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Twitter Finds Profit (April, 2010)

Twitter Execs Get Down To Actual Business

The past week marked a new era for the extremely popular social media site, Twitter. The website, which boasts millions of users from around the globe, has finally developed a business plan that could turn the company into a profit machine.

Twitter held a developer conference for the unveiling of several new services aimed at driving in profit. The services included promoted tweets, official mobile apps and an improved geo-tagging feature. Additionally, the company also discussed a deal with the Library of Congress that will preserve the billions of tweets that are free floating on the Internet.

“Twitter’s been under a lot of pressure to be a more transparent business,” a senior social-networking analyst with Forrester Research said. “Now the company has come to a point in its maturity where it’s starting to operate much more as a business and less as a startup.”

The introduction of promoted tweets allows advertisers to purchase ad space rights to select keywords. In essence, when a Twitter user puts the company’s keyword into Twitter’s search engine, a tweet from the company or companies that paid for the use of the keyword will show up at the top of Twitter’s feed.

Some users found the promoted tweets to be a nuisance, but the company noted that there were relatively few complaints. The feature is still in an experimental phase with hopes to further develop the service to cater more towards the interests of individuals.

Finally entering the mobile application market, Twitter announced the release of the company’s official BlackBerry application. Expanding its market, the company announced the purchase of the popular iPhone application, Tweetie, and its intentions to release an official application for Verizon’s Android phone.

Before the week’s announcements, Twitter had zero official mobile applications to its name and relied on third-party developers. Now, those developers are faced with the growing possibility that their services will be overlooked by consumers that opt for everything “official.”

The company also unveiled a new geo-tagging feature, called “Places,” that will make it easier for users to see where tweets are coming from. The company plans to keep a database of locations such as bars, parks and restaurants that will show up under a person’s tweet if it is transmitted from that specific location. The new geo-tagging feature has received some criticism for being too intrusive, while supporters argue that the feature helps to create a better feel of connection with the service.

In what could be viewed as Twitter’s massive popularity and influence on society, the Library of Congress purchased the rights to Twitter’s archive, allowing all user tweets to be searchable from Google. The billions upon billions of tweets around the world date back to 2006. The deal will make it easier for users to search and study tweets from historical social-media events such as the movement against the questionable Iranian elections of 2009, which sparked riots and forced the governing regime into the global spotlight. Even President Obama has numerous tweets that are now archived, including his tweet that he issued shortly after winning the Presidential election.

Many analysts have been waiting for Twitter to make a solid move towards a more profitable business strategy for some time now. Perhaps the company’s big week will transform the website into a cash cow much like Facebook has become as a result of developing more profit-based services.