When Twitter Inc. launched ExecTweets earlier this week, it sounded like a useful tool for anyone whose job involves tracking dealmakers and other business leaders. And, because the service was created by Federated Media in partnership with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), ExecTweets also struck us as a clever way for venture-backed Twitter to begin generating revenues (a topic that has become irresistible to business reporters including this one).
"ExecTweets is a platform that aggregates the tweets of top business execs and empowers the community to surface the most insightful, business-related tweets," promises the About blurb.
Wow, that sounds like something we at The Deal would drool over. After all, we spend a lot of time on Twitter monitoring deals and tracking dealmakers.
But talk about a lunch-bag letdown. Here are the slim pickings featured on the first page of ExecTweets early Thursday morning:
@AnnePMitchell (CEO, SuretyMail.com): Business Tip of the Day: Don't lose sight of your primary mission - if you're not committed your customers won't be either.
@nigeldessau (CMO, AMD): RT @Pogue: TONIGHT'S MEDITATION: No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
@BobJeffreyJWT (CEO, JWT Worldwide): Just enjoyed dinner with Charlotte Beers on the eve of her induction into the Ad Hall of Fame. She's a legend. What a well deserved honor.
Ultimately, the most helpful aspect of ExecTweets may be its directory of Twitter IDs. But at the moment, even it has quite a few bugs. (Twitter's new Suggested Users service is taking some heat too.)
Oddly, the ExecTweets directory is in alphabetical order by first name, not last (an irritating trend I've been noticing lately). More significant, it has gaping holes.
A case in point: Jason Calacanis, the serial entrepreneur and blog pioneer who founded Mahalo.com, Weblogs Inc. (sold to AOL LLC) and Silicon Alley Reporter, isn't on the list. We follow him on Twitter, often from the vantage point of TweetDeck -- which we've found to be the most useful Twitter tool to date -- and noticed Calacanis' think-I'll-go-out-in-the-garden-and-eat-worms tweet Wednesday:
@JasonCalacanis: Wonder why i was left off exectweets :-( i guess i'm too unprofessional. :-)
He's in good company. President Obama (@BarackObama) who tweeted Wednesday for the first time since taking office to promote his Thursday virtual town hall, didn't make it to ExecTweets either.
We were left out too. You'll find The Deal's ExecTweets below. - Mary Kathleen Flynn
Follow The Deal on Twitter:
@MKFlynn Senior editor Mary Kathleen Flynn tracks deal developments in the tech sector and interacts with tech entrepreneurs and investors profiled in The Deal's award-winning Behind the Money online video show.
@dealscape Executive editor Tom Groppe, Tweeting The Deal Economy
@newsgirlmw Video producer Maria Woehr highlights the latest updates from TheDeal.com
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Thanks for your interest and your comments. We encourage feedback from the community and we aim to institute changes when and where they make sense. ExecTweets is a living thing and we’re improving it everyday.
The list of execs included in ExecTweets is expanding everyday based on the input of the community. This is by design. The original list was in no way meant to be comprehensive. It was but a seed meant to be grown by community nominations. Nominations should be sent to @exectweets, btw. We examine every nomination. Please keep them coming!
Calacanis, for one, was nominated yesterday and included today. Lots more great people being considered as well. And Barak Obama? Last I looked he was the President of the United States. That’d be great for PoliticoTweets or some such (great idea), but not so much for ExecTweets, which was designed to be an aggregation of business executive twitter activity.
Great idea on reordering the list by last name. We’ll certainly take that into consideration.
Matt DiPietro, Federated Media (and ExecTweets)