Verge New Media - Latest Comments in Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Ben — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:18:41 -0000

Loic Lemeur's seesmic was a dying brand until he built his desktop application off Twitter. Of course he'd pay. What a ridiculous statement.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Scott Mahler — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:34:26 -0000

Hubris is right! Two seconds agao Digg was the best place to go for social networking, and there's facebook, fark; I could go on and on. It would be an extremely bad business move for them to start charging for something we can all get for free in hundreds of other places.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Connie G. Thomas — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:43:08 -0000

I enjoy Twitter, but I would not pay for it. Not even for additional features. I wouldn't mind if they added in some ads though.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

John — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:27:10 -0000

Great Article.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

jeflin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:25:26 -0000

Payment for access is a decidedly ridiculous situation, be it $60 or $250. To incorporate a payment structure is assuming Twitter has reached a sufficiently dominant and indispensable position among users.

But sadly, that is not the case. It is but another social media site which is useful in forming communities and finding friends. There are always other communities to join, especially when it comes to forking out money.

As it is, many users are already ovewhelmed by social media sites so at most, it is one one less site to go.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

jcrn — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:14:43 -0000

I'm so glad you got me up to speed on this. Just when I think I might finally have the whole Twitter thing down, this comes along. $60?! Now, in a recession?! I'm bookmarking your blog. It rocks!

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Jamie Harrington — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:14:22 -0000

Wow... Twitter is just starting to get awesome. If they were to really do this they would lose out on finally mainstreaming their app! I sure do hope that they don't do this. The day twitter charges is the day I stop using it and find another free service that does the same thing. There are too many services out there copycatting Twitter right now... it would just be dumb.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Lynn from Organicmania.com — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:23:41 -0000

What your post - and the ensuing comments - dramatically illustrate is that you can't TAKE SOMETHING AWAY from customers, even non-paying "users" like we Tweeters - and not expect an uproar.

This is a basic markeitng truism, but it's also backed up by a lot of research from the smart folks at HBS.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

olivier blanchard — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:53:09 -0000

Well put. A Skype-like model (free+premium options) might work for twitter, but only if the service adds some unique value-add features. It isn't robust or deep enough as-is to warrant any kind of fee from its users.

The simple option is to let advertising take care of it. If advertising can't support twitter, it will fail. Plain and simple.

I hate to see my twitter turn into an ugly billboard, but hey, welcome to the real world.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

monica — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:10:35 -0000

good post.
as you know Twitter is cool,I have to pay for twitter.but I hope I can have other more good choices.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Chel Wolverton — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:58:46 -0000

Yes, I'd pay for twitter, gladly, not $60 a month, as a small business owner I don't think I could fit that in my budget quiet yet.

I don't know if this was tossed out there, but why should I pay for using it more when I'm promoting it with every tweet I make when they are refusing Jason's money? If it's a software issue fix the software issue.

I don't think that's gonna solve the current issues. Until they fix it, I don't have the faith in the service enough to pay for it.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Marina Martin — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:19:37 -0000

Strange how so many people on the Internet *expect* things to be free.

Why should Twitter be free? There are employees, server, bandwidth, SMS fees, lawyers... it boggles my mind that someone could consider them entitled to use Twitter and not participate in the costs in some way.

Now, $60/month sounds a little steep, and I'm against a use-based model. $5 or $10 a month per account seems perfectly reasonable with no extra features.

Twitter is a huge value add for my life. Clients, friends, advice, business networking, heck, even a boyfriend. If I did the math, I owe Twitter a heck of a lot more than $60/mo to break even.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Ted McEnroe — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:13:29 -0000

Creating a subscription service for basic Twitter would be a disaster. Someone out there would undercut it, and kaboom. Is there a need for a Pro version that people would pay for? Maybe. But it would be interesting to see how many of our more casual followers would wander back to IM, email and other services without looking back.

There aren't a lot of examples out there of items that are a) internet mass media (not niche); b) not 100% unique (there are other, even if lesser, options, that are free); and c) that were once free that have moved into a subscription model rswithout imploding.

Jim (I'm sure) and I both remember when our media companies thought "of course people will subscribe to items on our news organization's websites!" The masses will always go for the free option... and how many of them will just update their Facebook status more often if they didn't have Twitter.

Don't get me wrong. I love Twitter... and might pay a little for a pro (or ad free) option. But yeah, it's got to be ads or other revenue streams over subscriptions. And yeah. It's got to be reliable and more feature-y.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Peter Fleck — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:30:37 -0000

I adopted early. I think it was 2006 but pagination is broken so I can't check this.

I could live with a "limited-tweet" free option coupled with an "as-many-as-you-want" pro option with a fee of $25/year or less. But before I fork over the cash, they must prove the system is newly robust and won't be breaking down every week.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Jane Quigley — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:08:17 -0000

I think it's nutty too - I would pay, and believe in paying for, a "pro" service. One with added value. As much as I love this platform - it's past time to get their house in order and figure out the business model. I wish that had been dome prior to a second round of funding.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Warren Whitlock — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:03:46 -0000

Since most people have never used Twitter, I think it's premature to talk about them having the critical mass tell us we have to put up with poor service.

Twitter is cool, twitter has the buzz, and Twitter will always be known as the the first Twitter-like service.

But their survival in current form is anything but a certainty. It seems very likely that they will make some move that will change the playground we enjoy... selling out to ads, a merger, or just breaking under the weight of 100 times the tweets we get today.

I love Twitter and would be willing to pay for pro services, but like Jim says, the current problems are much more than an issue of some users hitting it too much.

What I won't do is pay for a service that others don't use.

I evangelize for Twitter every day. Most don't get it until they have tried the service. I can't imagine telling one of them that they should pay anything for the current service. It will would take a lot of marketing to keep growing if this were a paid service. (think Vonage or Tivo).

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

JessieNewburn — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:41:52 -0000

Write or wrong, I'm not sure which Twitter is. I will say this, most of the people I know who are on Twitter are social media folks. They either work in or work with social media as an integral part of their jobs. And if a single one of those people can look their bosses in the face (or their investors) and say, "We don't really need to make money," I'd be shocked. So, why should Twitter be any different?

Perhaps, among all these discussions and others across the social media world, users desires and wants will help inform a business model Twitter can use, so that many of us can get we want: A highly functional, stable, adaptable and really cool tool to use at a low-cost or no cost.

Hey, to add to the growing pool of ideas, I'd pay for the ability to turn down the volume on certain Tweeps: people I like ... but not that much. :-)

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Dave Johnston — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:58:11 -0000

You didn't pay for the car, Jim. The analogy is fundamentally wrong.

You've been using the car for free for 18 months, but it's a clunker. It started out okay, but it's got all kinds of issues and now doesn't even start on some days. About what you would expect from a free car. You know, the kind your grandpa lets you use when you first get your license. An 83 Saab wagon with a lot of rust and a turbo that's just one day away from costing you an arm and a leg to fix.

Twitter needs to cost somebody, somewhere at some point. Life continues to not be free no matter how much we want to will that to not be true.

It will be either paid accounts or ads, or an acquisition by a company with a real bottom line, as a loss leader.

Stability will come to the majority of users either way. If it doesn't, there will be no Twitter.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Dave Dufour — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:54:16 -0000

Twitter seems like a made-for-google platform to me. With Google's analytics, they could drop in twitter-length text ads periodically that relate to the users' hot topics. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thought of this. But I frankly wouldn't pay a whole lot for the service. Per messages is out completely, but I might pay a nominal annual fee for added functionality. The ad model seems like the most rational to me, though, and the best opportunity for Twitter.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

geekaren — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:51:32 -0000

Excellent and very thoughtful post!

I'd willingly pay $25 per year for "Twitter premium" -- would need to include additional services (over and above free accounts), and some semblance of improved performance.

Full disclosure: I <3 Twitter.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Helen Mosher — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:38:10 -0000

Back when Livejournal offered more stable servers for those willing to shill out a bit for them, a lot of us did so. The other added value for us -- more userpics, being able to voice post, etc. etc. -- made it even more worth it.

Lately I've been feeling like I should just go back to LJ, honestly. Something I happily pay $25 a year for, has security options and filtering built in, allows multiple avatars and threaded conversations. Granted, I met a lot of folks through twitter I wouldn't have done so through LJ, but... now that I've met them, I wonder how many of them would truly follow me--wherever I might go.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Barry Graubart — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:12:32 -0000

Paying for uptime? Not going to happen. The Twitter team have to come up with a viable monetization model or else sell the technology to someone larger who can fund the infrastructure to make it workable.
As others have pointed out, a Twitter Pro app that had serious features, like better ability to create and manage groups, the ability to have multiple Twitter IDs tied to a single email address, etc. Also, could charge for the ability to follow more than 1,000 people, etc. BUT, don't expect any of us to shell out $ for that Twitter Pro service until you've proven that you can keep the existing service up and running.
There are various ways to monetize Twitter (sponsorship, advertising, private label corporate intra-Twitter, etc) but asking people to pay so that it doesn't suck just isn't one of them.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Liz Gilbert — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:40:17 -0000

I'm new to Twitter (4/30 as experiment re: arts np we're building) and my experience has been truly great because of the people & ease of exchange although it's still overwhelming me at the same time. I figure it's like a bootcamp re:: social networking (& I'm no stranger to this/just cut out for a while from the party & now I'm back) that I'm undertaking & I'm trying out different new apps (like socialmedian, second brain , tumblr).
One of the things I wonder about re: migration is what happens to the vast sea of support apps built up for Twitter...what a waste ! Maybe it's just the way it is in disposable economies but seems a shame re collective human brain power.
As far as it being a luxury & time waster, Twitter is certainly NOT that for me although the time it takes right now is daunting . This is only because I put an equal amount of time into on the ground work here with building itself etc.. & there are not enough hands & brains to go around. This would be true of any venture at start up though...it's demanding.
This $60 a month thing though...NO WAY. How would all of the non profits working with Twitter to network manage that particularly in the beginning stages when you need the open ability to brainstorm & may not have funds to go all over the world to conferences (or even want to re: CO2 footprint if there's another way ).
It's a fantastic networking tool partly because of its eclectic nature.
So, I just can't see why this brilliant community of developers can't fix Twitter ...is it that Twitter doesn't want the help ? Re: the contest BABT : Good thing , but I misunderstood slightly. Thought @mollywood was offering a crack team to actually go there and FIX IT ! That's the sense here : http://tinyurl.com/6q4osx
Thanks Jim, so much , for your effort here .

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Paula Brett — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:39:37 -0000

My thoughts are similar to many others... I enjoy using Twitter but I could live without it, I wouldn't pay for it.

Re: Twitter: Show Me Added Value if You Want Me to Pay

Steve Loopipe — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:32:17 -0000

I agree that charging based on how many people follow you is unfair; you shouldn't be charged for something that's beyond your control. But why would charging for following above X number of people be a bad thing?

If I understand the way Twitter works, the system has to expend resources to deliver each Tweet to each of that person's followers. So if person A is following 10K people and person B is following 100, isn't person A putting much more strain on the system than person B? It seems to me that you help Twitter scale by redefining what's a reasonable number of people to follow/strain for one user to put on the system, and what's excessive. And then the excessive folks can reevaluate whether it's worth more to them to pare down their number of followers or pony up to keep using the service.

I mean, honestly, once you follow a certain number of people, are you really consuming a decent percentage of those messages? At a certain point, doesn't the signal turn to noise? And if the person following 10K people isn't getting much out of the Tweets, and Twitter's straining to serve them, then it seems like a no-brainer that those people either help to support Twitter (given that they're the ones causing the most strain on the system) or are otherwise provided an immediate incentive to cut their following list down to a more reasonable level for the overall good of all the users.

This isn't without precedent, either. Most shared web hosts will shut down an account that's using too much CPU if it's causing performance issues for the rest of the sites on that server. At that point, the account needs to either reduce its CPU requirements dramatically or pay more (usually significantly more) for a dedicated server.