Category: Twitter
Twitter back on SMS to Vodafone customers
Twitter and Vodafone have struck a deal to see SMS updates and notifications back free of charge on UK handsets once more. The two catches, and they are whompingly large ones, are that you have to be a Vodafone customer and that the offer is only free for an unspecified limited period of time quoted as being “the first few weeks”.
You can use @replies and navigate straight to the site by the URL included in the message and the deal will be bundled for free into a number of Vodafone text packages. If not in your bundle, you’ll still be able to use it, but you’ll have to start paying when the limited period finishes.
It’s all reasonably good news if you’re on Vodafone but there’s still something of a bad taste in my mouth when the whole thing used to be free for all anyway. Despite being a Vodafone customer, I might go with my esteemed colleague, Duncan Geere, on this one and just not bother going back.
Five other ways Twitter could make money
Twitter has announced that it’s going to start charging cold, hard cash to use the service. If you haven’t already read the news this morning, then you might well be mid heart attack right now, so please read the next sentence before you clutch you upper arm and fall to the floor. They’re only talking about a paid-for pro service alternative and there will always be a free option.
Now, nobody’s quite sure how they’ll be running this pro service and, to be straight with you, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough anyway. So, I’ve devised five ways in which Twitter can make money out of regular users like me, just don’t tell them about it or they might actually happen – in which case, I’d like a free account and a cut of the profits, Twitter, or else I’ll get my non-existent lawyer on you.
1.)Companies must pay!
Come on, we all know it. Companies – whether they be big faceless corporations, media publishers and, yes, blogs of a non-personal nature – should pay. It’s a world of free, instant publicity and it’s very, very effective.
It’s rather harsh on the likes of small blogs and start ups trying to get a leg up in the world but it wouldn’t have to be a lot of cash. Gumtree doesn’t let companies post job ads for free any more and I could see some sort of £25 for the year price tag without too many businesses opting out after initial grumbles.
It could be a tricky system to police but Twitter could eventually get round to vetting accounts and I’m sure the threat of banning would be enough to get people to toe the line.
2.)Twitterfeeders must pay!
If companies are going to pay, then those who plough their RSS feeds straight into their accounts must certainly fork out too. It’d be one thing if it were a selection of the best stories and posts chosen with the love, care and a human touch but if you’re going to get a robot to spam out every word that you spout then, my friend, you must pay.
I’d be quite happy for people to get around this by manually inputting each link and Tweeting it off but that takes a bit more time and inconvenience and I reckon it might just be enough to make people reach into the coffers for another fiver a year.
3.)People who go over their daily usage must pay!
Currently, there is one very good way of dealing with someone who overtweets – stop following them, and believe me, I do. It’s empowering, isn’t it? But how much more satisfying would it be to know that they were actually having to pay for their verbal pollution?
I’m not talking about a low number here. I’m not talking about those with a 20-a-day habit. I mean the folk who are on the thing 24/7 from two separate handsets telling you their every movements with such gems as:
I’m gonna do me some emails and Today really is one of *those* days… – entertaining stuff, I’m sure we’ll all agree.
Of course, there is one way around this for the Twitter addict – multiple accounts, which leads me nicely onto my next point…
4)Multiple account users must pay!
There’s not a lot of reason to have a second account unless one of them is for some kind of commercial use in which case you should be paying anyway. There could be some kind of system whereby account one is free, number two is a £2.50 and the next a fiver and so on until either we’ve staunched an individual’s flow of verbal diarrhoea or those unable to stop our at least paying for supporting the service anyway.
N.B. The only exception to this rule should be the comedy accounts such as Street Fighter characters, starship captains, Dark Lords of the Sith and people’s anatomy.
5.)Word limit busters must pay!
This is, I think, the best of the five ideas for Twitter to make some cash. It could be a little off-putting to set up but it’s a stroke of genius.
Anyone who goes over the 140 per tweet limit should pay 1p for every extra character they use. On the one hand, this goes against the whole ethos of Twitter but then at least those transgressing the rules would be paying to do so.
Let’s say, Twitter has your credit card details or sends you a bill at the end of each month which you can pay automatically through PayPal or something. When you write a long Tweet, it logs how many you go over.
You do, of course, have the choice to go back and edit your tweet to get it to fit in but 95% of people are far too precious about their words to edit their copy rather than spend a 2p or so. It doesn’t cost an individual much but if every Twitter user did it just once, then that would be £3,460. (Figures are based on the number of followers of Stephen Fry, as everyone on Twitter follows Stephen Fry)…
Twitter confirms that paid-for Pro accounts are on the way
Microblogging phenomenon Twitter has famously had difficulty monetizing its service. Recently, it added small, unobtrusive text ads, and now the company has confirmed that it’ll be offering paid pro accounts in the near future.
Founder Biz Stone confirmed the rumours to Business Insider, who suggest some of the features that might be offered for a price. A way to verify who really owns an account, a way to find out what people are saying about a company, and better analytics are all on the cards.
Freeloaders can rest assured, however, because Stone also confirms that there will always be a free version of Twitter available to businesses and individuals. The new features for sale will be solely add-ons. As for how much they’ll cost, well, we’ll have to wait and see.
(via Business Insider)
Twitter to be taught to ten-year-olds
The UK government announced today that it wants to teach Twitter in primary schools as part of a campaign to make online communication and social media part of the national curriculum. Kids will also be taught to use Wikipedia, how to blog, and proper typing skills alongside traditional handwriting skills.
The plans, which also remove the Victorians and Second World War from the primary syllabus, were going to be launched next month, but leaked early in the Guardian. Analysts and teacher groups have cautiously welcomed the moves, though they wonder why current trends are being given so much weight.
Personally, I’m glad that Wikipedia, blogging and proper keyboard usage are being taught – all of those are, for the moment, here to stay. I’m a little confused, though, as to why Twitter has been singled out. It’s not that revolutionary and, even speaking as a heavy user, it’s current prominence in the news is surely no more than a passing media fad caused by high-profile celebrities joining up. Students should certainly understand online communication, but I’m not convinced Twitter is the best way to show them.
What do you think? Tell us on Twitter – and no, the irony of that isn’t lost on me – @techdigest.
Guardian (via Techcrunch UK)
GALLERY: Our 12 favourite fake and fictional Twitterers
Ever since Twitter first emerged, there have been people creating fake accounts. Some of them are are done spitefully, while others are a little too close to their real life counterparts to be truly entertaining.
But the folks that do it right, with just enough humour to make it obvious that there’s some gentle ribbing going on… those are our favourites. In this gallery, we’re going to celebrate their contribution to the internet: celebrities, fictional characters and beloved pets await. Just click the glorious visage of Captain Jon Luc Picard to continue the tour when you’re ready to continue…
Alan Martin (@alan_p_martin)
OPINION: Why I'm not going back to using Twitter with SMS
I’m quite proud to say that I’m old-skool when it comes to Twitter – I’ve been signed up since April 2007. My first tweet? “Watching TV, waiting for my roommate to finish dinner, and then going out drinking.”
Back then I used the SMS system with Twitter. I’d SMS my updates to a central number, and the service would send them back to me by text. When you’re only following a few people, that’s fine. You don’t end up abusing your free text allowance.
But then Twitter, citing financial reasons, withdrew the SMS service in August 2008. Overnight, the gentle buzz from my phone getting Tweets two or three times a day just stopped. I stopped having a reminder to Tweet. As a result, I got a bit lazy and there’d be weeks between my Tweets.
But then something changed. I managed to slip over the tipping point of following enough people saying enough things that it was worth checking it daily, so it found its way onto my bookmarks bar of my browser and that got me back off the edge and tweeting again.
Nowadays I’m following 350-odd people, and I get about three or four updates a minute. That’s fine at my PC – running Twhirl means I can just let those conversations quietly purr away in the background. I’ve also got a client for my S60 phone – Twibble – which sorts me out on the go.
A company called Twe2 launched this week that lets European users get alerts on their phone, in exchange for an ad at the end of the Tweet. Yay! I can get my SMS Tweets back! But I don’t want it.
The idea of having three to four texts coming in to my phone every minute seems ludicrous. The way I use Twitter now – it’s there when I need it, and I can ignore it when I want – is perfect. I get any @replies and DMs emailed to me, and I check my email a billion times a day so I don’t miss them. I just don’t need SMS.
Do you agree? Or are you gagging to get SMS tweets back? Share your opinion in the comments.
Tweet your way to employment with Twitter JobSearch
People always say that a CV or resume should be no longer than two sides of A4 paper long. Well, prepare to cut down your working history to 140 characters, because Twitter job hunting is the next big thing – if you believe a couple of new employment based startups for the service.
Facebook updating homepage yet again
After the disastrous launch and eventual user acceptance of Facebook’s news feed and profile pages last year, you would have thought that the company wouldn’t mess with the site too much more for a while. But no – it doesn’t want users getting too comfortable, so next Wednesday there’ll be a new homepage.
It looks like Twitter. There’s no two ways about it. With the status box massive and front-and-centre, there’s a definite homage going on. The feed below is now real-time too, so you can see stories appear as they happen. That feature’s been around for a while but previously it wasn’t the default option.
But one feature that Facebook’s adding to the mix is filters. If you’ve got friend groups set up then you can choose to view the updates from just one group or another. That could definitely prove useful for power users, or those with very distinct friendship circles. You can also view feeds from your friends in specific Facebook groups that you’re a member of, which is quite nifty.
This is a definite improvement to the site, and should help it compete against the attention draw from Twitter, especially as Facebook’s biggest asset is that almost everyone you know is on it – something not true of its media-darling competitor.
It’s a bit of a blatant copy and should probably have been rolled into the previous update, but I suspect that many mainstream users will hardly notice the change and as a result, there won’t be the mass user revolts that have characterized previous changes to the world’s favourite social network.
(via Business Insider)
Realtime search bar coming to Twitter
The future face of Twitter has been presented to investors at a presentation in San Francisco and that face looks to include a Twitter realtime search bar right at the top of the screen.
I said before – in fact, I think it was just yesterday; yes it was – about the potential of Twitter as a new and more powerful source of search…
Google CEO calls Twitter a "Poor Man's Email System"
When Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked what he thought of Twitter, at a technology conference hosted by Morgan Stanley yesterday, he came out with the following gem: “Speaking as a computer scientist, I view all of these as sort of poor man’s email systems”.
Ouch. Now that’s the sound of a man hurting. Hurting because his company didn’t see the microblogging revolution coming? Hurting because they did, and backed the wrong horse – buying up Jaiku rather than Twitter? Maybe he’s just hurting because people are hacking Google to display Twitter results.
He went on:
“In other words, they have aspects of an email system, but they don’t have a full offering. To me, the question about companies like Twitter is: Do they fundamentally evolve as sort of a note phenomenon, or do they fundamentally evolve to have storage, revocation, identity, and all the other aspects that traditional email systems have? Or do email systems themselves broaden what they do to take on some of that characteristic?”
“I think the innovation is great. In Google’s case, we have a very successful instant messaging product, and that’s what most people end up using. Twitter’s success is wonderful, and I think it shows you that there are many, many new ways to reach and communicate, especially if you are willing to do so publicly.”
He also gave a quick mention of Google’s new Twitter account, but got a little confused by the character limit, claiming @google is somewhere to “go ahead and listen to our ruminations as to where we are and what we’re doing in 160 characters or less”. Actually Eric, it’s 140.
(via Business Insider)
