When A Service Can't Commit To What It Is Selling

I’ve stumbled upon a service which promises your Twitter account to automatically grow enormously in terms of followers and make money on the way. It’s called TwitterTrafficMachine, and I am absolutely not going to link to them.

They might be nice people, good at what they’re doing, and this might be even legit according to all the involved Terms Of Service agreements of any of the services they’re using, but something about it doesn’t feel right. First of all, it looks cheap and sleazy. Second, and what I find most bothering, is that they try to sell you their service as something excellent, and then in the disclaimer page they say:

And you should also know that the testimonials here illustrate extraordinary results and unique experiences which do not apply to most customers who use our products and which you should not expect to achieve.

If I should not expect to achieve what you’re selling, then why should I buy it? If you have a service, don’t offer it if your client can’t expect to achieve what you’re offering.

If Twitter Go The Advertising Model Way, They Might Hit The Jackpot

There are wild guesses all over the blogosphere as to where Twitter is headed when it comes to its business model. It has certainly become an obsession to talk about it in some circles, and the air is filled with speculations — from Calacanis’s advertising/subscription model, through TechCrunch’s pro/business or sponsored suggested accounts model, to the hilarious downtime advertising model.

Wherever it may eventually go — and my bet is it will be a mixture of pro accounts and advertising — the advertising model in Twitter might be something very innovative, both in targeting and delivery.

Targeting – Easy Semantics and The Realtime Factor

Targeting a Twitter user is very convenient. They don’t have to assume or speculate anything about a user, they don’t have to track cookies and collect Behavioral Targeting data and try to determine if a user is action prone or not, or try all the other good old targeting tricks, such as geo-targeting and figuring household income. The simple nature of Twitter messages, which is very short and informative, makes them very easy to process semantically — aside from lolspeak and l33t, sentences are simple, usually noun/pronoun-verb-adverb-adjective. And the best part is, the user gives information about himself voluntarily — location, likes and dislikes, actions performed, etc.

Take me for example, in this imaginary (but could-be-true) scenario:

• In SFO, waiting to board flight for JFK. Coffee anybody?
• Just saw the new Pearl Jam album, love them!
• @johndoe Let’s meet later this evening for dinner

Do you realize how much Twitter knows about me in the 5 minutes I tweeted these three? They can advertise to me flight tickets, coffee in SFO, Pearl Jam and similar music, and places to eat dinner in New York.

Now, you might say that Facebook or other social networks can provide similar targeting, but the realtime nature of Twitter makes it even more powerful. I might ditch Pearl Jam in a month in favor of Soundgarden, and Twitter will know that immediately. I might be in a conference and suddenly crave a steak. The relevance of the advertising is much better when my realtime wish or craving is in the equation.

Delivery – Unobtrusiveness and Flow

The way Twitter will deliver the ads will have a very high impact on the user responsiveness to the advertising. And the fact that Twitter has an open API and a lot of users using 3rd party clients to access it, will force them to embed the ads in the Twitter stream. They could be “full tweet ads” or they could be “tweet-appended ads”.

For example:

• In SFO, waiting to board flight for JFK. Coffee anybody?
  • From twitter: Drink Coffee at Starbucks@SFO!
  • From twitter: Next time, save on airfare with MyImaginaryTravelAgent!
    
• Just saw the new Pearl Jam album, love them!
• @johndoe Let’s meet later this evening for dinner

Or:

• In SFO, waiting to board flight for JFK. Coffee anybody?
• Just saw the new Pearl Jam album, love them!
• @johndoe Let’s meet later this evening for dinner
  • From johndoe: sure let’s eat a steak! (From twitter: check out the SteakHouse on 5th and 34)

I’m For It, The World Is Ready

I would not care receiving both these forms of advertising, if they are well integrated in the flow of my Twitter stream, and especially if they are so well targeted. I believe the semantics tools today are good enough to process meaning from a user’s short and simple under-140-characters sentences, since there is no hard contextual analysis to perform. And the realtime factor makes the targeting temporal-aware — they know what I need when I need it. Regardless of what payment model they choose (CPC, CPA, CPM), the targeting and delivery methods are the winners here.

There, I’ve contributed my part to the Twitter business model obsession.

Startups Are The Marines Of The Business World

I recently finished watching Generation Kill, a 7-episodes HBO mini series depicting the advancement of the Marines 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the war in Iraq in 2003.

Without going into the many political, social and human aspects to the series, what struck me the most was the remarkable resemblance between the Marines activity in their world, to the startup activity in the business world. As I was watching the series, I felt there were 3 main themes I could relate to, and that were analogous to the unique day to day life of a startup company.

Observe Everything, Admire Nothing

While advancing through enemy territory, the Marines are ordered to pay attention to all details, but not to settle their eyes on any one point for too much time, because it can lead to distraction or numbness.

Same goes for a startup company which advances in the competitive market, and should be aware of all aspects of its activity, and yet have no time to go into research and development in fields that are not its core business (as a corporate might).

Marines Make Do

While the other army/navy/air force branches of the military have excellent supplies, Marines have to settle for the equipment they have, and manage to pull through using nothing more than what was readily available.

Same goes for startups, which as opposed to corporates, operate most of the time on a low budget and try to keep a low burn rate, and have to get by with what’s at hand and no more than that.

The Vision Is Clear, The Mission Is Constantly Changing

While the vision of the war is clear to the Marines, the mission is constantly changing. One day you storm an airfield, the other you police civilians in a city. Moreover, it seems that in military terms, there is nothing more agile than a bunch of troops mounted on light humvees.

Same goes for startups, which have a very clear business vision, but usually work in a constantly changing market which dictates a constantly changing mission. One day you develop a feature for your product, the other priorities dictate it’s business development time. And in the business world, no company is more agile than a startup made up of a bunch of entrepreneurs with a clear vision.

Well, stay frosty!