Google, Bing - Twitter as "a vehicle for directing ... to large audiences"
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A recent _Wired_ Twitter article, quoting Twitter's CEO:
Do you understand how money flows to the Internet? When you know that Twitter is a vehicle for directing information and traffic to large audiences, you realize there’s obviously a huge business.
Because today at Web 2.0 we announced that working with those clever birds over at Twitter, we now have access to the entire public Twitter feed and have a beta of Bing Twitter search for you to play with (in the US, for now).
In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.
Me: (a while back, for which I was much flamed)
People aren't being connected by the 'real-time messaging service', they're being bundled up and sold.
Once more - I refuse to be a sucker again. I will not play the latest rigged game where the house makes a fortune, the touts get their commission, while the players are fodder for it all.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in google , twitter | on October 21, 2009 11:59 PM (Infothought permalink)
A concrete case study appeared today. Ars Technica is giving away accounts for some new Web site if you tweet a particular phrase (i.e. if you pimp the site). People complained and an Ars employee responded:
In this case, it's obvious that using Twitter is a good idea. Twitter users tend to share opinions about things in a default-public way. That means that if this service is good, Twitter is going to be abuzz with that fact, which will drive sales. It's actually fairly brilliant from a marketing PoV. As far as early-adopters go, you're less valuable than a Twitter user because you're unlikely to share your opinion in a high-profile, searchable, measurable way.
There may also be a tie in with the FTC regulation here; at what point does "viral" "social" "buzz" become paid placement?