blipvert

Much has been written – wrongly, I believe – about how Twitter lacks a business model. I reckon that anything that changes the scene as profoundly as Twitter has doesn’t need to have a business model. Certainly not at the start, and, quite possible never does. That isn’t to say that Twitter is condemned to be an eternal sinkhole of money and man-hours. Rather, that most business minds lack the foresight to intuit what this new thing can best be used for.

Just a few minutes ago I was “followed” on Twitter by DealsDirect.com.au, which is one web site that I allow to spam me every morning with their daily sales brochure. It’s mostly cheap plastic crap that’s turned out by the thousands of factories in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, but some of it – particularly the Manchester – is of good quality. (Some of the electronics on sale aren’t so bad – and most of that is made in China, whether you buy it from Apple or Lenovo.)

At the moment that I followed DealsDirect.com.au on Twitter – turning a one-way relationship into a bilateral connection – I had a brain wave. I immediately understood how Twitter can make their business model pay: they can charge for sending rich-media Tweet. I wouldn’t necessarily ever have the need to send a rich-media message, but DealsDirect will want to send mixed media messages, messages of arbitrary length, every time they reach out to me. It’s not enough to spruik a product with words – pictures are necessary. A “click to buy” button is necessary. And given the analysis that’s possible by looking at my tweetstream, it should be possible for the canny retailer to offer up exactly what I need, when I need it.

I don’t know that this would be a big change, technically, for Twitter. I rather doubt it would be. It would force a change on the various Twitter clients (Twhirl, TweetDeck, etc.) to accommodate the rich text messaging.

And, hey, I would pay for rich text messaging, once in a while. When it’s important. And if it’s easy and inexpensive to do so, I’m sure many of the other Twitteratti would do the same thing.

So TechCrunch, normally the font of all human wisdom and understanding, gives us this:

But the power of Twitter is more about how many people are following you than how many you are following. It is about pulling together an audience and talking to them directly, and letting them reply directly in a way that seems intimate but is still quasi-public.

How can I say this…? Um, NO! !FAIL! BZZZT! TRY AGAIN! YOU SIR, HAVE MISSED THE POINT!

Am I making myself clear?

Sigh.

I am followed by ~1500 people. I follow ~1000 people. Preferentially Australians, but if you’re interesting enough — even as a North American — I’ll follow you.

Why? Because what you have to share with me is of far more value to me than anything I might share with you. I thrive on the input of a thousand other people. Your insights and observations have immense value. And yes, it takes time and effort and winnow out the wheat from the chaff, but it’s not impossible.

It seems to me that in the hyperconnected era, that’s a very important skill to possess.

So no, TechCrunch, Twitter is not a popularity contest. It is not a way to get teh “Thoughts of Chairman Mark” out to a vast and unknowable audience. It is, instead, a way for me to experience the best and highest thoughts of a multitude of others. Something that was never possible before this point in time.

Which may be why TechCrunch failed to recognize it.