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Can Twitter Turn Promos Into Profits?

Unlike other online platforms that can cannibalize TV viewers, The New York Times reports that Twitter has become TV execs’ best friend. “TV producers … who crave the immediate feedback they can get from Twitter, have given the Web site free promotion, helping it to gain more users who will give even more feedback,” NYT writes.

For instance, as an alternative to calling or texting in a vote for a singer on “The X Factor,” Twitter soon plans to make it possible to vote with a message to the show’s account. Meanwhile, “the proliferation of Twitter logos and language on news and talk shows … is not an accident; it is the product of a strategy that started nearly three years ago with the hiring of Chloe Sladden, a former vice president at Current TV.”

Still, can Twitter turn all this promotion, and resulting growth, into revenue? “Over time, the theory goes, having more users will help the 5-year-old Twitter turn a steady profit,” the newspaper writes. As a result of the service’s “engaging with these other media platforms and providing benefits to them … benefits will accrue to us,” Dick Costolo, the chief executive of Twitter, says. By benefits, we assume Costolo is referring to revenue, but who knows.

Read the whole story at The New York Times »

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