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Posted on 28.03.09 by Matt @ 2:27 pm
When Twitter first started you could get your updates for free on your mobile phone through SMS. This is great, until you get more than ten friends and it starts to get annoying. What was good was that you could get DMs (direct messages) texted or just choose which followers you wanted to get SMSs from. In the US the SMS model works a little better for Twitter as some users have to pay for the texts they receive – therefore Twitter SMS is good news for telcos! In the UK its free to receive SMS so Twitter was finding itself coughing up a load of dough for sending SMS's to users, therefore it promptly turned them off. Until this week. It's announced a deal with mobile operator Vodafone to re-start it, with free texts to and from Twitter. It's likely that Twitter will gradually roll this out to other UK mobile operators over the coming months. A deal with a telco doesn't change the poor economics for Twitter, so there's got to be something in it for Vodafone if Twitter aren't paying for the texts, and there certainly is if you look at the T&Cs on Voda's website:
It makes sense for Vodafone – it's a good way for them to speak to their customers. However, this is the first time ads have appeared appended to messages – is it a sign of Twitter's future business model? Remember you can get these straight to your inbox by entering your email address at the top right of this page. The RSS link is up there too. Comments: 3 Comments
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This is an interesting developement but I wouldn’t say it is the business model more like a distribution model & as a user if you want to receive the texts then the cost is getting an ad as well.
I think that their actual business model is going to be around real time search in the future. This offers a world of possibilities and revenue sources.
Let’s keep watching & tweeting!
Comment by Ande Mac — March 28, 2009 @ 8:16 pm
I’m not entirely sure of the deal with other networks, but accessing Twitter on the iPhone via an app costs nothing as it comes under the price plan (assuming the right connection at the time of access).
I imagine that this is similar for Blackberry users as well as users of most of the other “iPhone killers.” It’s not the soundest business model for Twitter to adopt.
But the addition of “related” ads to “relevant” tweets is not beyond the realms of imagination.
Comment by SILV3R — March 29, 2009 @ 2:35 am
As a Vodafone customer I’ve tried their ‘new’ Twitter function – so far their ‘ads’ are hardly intrusive as they are at the end of the Tweets.
The only real problem I’m finding it that not all Tweets seem to be getting through.
Comment by Paul Easton — March 29, 2009 @ 10:36 am