[Posted on April 8, 2008 - 10:40 PM]
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It seems Obvious that microblogging service Twitter Inc. is planning to sell targeted advertising eventually, but an unannounced rollout of new features tonight gives a hint to its future plans. If you're already a user, you're now invited to "share your story," which includes age, gender, occupation, location and a few words about why you're using the service. In addition, the site has added a search function, and it has made its "badge" enabling users to add a Twitter feed to a blog or other Web site a more prominent feature.The company, backed by Union Square Ventures, Charles River Ventures and a group of prominent angels including Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen in a round of undisclosed size last year, has long provoked speculation as to when and how it would generate revenue. The new features suggest that a few concrete details will be added to an already-rich cloud of information willingly supplied by users to create profiles for targeted ads, as on social networks. (It echoes Union Square partner Fred Wilson's January 2008 post suggesting that "you have to look no farther than Facebook to see where all of this is headed.") The site's reported one million-plus users already share their minutiae all day long; how hard could it be to get them to cough up a little personal information on demand? -- Paul Bonanos
See Jan. 8 post on Fred Wilson's blog
So, then the formula is build the product, build membership,find a way to get personal information, then target ad your members in "stealth" mode. Hmmm sounds logical enough but, I would love to hear some other approaches to producing revenues on Twitter. Can anyone think of another way?