This could become big. Imagine celebrities tweeting buy link for their album or donation links when some calamity strikes or AMZN/Flipkart launching an exclusive deal/product on twitter or imagine launch of a new book/phone/car and tweeting buy button to prebook it. This could take impulse buy to a whole new level. Has Twitter finally found a viable business model ?
Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
111–120 of 122 posts
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Any idea what the payment commision will be?
If I had to guess it'd be similar to Gumroads 5% + 25cents.
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#113Because 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 wor…
Going down this list made me realize how tempting it would be to have a buy button right next to the tweet.
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Twitter was open to the protocol idea once, when they were even allowing Twitter clones to be built using their API. Chances are they simply ran the numbers and saw that that route was not big enough to fulfill their lofty ambitions.
The only way the social network protocol can be realised is if you have a lucky band of developers for whom everything just clicks into place without funding, like Craigslist. Unfortunately that's really hard to achieve in today's internet landscape where anyone with a large hosting bill gets an offer they can't refuse from a VC.
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter is a private company so they should continue to do whatever they please. If you want to create a decentralized Twitter go for it... my guess is it would be about as popular as Diaspora but all the praise to you if you can disrupt them.
They can do whatever they please. I can wish that they would do something else. They obviously won’t. It’s not in their own self-interest. Saying they should remain this cynical monopoly that does shitty things just seems nonsensical to me. No, they should not. They can . They do . I think they shouldn’t . I mean, none of this will actually happen. Twitter will continue to have a monopoly and I see no realistic way t…
You're allowed to think whatever you want obviously; my point was that stating you'd wish they'd gone a different direction is much different than seemingly positioning an argument for what they should and shouldn't do as realistic or in any way beneficial for Twitter. I'm glad you cleared that up but your personal opinions on their direction seem in contention with your admittance that it wouldn't be possible or advantageous for them to follow what you'd like them to do. In regards to email, the oligopoly of decent clients act in a way really no less perverse than Twitter does (which I don't think is much at all mind you).
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#116There 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…
What if they were tickets to something:
"Announcing super concert 2,000 is open for ticket purchases! Click here now to get your!!! ONLY 5,000 slots available!"
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#117SO, now twitter wants to store financial data on users now too?
No thanks
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#118Bought on Twitter: Twought.
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sandy comes to mind, and is actually a better example. (Although Google seems to have forgotten it existed.) For clarity, I see Twitter as having this amazing potential as a message bus for both people, apps, and services. And I feel that potential has been squandered. I'm unsure if this particular idea is going to pay off. But the general notion of an ecosystem of services hanging off of Twitter seems like the right…
How do you make money as a message bus? I'm not saying I disagree (I take no position on the merits of Twitter-as-a-servce, as I am not a user), but clearly the Best Minds have decided that the attention economy (read: ads) is the way forward. How do you pay for that critical mass? Twitter isn't something that falls out of infrastructure -- decisions had and have to be taken to spend resources. While selling people t…
It's not entirely either/or. They have a website and an official app, so advertising is always going to be on the table.
You make money by charging companies for access to the platform. Charge for access, charge for users, charge per tweet. There are options. This is not a new idea. (See EDI etc.)
Re: Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I may be oversensitive to spam (I must admit that my love of ad-blocking software in all sorts of systems borders on mania) but the very idea that I now have to be wary of Sponsored Tweets that require an effort to unsee has already started to spoil the experience.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, etc, etc. I like the Sponsored Tweets compared to the alternatives: either paying to use Twitter or banner ads.
Or hosting your own... Take a look at http://twister.net.co - it has potential for scalable decentralized peer-to-peer microblogging.