Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

blog.twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 122 posts

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#41

Post by arrrg »

pionar wrote: post #36
pinaceae wrote: post #16

it is a big conundrum if your core product, through its simplicity, is really great. you hire all these product people, have all these investors, but any direction you can take the product actually makes it worse against its initial, great core use. twitter as a protocol is on a level with smtp - a lucky strike, hitting a need, something for the ages. journalists, media, etc. love it. RSS on a whole new level. but tw…

Twitter isn't a protocol. If it was, there'd be Twitter (the protocol) based services everywhere, and it'd be open and federated. Twitter is a service. Services need money. It's a simple as that.

Thing is, Twitter should be a protocol. It clearly fills an existing need (I see it as very similar to email in that regard, just filling a different need – people want to chat publicly with each other and in a very informal way inform the public about things), but it doesn’t really make sense as a service that wants to make money.

Twitter should be just like email, not this one monopoly controlling everything. It’s sad that that’s the way it is.

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#42

Post by chrisan »

ebbv wrote: post #3

Because when I'm browsing Twitter my first thought is usually "Gee I wish I could buy some random thing."

Just a guess you aren't following "random" companies but rather things you are interested in?

OcculusVR: New Rift is out! [Buy]

SXSW: Tickets on sale now! [Buy]

JKRowling: Just release my new Book [Buy]

Steam: [Some new Triple A game] is released [Buy]

RaspberryPi: New Pi Beowulf cluster available for purchase [Buy]

RedCross: [Some disaster] we need your support [Donate]

(I'm sure a donate will come along if this works)

Anywho, there have to be _tons_ of impulse buyers in the world. People will click

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#43

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

wodenokoto wrote: post #28
rschuetzler wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it's not from a company I'm following. Inevitably this will show up in the ads I'm shown on the site, which are things I do not follow.

With or without the buy button you are seeing the adds.

Also, total change of culture from distributing (arguably) interesting and entertaining content to selling and promoting stuff.

Result: more noise, much lower snr.

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#44

Post by kordless »

There are exactly zero times I wished I could buy something from a Tweet with a button. Given that limited observation of buyer behavior, and knowing full well Twitter wishes to make profit, I'm assuming these buttons will be forced into my public stream somewhere, somehow. Some people on here think these buttons will be placed there by Twitter via ads, but I have another idea:

Provide a micropayment channel program where, when I retweet a purchase button, I get part of the revenue share. Use cryptocurrencies to implement the feature. See @tipdoge for reference.

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#45

Post by brandoncapecci »

pionar wrote: post #34
chton wrote: post #5

I'm actually impressed they found a way to monetize their platform that doesn't involve obtrusive ads. This seems like a good source of income for them and their clients, and as long as they don't force you to follow commercial accounts, it will be almost invisible to anyone who doesn't want to see it. I'm cautiously optimistic.

No, it's ads. You can just now buy from the ads directly.

No, it's not ads. Sponsored tweets will likely get the same treatment but this is the start of a two-sided marketplace where users stay on the site to buy an item from a tweet of someone they're following, rather than the old method which was to follow a bitly or gumroad link.

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#46

Post by Erwin »

I wonder if there's a way to generalize this so any text or image can have metadata about purchasing the exact product. Something like a shorter UPC but with a non-intrusive reader embedded everywhere offering you to buy the product through manufacturer-controlled channels (varying depending on what country you are in).

You "just" need to get enough users to install the scanning software; maybe the next iPhone will come with Apple Shopping that scans all text you see and all images for the metadata/watermarks. As it detected a product, the new second $ button lights up. Press down on it for a second, and the product information pops up (Apple Shopping knows your size/address/credit card already of course). Hold it down for a few seconds longer, and you've made your purchase. Don't, and a few weeks later maybe the seller gets to send you a 10% off coupon.

Actually, Amazon's phones might already have something like that, letting you scan a bar code in a physical shop but purchase from Amazon.

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#47

Post by Touche »

chton wrote: post #37
pionar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's ads. You can just now buy from the ads directly.

I don't know where you get that idea. They explicitly say "some Tweets from our test partners will feature a “Buy” button", there is no mention of ads. The implication is, if I don't follow their partners, I won't see the buy button.

Just because you voluntarily follow the ads does it not still make them ads?

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#49

Post by chton »

spacefight wrote: post #40
chton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you get that idea. They explicitly say "some Tweets from our test partners will feature a “Buy” button", there is no mention of ads. The implication is, if I don't follow their partners, I won't see the buy button.

Until they start injecting the buy features into regular sponsored tweets. That will happen for sure.

That's a possibility, but that still wouldn't be more intrusive than the current sponsored tweets. If anything, if this model is successful, they might even reduce the amount of sponsored stuff appearing in your timeline.

Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

#50

Post by chton »

Touche wrote: post #47
chton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you get that idea. They explicitly say "some Tweets from our test partners will feature a “Buy” button", there is no mention of ads. The implication is, if I don't follow their partners, I won't see the buy button.

Just because you voluntarily follow the ads does it not still make them ads?

Then any corporate accounts you follow now are 'ads'. It's an added button, no more, no less. If that magically makes an otherwise neutral tweet an ad, you need a more rigorous definition of advertisement.
Post reply on HN