Ever since Twitter filed
to go public, rumors have been swirling about the viability of the revenue
opportunity. Of course people understand
the advertising side of the equation, but how significant is the opportunity to
sell the data behind the millions of tweets that go out each day?
In my mind, the first
question is, “Is there demand?” – If history is a judge, the answer is
“Yes”. During the first half of the
year, Twitter made $32.2M from its data licensing deals. This is poised to grow as Twitter’s user base
grows and penetrates new jurisdictions.
It’s obvious to see why consumer goods companies would want access to
this information. Not a day goes by that
I don’t see a tweet about products and the attributes that make consumers love
or hate them. Recent examples from my
Twitter feed include things like, “Mmmm, Chobani”, and “Did you know there was
such a thing as Raspberry Coke? #intrigued”.
But what about B2B companies? For
example, is there any reason that Grainger, a company that supplies industrial
products like pumps and valves to see value in Twitter’s trove of data? The
answer is, “It depends”. If access to Twitter analytics could give the company
a window into marketplace trends, then perhaps it would be of interest. In the meantime, however, it’s a wait-and-see
game. Advertising revenue is the easy
lever, let’s see how Twitter can diversify its revenue opportunity and
capitalize on the billions of bits of information that pass through its servers
each day.
No comments:
Post a Comment