It seems to be concensus regarding teens leaving Facebook, that is (from their point of view) infested with adult relatives, to instant messaging (including the supposedly self-destructing kind), and not the least Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. Of course Facebook, Google etc have instant messaging too, but not in the “to the point” and mobile-focused way that Whatsapp, SnapChat has, which is obviously one of the key reasons Facebook acquired Whatsapp.
The reason I’m investigating Twitter right now is to see what can be done in the business area, as there seems to be many ways to complement Twitter with B2B offerings in the areas of data analysis and marketing. As far as I know outright advertising via third-party services is not allowed, but that doesn’t stop companies from selling followers in bulk etc. In my opinion a very arguable trade, as it’s all fake.
It’s interesting to note that all applications that Twitter have certified are related to B2B. My spin on this is that at the end of the day it’s all about driving ad revenue to Twitter. B2C offerings don’t have the same obvious link to increased revenue for Twitter.
Anyhow, these are the offerings that Abiro provides related to Twitter so far, but more is considered:
Twitizer
Initially developed during 2009, but has evolved considerably over time. Twitter adding the possibility to tweet pictures has all but killed the use of the service despite it supporting also long messages, video and audio.
It’s open what would make Twitizer fly again usage-wise, but I’m sure there’s need for simplification, focusing and targeting as well as better apps. It’s a whole different thing whether that would succeed. Not very likely though.
TweetLink
Provides an alternative way to create links that contain tweets. Those links are easy to put on your Youtube page, in your blog etc, to promote your content.
There’s certainly some use of this service, despite (or maybe because of) its simplicity, yet not many know about it so far.
Trends
Collects Twitter trends for all supported Twitter regions, so that trends can be studied over time in diagrams, and so that events can be set up to trigger on keywords and hashtags.
Both Tweetlink and Trends are kept on the abiro.com domain until it’s obvious they can stand on their own.
Publishing new Web apps via AppDirect is of course considered.
Conclusion
At the end of the day it’s all about what companies and people need to (or think they need to) do or want, and what they want to pay for.
There are companies helping other companies setting up Facebook pages, Adwords campaigns, Twitter automation etc, seemingly trivial things that any company should be able to do on their own, but as things are that’s not the case.
Rather management pushes social network visibility to the marketing departments and they will hire external resources to do the work, or struggle to do it themselves (and often fail). If there’s enough money, delegation is often the best solution anyway, saving time and avoiding learning things that might be irrelevant the next month.