The big news: Twitter is raising another $100 million on a valuation of $1 billion! Well I guess that seals it. Twitter is in it for the long haul, declaring its intention to remain a freestanding media company.
But as Bloomberg News reported, “Twitter has yet to report any significant revenue.” So how can it justify that kind of valuation? Let’s put it this way — remember when Google had yet to report any significant revenue?
Twitter attracted 25 million users in August, compared with 2.2 million a year earlier, according to Nielsen. With that kind of groundswell and large database of registered users, the opportunities for highly targeted contextual, demographic, geographic, and behavioral advertising is huge. Twitter could monetize in ways that would be non-intrusive.
Twitter has reached a point where there aren’t many alternatives to the micro-blogging platform. While it’s not impossible for one to emerge, it’s unlikely. People are pretty much wedded to Twitter, plus there are so many complementary applications in use on desktops and mobile devices around the globe. It would be difficult to topple Twitter off the top of the heap anytime soon.
Then there are fears about injecting advertising into a media environment that people enjoy. I always hear, “Well, people don’t like advertising,” or “We did a poll and people said they did not want to see ads.” If you asked television viewers if they wanted to see ads during their favorite show, close to 100 percent would probably say “no.” Now conversely if you asked people if they preferred to have their favorite show with ads or not having their show at all because there was no funding, close to 100 percent would probably take the show with the ads.
The same goes for Twitter. Of course, no one wants it cluttered with ads. But if there were only two choices — Twitter with a way to stay in business or no Twitter — the vast majority of us would choose Twitter with a way for it to stay in business.
The same thing happened with Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Even YouTube has pre-rolls running on certain premium partner channels and I haven’t heard of any huge consumer backlash.
So, I started to think of the different ways I’d monetize Twitter if it were my site. And that includes programs that I’d find valuable as a media buyer.