The Valley, and bear in mind it’s only April, has been sent reeling in the past week by the declaration that . Past tense.
Next comes the news, or more correctly an unsubstantiated rumour, that Twitter has been offered $10 billion by Google. An offer they spurned.
In less time than it took the pundits to check-in, they’d decided management at the micro-blogging platform had finally lost the plot and that
How can that be?
The essence of the argument that check-ins are already a dinosaur is that there is, quite simply, no point. In a tightly packed city like New York, checking-in in the hope that you might find friends close by works. Everywhere else it does not.
Plus, playing the ‘I am the mayor’ is really boring. And, those people that check-in as part of their ‘personal brand’ (read ‘ego’) are either narcissistic or a geek…probably both. Most people aren’t that way.
Here is my scientific research using my favorite sample of one: me.
In recent weeks, I easily won two mayor-ships on Foursquare that six months ago would have required a death match to wrestle away.
I was at an NCAA game at Madison Square Garden with 18,000 others and only 26 people checked in. By the way in the last two years only 35,000 people have ever checked-in on Foursquare at the famous, always busy, always packed MSG.
And, with just two check-ins, I have retained the mayor-ship at a trendy NYC hotel for months now even though I live in the Bay Area.
Yes. The check-in is dead. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you checked-in?
You’re convinced, I can tell, but Twitter in trouble? Surely not? Well, the arguments run long.
There have been three CEO’s in three years, current management don’t exactly get along, there is no revenue plan beyond promoted tweets, no product plan and there are really only 20 million active users despite there being 200 million accounts opened on Twitter.
For the record, I declare my undying love for Twitter. And I have a commercial interest as the company I founded owns Tweetology.com, a curation system for Twitter. So anything I say here on out, you can take with a grain of salt.
Twitter is, in essence, a utility. It is the telephone wires or the cable of today. It is what happens on that service that is important. Twitter facilitates communication. Not one-to-one but one-to-many communication. It is as important an invention as the telephone.
Utilities charge us, the users, for use. Think cable, electricity, gas and phone. Twitter cannot do this. Who would pay?
The alternative is to give the utility away for free and have someone else pay. Advertisers. The issue - though I’m sure I’m not alone in having a few ideas that could generate revenue for Twitter - is that there is currently only one ad unit on sale. Promoted tweets.
If you don’t sell enough ads to cover the costs of running a utility you can’t stay in business. A company can’t last forever on charity – or in this case venture capital.
Maybe, Twitter really is in trouble.
What a downer of a week in the Valley.