Twitter to Unveil Advertising Platform Today?

Today, Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab will interview Twitter CEO Evan Williams at SxSW. TechCrunch is poised to report—especially since they expect Twitter to unveil its advertising platform in the interview.

That’s not for certain, of course, but TC points to Twitter head of monetization Anamitra Banerji’s comment on Feb 27 that they’d have the platform ready “in a month or so.” (Two and a half weeks is apparently close enough.) They’ve put 2 and 2 together with GigaOM’s Matthew Ingram’s (Feb 23) report that Twitter is lining up major partners for a launch.

Twitter has long been excited over its coming ad offering. Back in November, founder Biz Stone insisted that “Everyone is going to love” their new advertising system. “It’s going to be amazing.”

A digital advertising format everyone will love? I’d certainly love to see that. Of course, I’m sure the guy who stands to make money off the ads thinks “everyone” will agree with him, since he loves the idea . On the other hand, however, Business Week speculated back in December that 2009 might have actually seen a profit for Twitter, with its deals with Bing and Google—so maybe Twitter will focus on getting this right instead of just getting the next buck (I’m looking at you, Facebook).

What do you think? Will Twitter unveil its long-awaited ad platform today? And if so, what will it look like?

This is No TOY STORY, Twitter’s Prospects on the Way UP with Pixar CFO Hire

<Somewhere in Twitter HQ>

“So, Ev, if I understand you correctly, there isn’t actually any revenue to count at the moment?”

“No, Ali, we hired you because we were hoping you’d bring your collection of Pixar dvds in for us to watch when the Fail Whale appears.”

If it’s not Ali Rowghani’s movie collection that Twitter wanted, it must be that the microblogging service has hired the Pixar executive because–gasp–Twitter’s primed to make some actual profits!

“Ali will be an important member of a growing team focused on creating value for our users and capturing the financial opportunities that result from it,” Twitter CEO Evan Williams said in a release. Rowghani had been at Pixar for nearly a decade. “His thoughtfulness on retaining a great culture to work and staying consistent with our principles will also be a significant contribution.”

To infinity and beyond!

Are You Getting Enough out of Twitter & Facebook?

As marketing professionals, we usually have to justify ourselves to our bosses, our clients and everyone in between—especially in the less-tested, sometimes-hit-or-miss arena of social media. But now Ad Age wants accountability, too, as they ask “if you’re getting enough out of all the volunteer work you do for Biz & Ev and Mark,” or, more specifically, “Are we all just toiling mightily to make a bunch of rich nerds (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his employees and investors, Twitter’s Biz Stone and Evan Williams and their employees and investors) richer, while we impoverish ourselves?”

That’s both a literal and a figurative question, since using those social networks is exactly what makes their founders and investors money (well, sort of), and, as the argument goes, we’re essentially a volunteer labor force creating content for these sites—an interesting point. Meanwhile, using social networks (at all, as the argument here seems to go) means sacrificing time (true), actual interactions (possibly true but not always)—and our very souls and identities.

They mean this to be a discussion on a personal level, since a central thrust of the argument is that these social networks have sacrificed so much of our privacy that we’re allowing them to steal (don’t we call that “giving” in English?) “the sole ownership of our own thoughts, emotions, personal expressions, etc.” from us (yes, if I post “I’m sad” on a social network, that means that they also own my emotion…. right….).

Of course, if you’re using Twitter and Facebook as a marketer, you’re there looking for business ROI from publicity—being public. Ad Age (you know, “Advertising” Age? About . . . could it be . . . advertising?) does acknowledge that social networks might work for these purposes, if they’re worth the sacrifice:

If you’re a brand marketer, chances are good that you’re extracting real value from investing time and energy in social media (and you’re happy to have consumers volunteering their time to be your “brand ambassadors” or whatever you want to call them); good for you. (And if you’re a consumer who gets off on connecting with big brands — or just wants to interface with customer service in a forum, like Twitter, where certain marketers seem to be hyper-responsive — well, good for you too.) In general, if you’re soft-selling something — like content or an idea — that can benefit from free publicity, Facebook and Twitter are your friends. Even if, well, they’re the two-faced sort who think nothing of riffling through your handbag or backpack when you get up to go the bathroom — you know, glad-handing “friends” (those are air quotes) who are obviously using you for something, only it’s not always entirely clear what.

Um . . . I hate to bring this up, but aren’t we as marketers just using our social networks as those same kind of “friends” (and possibly even the friends and fans we acquire on those social networks)—we’re just using them as the means to an end?

I do agree, of course, that on a personal level, excessive use of social media can rob us of time and valuable interaction with the people we care about most. It’s good to examine our relationship with the Internet and social media on a personal level and decide whether it’s really worth the time and effort we put into it, or if we might put that time to better use. While that’s the brief summary of the argument at the conclusion of the article, the main thrust is that using social networks is such a great sacrifice of ourselves (even without a time investment) that it’s not worth it.

What do you think? Do you demand ROI from personal social network use? Or are you glad that most people don’t ?

US Twitter Visitors Down in October – Sound the Alarm?

Before you read any further just lean back and take a deep breath. You are about to enter the “Research Zone”. You know the place well. It’s where we give you shocking numbers that someone has come up with using their “methodology” and it is then used to create shocking headlines around the Internet for your reading enjoyment. It’s almost like having an informant who whispers something in your ear then you get to blab it all over the place and set the masses running. It’s fun!

Today’s “OMG stat” is brought to you by comScore via TechCrunch. Apparently, Twitter had a rough October.

Ever since last summer, Twitter’s growth in the U.S. has been stalling. But in October, the number of people who visited Twitter.com from the U.S. actually declined for the first time by 8 percent month-over-month. Estimates released today by comScore put Twitter’s domestic unique visitors at 19.2 million, down from 20.9 million in September.

On an annual basis, Twitter is still going gangbusters with 1,271 percent growth from 1.4 million visitors in October, 2008. And on a global basis, it still seems to be chugging away with 58.4 million visitors in September. But a hypergrowth company like Twitter cannot afford to slow down in its home market.

Things to consider:

• Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO, has acknowledged the slowdown so there must be some validity to it. His hope is new features will help slow or stop this trend
• These results do not measure those accessing Twitter via third party clients. Only Twitter knows how many actual accounts they have and which are showing activity. Of course, I challenge them to present a number of accounts that are real users and not spammers. What would the numbers look like then?
• This could be a hiccup
• Facebook is possibly cleaning their clock
• US growth is one piece, albeit a very important one, to the grand Twitterscheme of things

Here’s the pretty picture for you to look at wonder over.

So what’s your take? Twitter – thumbs up or thumbs down? Can adding new features attract more users or are they just tools that “preach to the choir” meaning only helping those already on board? Should anyone be worried about this?

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Retweets Will Never Be the Same …. Unless You Want Them To Be

Yesterday, Twitter started to officially roll out its own retweet function that has been the cause of some serious consternation from the Twittersphere (or whatever silly term you want to apply to the Twitter community).

Before we go into any detail please note the following and make sure you filter your reactions through the most important piece of data that you will need to know about this whole thing: you don’t have to use the new function. You can do whatever you want with regard to keeping your version of the status quo or adopting Twitter’s new retweet function. Also, this is not the final product as Evan Williams points out in his explanation of this overly controversial move by Twitter.

Overly controversial? Yup. While this can be viewed as a fundamental shift in how Twitter is used it’s not like some heavy-handed edict has been passed down to the users of Twitter in a “it is what it is” manner. No, it’s just another option. If you feel the need to complain even knowing this piece of information then you are likely to be the lottery winner that would say “Gee, if only I had won it last week I would have had more”. In other words, you probably complain about everything.

Back to the story. TechCrunch sums up the changes as follows

If you do happen to have it now, here’s a few interesting notes about the new feature (at least on twitter.com):

First, there is a new Retweets area in the right side bar. This allows you to see “Retweets by others”, “Retweets by you”, and “Your tweets, retweeted”. While the UI for the main homepage retweets can be a bit confusing at times, this Retweet area is laid out pretty nicely, as it is easy to see who exactly retweeted what.

Second, as co-founder Evan Williams noted today, there is an easy way to turn off retweets from individual users. Simply click on their profile and make sure the Retweet logo (the circular arrows) below their name is not highlighted green. This means that it’s off and you will not see Retweets from that user in your timeline. That’s great for users who go overboard with the feature and muck up your stream.

Third, if you do hate the new Retweet way, just don’t use it. Nothing is stopping you from still using the “RT …” syntax. The new Retweets simply give you an easy way to highlight something to your followers with the click of a button.

I HIGHLY recommend you visit the Ev Williams blog post for his complete explanation of the who, what, where and why of this change. Otherwise, this truly is what it is. Twitter has simply recognized that their third party developer and user system has created something of value. They are now trying to corral it in the best way they know how and leaving it open for debate and use. It’s actually that simple.

Revenue?! We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Revenue!

While it isn’t news that Twitter has no revenue model what is interesting to note is near yawn that the prospect of not having can draw from one of the founding fathers of the Twitterverse.

The New York Times reports that Evan Williams, who doesn’t get the pub that a guy with a cool name like Biz Stone does was speaking to a group of journalists in San Francisco today. You know those folks right? They’re the ones that if they are lucky enough to work for the Washington Post can’t even use Twitter without facing 20 lashes.

The following quote from Williams’ talk Online News Association’s annual conference tells us quite a bit.

Mr. Williams founded several companies before Twitter, including the Blogger service that he eventually sold to Google. One lesson he has taken from them all: “Create something that you want to see in the world,” not what some M.B.A. brandishing a business plan suggests.

It’s always easy to say for someone who already has one successful sale under his belt and probably not a lot of need to worry about his personal finances. The rest of the world, however, does get measured by those pesky little numbers known as profits and losses.

Admittedly, that sounds like sour grapes and I guess to some degree it is. What is real though, is people getting tired of listening to people who have a lot of money invested in them not seem too concerned about making it back in this decade. The economy right now is pretty rough and having to suffer through another “We don’t need to make money because we are Twitter” deal is getting old.

He said the company is instead focusing on building value, such as through the new Twitter lists, which will allow anyone to create a custom list of Twitter accounts that can be shared publicly or privately. For example, you could compile your 10 favorite Twitterers on the topic of chocolate into an All About Chocolate List that anyone could browse.

It’s a potentially powerful tool that could empower a new class of Twitter curators that will guide others to the best content on Twitter, and Mr. Williams encouraged journalists — already in the business of curating and editing content — to jump into the fray.

One thing this does is actually put a more positive light on the folks at Facebook. They are further along in this game than Twitter and they seem to be pretty focused on creating value AND making money as evidenced by aggressive revenue goals and a glimpse at cash flow positive status recently.

But back to the fantasyland that is Twitter. Williams addressed the one area that most are the most interested in, Twitter’s search capabilities, and admitted that they need some work. As a result, they are working on it.

In an interview after his keynote presentation, he acknowledged that the current Twitter search engine is too basic and the company has a “significant search team” working on improving it.

The next goal, he said, is to eliminate the duplicates and other “noise” that come up in most search queries.

Considering the company has somewhere north of 100 employees and a recent round of $100 million invested in it that significant team should be churning out something pretty quickly. Maybe not though. If there is no pressure being felt at the top then why should there be through the ranks?

Your thoughts?

A Billion Reasons for Twitter to be Happy

So it looks like Twitter has entered some rarefied air for sure. According to ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch the micro-blogging juggernaut is moving into an exclusive club by securing a new round of funding ($50 million) based on a valuation of $1 billion (yup, it’s a b). No doubt, this will begin to stir the supporters and detractors alike. Unless we have ridiculously short memories or just think that this time will be different one has to wonder how a company that no one can figure out revenue wise can be valued at that much.

While I am not an analyst I did think about staying at a Holiday Inn Express over the past year so I qualify for jumping into the fray, right? Let’s hear what the RWW folks had to say first though.

While it’s unlikely that Twitter CEO Evan Williams was wearing a Dr. Evil costume when he delivered the news, he had the pleasure of announcing his company’s $1 billion dollar valuation today at an all hands meeting. According to TechCrunch, the company has raised a $50 million dollar funding round and the money will be in the bank shortly. Given the fact that Twitter turned down an offer to be purchased by Facebook earlier in the year, it appears the two are about to tango.

So of course, this conversation wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without bringing Facebook into the mix. Facebook is starting to look almost like IBM compared to Twitter. What with actual revenue generation plans and actually having the audacity to be cash flow positive one begins to wonder if Facebook is going to actually merit its own valuation. As we mentioned yesterday, Master of the Universe, Mark Zuckerberg, has something to say in the Facebook blog.

We’re also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I’m pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.

So is Twitter in for the long term? They certainly still have the buzz going and now there appears to be a a real Facebook faceoff looming for the foreseeable future.

In the past, ReadWriteWeb has looked at Twitter’s platform potential. The service has already been used to create meme trackers, emergency alert services, news feeds and brand monitoring tools. As the infrastructure and search have improved, Twitter has become the go-to site for real time media. But can the company make a Facebook-like leap?

Facebook has added Twitter like features so why not? So what’s your take? I bet there at least a billion opinions on this one.

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The Future for Media Moguls: Twitter?

What do you get when you put Liberty Media Chairman John Malone, IAC Chairman Barry Diller, and Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger on a panel together? The three were on a panel at the annual navel-gazing Sun Valley press-free media and technology conference talking about the digital future. As you can imagine, they weren’t exactly bullish.

Malone said he didn’t think that an advertising model made sense on Twitter, but there was some hope for a subscription model. “Sooner or later people will be willing to pay for these services,” he said. Warren Buffett privately told him that he would pay $5 a month for YouTube, he added.

Murdoch, on the other hand, was pretty firm in his beliefs on the latest social media hit: “Be careful of investing here,” he said of Twitter.

Twitter CEO Evan Williams was in the audience, but declined to comment during or after the session. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the conference has a tendency to dub an Internet star child each year—such as YouTube’s Chad Hurley, just months before Google acquired the site for $1.65B.

So is this a prelude to an acquisition for Twitter? Signs point to no:

Asked if he was considering buying Twitter, Murdoch said, “No.” Asked about selling MySpace, he said, “Hell no.”

After the meeting, the moderator of that session, New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, said overall the conference was “interesting but gloomy.” Kinda sums up the atmosphere everywhere, eh?

What do you think? Is Murdoch protesting too much, or is he not interested in buying Twitter? Will someone else make an offer—and what will Twitter say?

Photo (it’s a sun setting in a valley—get it, Sun Valley? Setting sun? Old media moguls?) by gorbould