Interview With Twitter Boss

[Engage]

Just heard a BBC interview with the founder of Twitter.

First, as you'd expect, a very bright and articulate fellow. A farm boy, who grew up in the middle of a corn field. He's late 30's.

It sounds like Twitter is not really making any money, and may not have much of an idea how they will make money. This made me feel much better about some of my projects. :-)

Also, an interesting discussion regarding a Facebook offer to buy Twitter for many millions, and why the offer was declined. Apparently the owner feels it's not time to cash out yet. I hope he knows what he's doing. Personally, if anybody offers me many millions, it's time to cash out.

I was reminded of a working lunch I had with a domain name speculator a few years back.

His father had died, leaving him a big chunk of cash in the mid 90s. So he invested it all in many domain names. For awhile, things went great, and he received 6 figure offers for some of his domains, and tons of interest in many other domains.

So he figured, the market is hot, so I'll hang tight, and wait for the price to go even higher.

And then the market went poof. All gone. Bye, bye.

When I met him, he had thousands of domains he had to pay to renew every year, and nobody really wanted them.

He could have been a millionaire, set for life, if he'd timed it right. But he got greedy, and now still works his 9-5 job, so he can pay his huge domain registration bills.

It was a sad lunch.

My advice. If your site becomes the next Twitter, sell it. While you can.

[gailjrichardson]

Engage,I totally agree. If someone offered me that much money for anything but my kids it would be gone. "It" being the key word.LOL

[Sandy2089]

So you mean that soon Twitter will lose its fame and popularity? Nevertheless, the story about a farm boy was an interesting one (by the way, Bill Gates wasn't a rich from the birth).

[GoodCooker]

And i just read an article how the 2 owners of Google offered their site to Yahoo in the beginning...for stocks really...and they turned them down...and said go back to school and continue to work on the project.
that turned out way different!!!!

BUT .... you never know....so I personally would take the money too.

gretchen

[Engage]

Engage,I totally agree. If someone offered me that much money for anything but my kids it would be gone. "It" being the key word.LOL

Well, ok, but um, then shouldn't you remove your kids from your eBay store? :-)

So you mean that soon Twitter will lose its fame and popularity?

I dunno. Not soon. At some point, yes, that's my guess. If you own Twitter, the question is, when will the peak of interest occur?

The guy who owns Twitter also created Blogger. I don't know if he's made money on that or not. If he sold it for big bucks, he may have enough money that he can afford to be brave with Twitter.

And i just read an article how the 2 owners of Google offered their site to Yahoo in the beginning...for stocks really...and they turned them down...and said go back to school and continue to work on the project. that turned out way different!!!!

Good point! That's really interesting. I didn't know that story, thanks for sharing it.

New question:

1) Would you pay for a Twitter account?

2) Would you still use Twitter if they covered it with ads?

It seems one way or another, sooner or later, money has to flow from Twitter user's pockets, to Twitter owner's pockets?

My sense is that if Twitter tries either 1 or 2 above, users will probably be outraged, and rush off to a competitor.

I don't really understand how this transaction will happen. As best I can tell, the current Twitter owner doesn't know either.

By the way, just so you'll know, I have a special sale going right now. Buy my site for millions now, because it might money someday!!! What a deal, you don't want to miss out!! :-)

[Engage]

Yes, fantastic branding, good point. They've certainly captured the moment.

[Bridgett Raffenberg]

But would you mind if Twitter put ads into the sidebar (as Facebook has)? I wouldn't mind a bit. There is certainly enough real estate on the screen for that to happen. Does anyone know why Twitter hasn't tried that yet?

[Engage]

But would you mind if Twitter put ads into the sidebar (as Facebook has)?

Does anyone know if Facebook is profitable? That is, will ads in the sidebar get the job done?

I have no idea myself, would be interested to learn more.

[danwangert]

New question:

1) Would you pay for a Twitter account?

2) Would you still use Twitter if they covered it with ads?

It seems one way or another, sooner or later, money has to flow from Twitter user's pockets, to Twitter owner's pockets?

My sense is that if Twitter tries either 1 or 2 above, users will probably be outraged, and rush off to a competitor.

I don't really understand how this transaction will happen. As best I can tell, the current Twitter owner doesn't know either.

To answer question 1...I prefer Twitter just as it is, FREE for everyone's use BUT in the case it's going to require people to pay a monthly fee i dont really know. I probably would if paying means getting two or three times the current amount of traffic I am getting.

To answer question 2...if they cover it with ads NO but if there's going to be ad revenue sharing then yeah MAYBE