Commentary

Twitter Considers New Revenue Streams

In another bid to boost its bottom line, Twitter is pondering a premium Tweetdeck-like service for professionals willing to pay for social insights.  

“We’re exploring several ways to make Tweetdeck even more valuable for professionals,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement in March. If and when Twitter launches such a service, it will likely feature social-activity tracking and planning tools similar to those offered by SocialFlow and HootSuite.

In the past, Twitter has played with the concept of a more structured measurement service. Last summer, it debuted a Dashboard app for businesses, which could track discussion about products and keywords, as well as hashtags that failed to show up as “@” mentions.

Without much explanation, however, Twitter said it was shuttering Dashboard at the beginning of 2017.

As its business outlook dims, Twitter is obviously in search of new revenue streams. For the first time, for instance, the social giant recently announced plans to host its own presentation during the Digital Content Newfronts. Along with other platforms and publishers, Twitter plans to vie for a piece of brands’ annual ad budgets, on May 1.

The move is part of a broader effort to invest in original video content and bring advertisers into the fold, Matthew Derella, Twitter's vice president of global revenue and operations, said earlier this month.

In the fourth quarter, Twitter saw revenue increase by just 1% to $717 million year-over-year, while monthly active users were up just 4% to 319 million.

Worse yet, ad revenue totaled $638 million -- down slightly year-over-year.

Analysts did not hide their disappointment with the once high-flying company.

This column was previously published in Moblog on March 24, 2017.

2 comments about "Twitter Considers New Revenue Streams".
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  1. Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, April 12, 2017 at 1:34 p.m.

    Might I make a modest proposal? Identify any prominent billionaires who tweet frequently and charge them a hefty subscription fee.

  2. Jonathan Hutter from Northern Light Health replied, April 12, 2017 at 3:55 p.m.

    I daresay a modest fee would be enough to cause such activity to cease. The response would be, "I made that company, and now they want to charge me? Sad!" 

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