David Braue at ZD Net Australia talks about how Twitter is a threat to telcos, specfically because it may damage their ability to sell SMS (paid cell-to-cell text msgs). Think about it this way, if Skype and internet VoIP reduced and in some cases even eliminated, the demand to make phone calls with paid lines, Twitter may do the same to the medium of SMS.
I think its a decent argument which ties into the bigger spectrum of how communication is being globalized with reduced costs, primarily through the increased popularity of the mobile web.
Alley Insider recently held a contest to create Twitter’s Revenue Model, with the aim of helping Twitter find a revenue system and actually start making money. The contest was well received and the winner was announced, an ad agency. Here’s the winning group’s slide presentation:
Basically, their plan is to sell data and charge for access to users who can opt-in to do surveys and give feedback to companies. There are some reasons why it might not work as well as planned:
Here’s a great article about how Twitter was born from the trials and tribulations of a group of young entrepreneurs. Written by one of the early developers of Twitter, this is inspirational for startups and showcases how an idea can be translated into a worthy web service with some hard work. The picture above shows what the early twitter looks like.
