I’m typically reaching fewer than 10.
Interesting. There’s probably an inflection point — a number of followers below which people lose interest in Twitter and stop using it (unless purely as a passive source of info).
Howard, a Twitter question for you: when you tweet a link to something, what percentage of your followers typically clicks on it?
Howard, we already did this and proved there’s a market. Try googling “Twitter Pro”.
nice.
Howard, we already did this and proved there's a market. Try googling “Twitter Pro”.
nice.
My question there has apparently plummeted in the attention exchange.
Less than 1 percent
Sent from my iPad
Interesting ideas.
Instead of advertising on keywords, I should receive a report of people looking for those keywords.
Interesting ideas.
Instead of advertising on keywords, I should receive a report of people looking for those keywords.
Thanks. My click rate is similar. But 1% of your followers clicking means you're still reaching thousands, while I'm typically reaching fewer than 10.
Interesting. There's probably an inflection point — a number of followers below which people lose interest in Twitter and stop using it (unless purely as a passive source of info).