Twitter to introduce new tools for business

Social networking micro-blogging site Twitter will introduce new tools for business by the end of the year and may even charge for their use, co-founder Biz Stone announced.

At the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York this week, Stone announced through a video conference that the company will introduce new commercial products over two phases.

The company (which is two years old and has just 29 employees) has been rumoured to be searching for ways to monetise its popularity.

The site has experienced rapid growth over the past year, jumping from 475,000 unique visitors per month in February 2008 to seven million in February 2009, according to Nielson Online. 

The first phase of Twitter's push into the business sector will involve market research to find out how businesses and individuals are using the service every day.

"We're looking at who's using Twitter and for what. Are there any commercial usages that are making a lot of sense?" Stone said.

The second phase will involve the site announcing and launching the new tools along with its existing platform, which asks users to type messages 140 characters long about what they are doing.

But Stone said businesses shouldn't get too excited just yet, with the products to be released just "simple stuff", including analytics tools.

But he did say that companies may end up paying for the services.

"If there is a way we can go above and beyond, and they (companies) can improve bottom line by offering services we can offer for a fee, (we) will do that," he said.

Businesses have been taking advantage of Twitter since its introduction to the web. Gourmet food trucks in the United States are now popular for "tweeting" their location every few hours, resulting in long queues every time a new message is sent.

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Comments (5)

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written by DejanSEO, May 19, 2009

We had an interesting group discussion at CeBIT in Sydney last week regarding integration of Twitter in business as a form of quick cuetomer support. Many issues were raised and the main one was regarding the volume handling and user disappointment. Automated replies were out of question as Twitter was supposed to be a human thing.

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written by Sean Randall, May 19, 2009

I have several Twitter business accounts and can't wait to think outside the box and become a leader. This application is so under utiliased that it's really scary.

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written by Andre Sammartino, May 19, 2009

There was a nice story in the Australian last week about wineries using Twitter to build networks of contacts (within in the supply chain and with customers): http://www.theaustralian.news....19,00.html

I blogged about it here: http://internationalbs.wordpre...f-twitter/

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written by Walter Adamson, May 20, 2009

@DejanSEO interesting that you mentioned this twitter/business discussion at CeBIT in Sydney. I didn't go but there is no doubt that Twitter already has a role to play in business and as you said this goes beyond marketing and into support, client relationships, product development, and of course brand management and PR.

The Social Media Academy has launched in Australia with an aim to educate managers and consultants about the strategic approach to social media, and understanding the social web from a corporate point of view.

Free intro webinars are available here:
http://www.socialmedia-academy.com/html/au-introwebinar.cfm

Walter Adamson
@g2m
http://newleaseg2m.com

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written by search engine optimisation, October 30, 2009

I can see Twitter being very useful in businesses getting info out to a lot of people all at once. How about a daily special for Twerps or any announcements about a product launch. if they are useful and save people money they will stay connected and make sure the tweets come to their phone or something. Celebs already use Twitter well to speak to fans about what they are doing so there is value, it's just getting the head around how best to use it for your business. Might take some lateral thinking, but perhaps a Gen Y employee can help with ideas.