Paid Twitter

The latest news comes to you with your morning coffee; your laptop on the dining table tells you that the preferred way to receive news today is through Twitter. You log onto one of the many tweets, which you follow, to serve yourself up a dish that sings Tweet Tweet. On this morning, Twitter is announcing its intention to start charging commercial user for their service. And if anything comes out of this piece of news it is that of the economic downturn's realization that the "free" business model is not sustainable and actually hurts users.

I first heard of the news myself, when the report appeared on a Tweet by Fiona Ramsay. The headline read, "Twitter to begin charging brands for commercial use". Co Founder of Biz Stone had this to say: -

"We can recognize ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts."

Stone did not give details on what those ways actually are, or what kind of charges might be assessed. He also promised that individuals would not be charged for Twitter.

Why It's Good News

So, why is this good news? It is nothing short of great news! As a regular twitter, you will be familiar with the service interruptions, unpredictable availability of features and spotty performance. All chronic twitter problems. With the revenue from charging users, Twitter could build a more reliable IT infrastructure. Cashing in on the monthly service charges probably wouldn't be enough for a new information center, but the validation that Twitter can make money would increase its valuation and attract more investment. Then a commercial, more reliable and functional model will be made available to make the platform more stable, ultimately affecting all users.

Chris Anderson of the wall street journal touched on another important point, of the result of charging for Twitter accounts. In the February 2nd Wall Street Journal; an article so aptly titled "The Economics of giving it Away' Chris Anderson had this to say: -

"Free is not enough, everything needs to be paid for. Today's Internet business people have to not just invent products that people love, but also those that customers will pay for. In saying that free is still great marketing, and bits are still too cheap to monitor. Free may be the best price, but it can't be the only way to move forward."

By switching to a model that is at least partially commercial, Twitter is sending a message out to their users. The Twitter service has a monetary worth and not to mention it costs money to maintain. Not everything in the online world wants or needs to be free, nor can it be.

By advocating the transition from a free service to a paid one, your initial reaction maybe that I am championing my own self-defeating logic. But consider this, the alternative would be to live in an online world where everything is "paid for" with spam, mass e-mail marketing, contextual crap advertising and phony informational content that attempts to sell bogus products and services. For services that I already trust and use, I would gladly pay the $9.95/month that Twitter are asking, just for the few choice things.

What is a twitter account worth to a large business?

I don't expect people to have changed the way they use the Internet, but between HTML and the web browser, e-mail, and instant messaging the Internet is close enough to be called an immovable object. The way people communicate has gone unchanged for some many years now. With or without twitter, the afore mentioned tools are a staple to anyone with access to the World Wide Web. You should expect Twitter to be the latest add on in the ever-expanding dynamic that is the Internet.

But just what is Twitter worth to a business? This may not be an official statistic but for arguments sake let's assume that commercial users are companies with a staff capacity of at least 100 people. The smaller businesses like the niche looking steak house round the corner from your home and the custom clothes boutique at your favorite shopping mall are sure to be driven of the service once they realize that they have to pay to maintain what they would consider to a toy rather then a tool for marketing their products. They are still going to get the walk in clients and family members on a weekend outing stop at their store with or without twitter. But, how much would a large corporation pay to keep up its home page, and what are the comparable benefits of using Twitter?

It is still early days and I may not have an idea as to what Twitter are thinking about this, but $20 a month or even $100 seems like nothing to General Motors, Dell or Comcast. According to the Marketing piece Bob Pearson,

"If it becomes less and less cost effective, one's initial inkling would be to move somewhere else. If you're a SME and you find it beneficial to be on Twitter, then there is nothing else."This raises a number of questions. Is the move a good thing for individual users? How about businesses? What criteria should be used in identifying "commercial" Twitter use? Would the term apply to anyone selling a product or service? How much should Twitter charge for commercial use? Only time will tell.