Twitter is worth nearly $200mil, but hasn't made a cent?

[Brendan]

I stumbled across this article today.. pretty interesting.

It seems as though twitter is asking for more funding to keep the business going, and supposedly has already had funding of up to $US150mm

Funny thing about this is.. the company is yet to make a profit, there are rumours of hundreds of different business models to monetise twitter.. but nothing implemented yet.

Not bad huh.. a business that doesn't make money that is having money thrown at them...

Check out the article here - Twitters Value: 5 Eye-Popping Stats (http://mashable.com/2009/10/04/twitter-stats/)

So what do you think about it?

[JakeThomas]

I was actually thinking about this the other day when I logged on ... There are no advertisements, no subscriptions or anything like that.

I wonder if they are just building up a huge following, add free and then they will integrate the commercial side of the business when the member base is huge?

[LudaKris]

I wonder if they are just building up a huge following, add free and then they will integrate the commercial side of the business when the member base is huge?

Probably - look at Facebook - it is really starting to ramp up it's efforts promoting the capabilities of is ability for marketers to target a very select niche.

Twitter could easily do the same if someone is always tweeting and re-tweeting their tweets with certain key words, it should be pretty easy to focus advertising to those people.

Has anyone used Facebook advertising for their site? Did it work?
I have one client (http://www.coolershop.com.au/index.html) who I think has (I need to ask him if it was worthwhile).

[Brendan]

I have heard that Twitter is working on an advertising model, and I have seen some of the prototypes.. I think if they do it right, it could be pretty powerful.

Ludakris, we manage facebook ads for some clients and they have found it to be really helpful, the key to it is to ensure that you target your demographic properly, have a relevant landing page and offer something.. just sending the people to your website wont do all that much - send them to a special offer, or something related to that demographic you are targeting, and your bounce rate will be much better.

[LudaKris]

Yeah - totally agree with targeting the demographic - that definitely is whole power (and value) of Bookface.

I also think you need to add some value when someone clicks through - i.e. a free report or discount coupon - something that is more likely to get them on your email list and pre-qualify them as a lead. I think customised landing pages are becoming popular.

The feedback I got from the person I talked to is that it was costing him $0.50 per click and people were just clicking out of curiosity. He said Google Adwords was more cost effective for him. I am not sure the details of how he targeted his ads. I know after I got engaged, my fiancee started seeing a lot of wedding related and weightloss advertising when she was on Facebook.

I would be interested to hear about other peoples experience with Facebook advertising.

Kris

[shoestringventure]

The basic problem with twitter is that, it was never built with a strong business model, in fact no one would have imagined this exceptional growth and popularity of twitter. Soon we can see a good business model for twitter.