Good news: Twitter has announced that it’s using anti-phishing technology to detect dangerous short URLs submitted in direct messages and Tweets. I proposed that it do so last September. And given how many fake direct messages I get with short URLs that lead to sites that try to swipe my personal information, it’s pretty obvious that some form of short-url safeguards were way overdue…
Joking about terrorism on Twitter can get you in deep trouble. (Weirdest part of this story: It involves an airport named after Robin Hood. Say, wasn’t he a terrorist?)
Over on Twitter (where I’m @harrymccrcken), I asked my pals to tell me what their favorite tech product they’d ever owned was. I got scads of responses–and while this wasn’t a contest, the iPhone/iPod Touch got more mentions than any other item. Take a look at the Tweets after the jump, then chime in by leaving a comment about your most-loved gizmo, gadget, PC, software, or service…
Twitter has long been derided by those interested in the financial side of tech as a money pit. The service really does not have a way to make money, although it was able to pull a profit this year thanks to content syndication deals with both Microsoft and Google. Thus several job listings on its website seem interesting considering the ever so common criticism.
Of the roughly two dozen listings, four include the word “monetization.” Those jobs would involve working on projects — seemingly as yet unreleased — which would give Twitter its much needed revenue stream.
Analysts told Reuters last week that its fairly likely that making money is a priority for the service in 2010. One analyst suggested that in order for Twitter to be successful in the long term, it has to start generating revenue in the short term.
Makes sense: you just can’t keep on losing money forever.
I am curious to see what Twitter does. We have seen that the company is open to some type of premium services, ones that would likely be sold to businesses. The commercial sector has increasingly turned to Twitter to supplement its customer service options, and going after these folks first seems like the most logical choice.
We’ve done predictions. I made some resolutions on behalf of the PC industry. And today on Twitter, I asked my pals to share their own personal wishes for 2010.
Here (after the jump) is what they had to say–once you’ve read their hopes, dreams, and ambitions, share your own in the comments. Happy new year, and thanks for being part of the Technologizer community.
Oft-criticized for its lack of a business model that could actually make the company some money, Twitter may be able to shut up those critics for a bit. BusinessWeek has learned that the company will be able to post a small profit for 2009 thanks to the content deals it signed during the year.
It’s deal with Google was worth about $15 million, and with Microsoft for Bing about $10 million. Without actual data on the company’s operating expenses — it does not publicly release this information — BW is guessing expenses would run about $20-25 million. That means Twitter may actually have an ever-so-small profit this year.
Helping Twitter to achieve this feat was efforts at cost reductions. It’s text messaging offering which sent tweets to mobile phones were one of its biggest expenses — with Twitter very popular, the company was able to leverage this to get better deals on messaging rates.
It remains to be seen whether Twitter can remain profitable. Job one of course seems to be these content deals, the easiest way for the company to generate revenue. Plans to charge for commercial accounts is another way — tweeting is the new fad in customer relations — and advertising is another way.
Such changes may affect Twitter’s feel slightly as it becomes more commercial, however the current business model is not very sustainable. There’s just no way in it for the company to make money. Venture capitalists are in the business to make money, you know.
Twitter’s home page was replaced this evening by a message claiming to be the work of “the Iranian Cyber Army.” Then most of the site went down. At the moment, it seems to back up, but only sort of–I still can’t get into the status page and blog. You gotta wonder whether Twitter’s doing everything it can to keep the site safe, and whether it’ll give us all the gory details on how this happened…
Twitter has dipped its toe into the waters of business accounts on the microblogging service, saying Monday it would be allowing an account to be tweeted to buy multiple twitter accounts in the near future. Called “Contributors,” those particpating would be given a small byline acknowledgement at the end of the tweet.
The service says the move allows businesses to make these corporate tweets more personable by letting the reader know who is behind the company. However, the new functionality is not ready for public consumption, so its release will only be limited to a select group of business users and partners. Use of Contributors after the beta period ends looks to be limited to business-centric accounts and partners, so no allowing your girlfriend to tweet for you when this is ready for prime time.
Contributors is apparently only one of several features that the company is working on, although it is not being specific on what the others may be. In any case, this seems a natural move for the company considering so many businesses are turning to the service in order to reach out to their customers.
While some may wonder why Twitter is seemingly stepping on the feet of its partners such as CoTweet, those partners are saying that’s not the case. In a blog post on Monday, CoTweet said that Twitter was committed to the success of its partner ecosystem and would not purposely do anything to disrupt those relationships.
“Businesses will continue to require functionality such as CoTweet’s advanced work flow and conversation history that allow them to engage in authentic, two-way dialogs with their customers and communities,” it argued. “There is a large area of opportunity between what Twitter will be offering and what businesses require.”
