The Afternoon Report, March 2, 2009
This information, called The Afternoon Report, is provided by a daily email blast from the publicity firm of Boneau Bryan-Brown, which maintains this blog. This feature doesn't run daily but whenever The Afternoon Report seems to point out articles of interest.
Twitter Eyes Search as Means to Monetize
Advertising Age – by Michael Learmonth
“When twitter closed on a $35 million round of venture capital, in addition to the $20 million it had already raised, the messaging service signaled that it intends to be a very big business. Like its 6 million users, corporations have embraced the service. Its ability to take the measure of what is being said at a given time about brands is a potential gold mine for marketers, and it is the first place Twitter will look to generate revenue.
"There are companies and brands depending on it more and more and finding the insights valuable in how they make decisions," said co-founder Biz Stone. "What further can we do to help them?" But selling services to corporate America isn't the kind of Google-scale business Twitter's founders and backers are banking on. What is? Well, maybe search. Last summer, Twitter bought search engine Summize and has recently started integrating search into certain user accounts. Federated Media CEO John Battelle likens Twitter to YouTube, in that Google thought it was buying a video platform, but YouTube's real value may be that it has become the second-largest source of search queries. The difference is Twitter enables a search of real-time sentiment and conversation. "Twitter owns its own search, which is more valuable than Twitter itself," said Howard Lindzon, an entrepreneur who launched one of a proliferating ecosystem of Twitter-based businesses, StockTwits.”
OMG, could Twitter end up out-Googling Google? I'm not trying to funny here -- is it possible?
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