There’s money in micro-blogging. Twitter has made an astounding $25 million (roughly about 15.5 million pounds) just from deals made with Google and Microsoft.
More than half of it is from Google ($15 million), says BusinessWeek, which interviewed two insiders who are familiar with Twitter’s finances — and apparently, the deals made in the boardroom. “The deals were huge,” one says, of the contract signed just two months ago, in October.
And if the numbers are to be believed, he wasn’t exaggerating. With $25 million in just two months it will be interesting how much revenue the company will rake in 2010. Especially since, as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone one said, things are just starting to come together. He’s put a team dedicated to finetuning the site’s “search and discovery perspective.”
The success of Twitter is how it’s turned micro-blogs into an instant feedback system. “Twitter is earning a reputation for delivering real-time results to queries about things that are happening right now.”
Too bad the execs won’t be Twittering if the revenue results are true. The company’s had prior financial struggles, and as recently as November Stone mentioned in his blog that it may use stocks to raise funds.
Posted in Blogging Industry, Earnings, Networks, News on 23 December · Tags: No Tags
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It was a good idea — but apparently, Yahoo! didn’t think it was worth keeping. The social networking widget My BlogLog will be shutting down by January 2010. The service was actually innovative. It allowed bloggers and readers to “meet” their blog visitors, by letting them view user information and even profile pics. For many bloggers it was a chance to really study their fanbase and even connect to them on a personal level. It also had the potential to be a really powerful marketing and research tool.
Yahoo! first acquired the technology for this 5 years ago, when it bought it for $10 million. Unfortunately it did not invest in MyBlogLog any further, considering the rich potential in it. There’s only one word for that — STUPID. Marketers spend millions trying to get a hold on their consumer’s demographic and psychographic information. The data becomes even more and more crucial now, considering how crowded the market is with websites competing for people’s attention. Be relevant or be forgotten is the blogger’s motto. MyBlogLog helped them stay relevant, without having t spend millions on some nationwide survey.
Yahoo! had a great tool (possibly one ahead of its time) but instead of nurturing its profit potential (we assume that money is the reason for its cancellation) they kill it. DUH. No, double-duh. That’s like slaughtering the golden goose because you don’t have money to buy it food.
The news is bound to have bloggers up in arms, or at least, slapping their foreheads in disgust. Yahoo, what are you thinking?
Posted in Blogging Industry, News on 20 December · Tags: No Tags
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Even with millions of bloggers, a big majority of them still have trouble putting ads on their blogs. That’s lost revenue for them, especially those who are enjoying decent internet traffic.
One company that seems to have picked up on this problem — and also seen a window of opportunity in terms of added online advertising is Amazon. The company has recently announced that it is going to make it easier to put its ads on Google’s Blogger.
Here’s how it works. Bloggers who create an account with Amazon Associates will be able to easily make links from their blog directly to related products in Amazon.com. Bloggers can then earn referral fees for every transaction that is made. Making the links is as simle as highlighting text within the blog and these can be turned into links with just a couple of clicks.
The whole impetus behind this new feature is to make Blogger the best platform on which to earn money. I feel their new policy is really going to entice bloggers to open up an account in Blogger. I know I would.
Posted in Marketing on 16 December · Tags: Amazon, blogger, Goggle
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