Twitter slammed as the dumbest dot.com idea
This is an interesting story. On July 03, 2009 the Times Business, Money Cenrtal folks published a list of the 10 dumbest dot.com ideas. Surprisingly Twitter was at the top.
Twitter is anything but ‘dumb’ and it would seem that the Times are basing the ‘dumber than dumb’ on just how much money they have generated. Which again is very short-sighted in my opinion. Since when has the amount of money something generated been a measure of ‘dumbness’?
Current darling of the faddish world of technology, Twitter is a free social networking service, that allows users to send and read each other’s updates, such as “I’m now in the shower”, “I’m now at my local Barclays bank withdrawing all the money from my account” or “I’m leaving my house for the next ten days”… Making it a must read for burglars. It has about 55 million visits every month, although only 40 per cent of users are retained, and receives an inordinate amount of media attention. But despite this, the company has yet to make a single penny.
Mind you there are some particularly dumb ideas that have made a lot of money. Let us not forget ‘The Million Dollar Home Page’. There’s one dumb-arse idea right there that made; erm, $1 million!
Twitter on the other hand is not a dumb idea. It is a simple and straightforward idea that has yet to decide how to generate revenue. The net is scattered with sites like these that will first establish themselves in the market and then go on to make a revenue. Just look at Facebook. I am sure that when Google first started out there goal was to attract people to use their services and almost to become dependant; before pulling profits in.
I am confident that Twitter will create a revenue stream in the next 12 months and the net is awash with people suggesting how that can happen – but only time will tell.
However with over 11.5 million users Twitter has a user-base upon which a business can be built and made successful.
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Dave is a 30-something year old technologist and professional working and living in the UK. Ever since he first sat down at a computer keyboard back in the early ‘80s he has been hooked on technology – good and proper! Now-a-days he works within the software business with a fast paced organisation evangelising how technology can help save us all time, and make us money! Dave’s wife and 2 kids tend not to share this enthusiasm and believes that he is just playing!
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
David
The notion that twitter is some way a dumb tool is ridiculous and the article that you put forward from The Times suggests that the author has no experience or validity in discussing it in the way that they have.
Never has there been a more powerful tool for connecting people in niche / topic from all corners of the world and never has there been a more powerful tool for breaking news to relevant audiences.
With journalism of that quality perhaps we have an indication of why the print paper businesses are in trouble.