I think you may have just identified one very lucrative business model for Twitter.
First a little vocabulary off the top of my head:
Channel: A Twitter-based SMS conversation. Event: A Twitter-based Channel with definite beginning and end dates. Campaign: An open-ended Twitter Channel. Moderator: A person/group responsible for moderating an Event or Campaign. Sponsor: A person, group, organization, company which pays Twitter to be commercially affiliated with an Event or Campaign.
Anyone could submit a request to become a Moderator for an Event or Campaign. There would be both a free version and a paid version.
In the free version, you could be the Moderator but Twitter would assign to your Channel a Sponsor(s). The choice of Sponsor would be determined by Twitter. People, groups, organizations, or companies would sign-up directly with Twitter to be a Sponsor. The fee structure might be based on active users. Say RPMs (Readers per Thousand). The rate per thousand? Depends on the popularity of the Event or Campaign (Channel). Like Google Adwords, each Channel would be open for bids by 3rd Party Sponsors.
One simple example might be where a student from Boston decides to set-up an Event for Spring Break in Cancun. The student would then serve as Moderator for this Event and the service would be free to that Moderator/student and all Channel Subscribers. Twitter would put the Event out for bid and give Sponsors 1 day to place their bids. The winning bid? Corona Beer wins the Sponsorship of this Event by bidding 5 cents per student per day.
The Boston Spring Break in Cancun event then attracts 2,350 subscribers and the Event lasts from March 12 through March 18 (7 days). The cost to Corona Beer is $822.50 (2,350 x .05 x 7). Is the value to Corona Beer worth the cost? Don't know. Let the market determine that like it does with Google Adwords.
Then there would be a paid version. In the paid version, a person, group, organization, company would be both Moderator and Sponsor. I would guess that many companies would like to use Twitter for many different purposes (marketing, special sales, employee communications, customer feedback, fan-clubs, etc).
Twitter would still host these Paid Events and Campaigns. Additionally, Twitter would have both a Directory listing Events and Campaigns as well as a Search function for finding Channels of interest.
An example of a Paid Event might be a political campaign. For example, Barack Obama's political campaign would pay for Twitter to host multiple Channels related to Obama's run for the White House. There might be a Schedule Channel, a Live Channel where a staffer continually Twitters on what Barack Obama is doing, a Issues Channel, etc.
Another example might be Stop n' Shop supermarket. Stop n' Shop would Sponsor and Moderate a Campaign where they announce Daily/Weekly Specials. There might be separate Channels/Campaigns for each actual brick and mortar store.
You get the idea.
Free and Paid Channels (Events & Campaigns) would not be exclusive. There might be an official Events Sponsored and Moderated by The Academy of Motion Pictures itself and another Sponsored and Moderated by Vanity Fair. This is where Fred's request that someone build a Twitter Control Center comes into play.
For an Event like the Academy Awards you may want to subscribe to multiple Channels and the Control Center would let you simultaneously follow all Channels.
Thanks Fred, yes this could be very cool.
jiparker
· 1 year ago
Well thought out. Right along the lines of what I was trying to say above - you just did it more eloquently! :-)
stone
· 1 year ago
I've recently heard of a killer and commercial idea for the Twitter concept. Even though I've just started company #2, I may incorporate this idea or start company #3. Happy to share the idea once I figure out what to do with it.
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
Please do
Eric
· 1 year ago
You might try out a program called Twhirl. It runs using Adobe Air and works on both Windows and Mac. http://www.twhirl.org/
mdoeff
· 1 year ago
One of my Twitter contacts had a interesting comment related to this yesterday. He TiVo'd the Oscars and had to turn off his Twitter because he didn't want to see any spoilers while he watched the event hours after it happened. I'm finding that I'm watching more and more events in real time. The networks must love this trend because they have more captive viewers for commercials.
This got me to thinking that someone should build a tool that allows you to timeshift your Twitterstream. For example, if you started watching the Oscars 4 hours later, you could dial back your Twitter 4 hours (e.g. with a timeline slider at the bottom of the page) and you'd be able to see your Twitterstream in synch with the show that you're watching. You're own tweets would be back dated based on the timeshift. BTW, my wife thinks I'm nuts with these ideas.
jiparker
· 1 year ago
Fred,
Great idea. This is something I have been thinking about for quite a while. Wouldn't it be great to be able to subscribe to an event in such a way.
For the sake of discussion, I like to throw a couple of problems and a possible alternative solution:
First, in order for a person’s tweet to show up in the event, they would have to use one of the tracking keywords. That means correct spelling is required and existence of that keyword is a obviously critical. “John Stewart” and “Jon Stewert” wouldn’t be picked up. My idea of what keyword is associated to the Oscars event might be different than yours. Or, I might be a horrible speller.
But also, that means tweets couldn't become part of the context of the event unless a keyword was present. "Wow he just slipped on stage" (as Colin Farrell and John Travolta did) wouldn't show in the feed as there are no keywords that identify the context – yet obviously, this tweet should appear in the “Oscar Event Feed”.
So what is an alternative?
What if Twitter had the concept of events built in? For example, the organizers of the Oscars could register "Oscars" event at a Twitter event config site. Then, from my phone, IM, Twitter client, or via the web, I could get a list of current/upcoming events. If I had done that Sunday night, I would have seen "Oscars" as a list of events of the night. Then, I could type eventon Oscars on my phone. From this point on, all tweets I send would go to the "Oscars" event group. Also, I would receive all tweets from other people who were attending (have joined) the "Oscars" event via Twitter.
So rather than depending on keywords, I simply join an event. I get all tweets within the event context. When the event is over (i.e. the twitter event expires) then I stop getting tweets in that context.
Custom Twitter Nodes is the Answer- In my opinion, it is this sort of functionality that will (should) take Twitter to the next level. What if Twitter were to add the concept of Custom Twitter Nodes where people could setup and configure Nodes to meet the needs of their event, or group, or whatever? The possibilities are endless were Twitter to start offering "Custom Twitter Nodes". Events would be one type of node with a set of rules. Perhaps there would be a Private Twitter Node type that people could setup and join without content being publicly available. How about an Custom Twitter node at the club? Or a conference? What about a Custom Twitter Node type for the grocery store? Hmmmm. Somebody might pay for that.
Yes, much of this functionality can be hacked by third parties. And many of these third parties are doing great and cool stuff. However, this type of service - Twitter Events via Custom Twitter Nodes - would be much better if it were provided by Twitter itself.
Fred- I attempted to twit you during the broadcast, but you don't follow me (understandable considering the numbers who follow you). Do you track @fredwilson? http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=%40fredwilson&u=
Anyway, I twitted you about Buzztter, which aggregates the top twitter terms into an hourly twit. Pretty fascinating (I found it as it had one of my tweetscan terms listed and it popped up on my tweetscan rss). I enjoyed "watching" SNL and the Oscars with it. Right now, it's buzzing about the apple store being down. Yesterday it was Youtube's troubles. Looks like it was created by @dara in Japan. http://twitter.com/buzztter_en or http://buzztter.com/en.
Take care Gregg Smith (@taterhead)
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
I saw your post and immediately checked out buzzter
I made it using the following terms: Hillary, Clinton, Barak, Obama, debate, brian williams, tim russert, mccain, democrat, texas primary, ohio primary, health care plan, iraq war, hate politics
billerickson
· 1 year ago
I know you're not a big fan of hashtags, but they worked great for the academy awards. Over 700 tweets were tagged #aa08 - http://hashtags.org/tag/aa08/
Gregg Smith
· 1 year ago
Those popped up on Buzztter (above) and i had no idea what it was. thought it was a twitter error.
How does one follow a hashtag? I see how to add one to my post...
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
I am a fan of hashtags, I just don't understand them
RacerRick
· 1 year ago
It would be neat to have a fast past meme for Twitter... based on current/upcoming events.
Or like a Digg / Delicious spy... tweets scroll by.
Doug
· 1 year ago
Hopefully if we ever get it out, the latest product we are working on will do just this. We are modifying the technology behind politweets and twittertale so you can pick what you want to track.
Disclaimer: I'm not associated with either of those companies.
aqualung
· 1 year ago
Fred - can't believe you haven't caught up with Craig Cmehil's eventtrack (http://eventtrack.info/) - it started with Twitter only, but Craig has also now aggregated feeds from Flickr, Jaiku and a bunch of other socnets ... follow Craig (@ccmehil) and/or @eventtrack on Twitter - or have a look at the link above; Oscars were tagged #aa08
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
There has to be a more elegant way to do this than hashtags
My wife and kids won't know where to start with hashtags
Fred
jiparker
· 1 year ago
I think that hashtags are ugly.
mmcbride
· 1 year ago
We've been working on a very similar project, and have it in a near-alpha state right now. You can see the current version at http://www.kebima.com. Documentation is nonexistent, and it isn't twitter class yet, but the basic idea is very similar to what you outline. It follows a model similar to twitter, but tweets are posted to events, not a personal timeline. Over the next few weeks we're planning to add better documentation and some sample scripted events, but it's fairly straightforward to get going with, and is open for signup at the moment. We'd welcome any feedback at this early stage.
jackson
· 1 year ago
A family that multi-tasks together stays together.
I suppose If I was somehow forced to watch the Oscars I'd need something to do as well.
Turker
· 1 year ago
Part of what you describe here is interactive TV experience. This reminded of what Joost tries (tried) to do with its widgets that enable chatting with viewers that watch the same broadcast.
A service like Twitter seems to make us realize that the family circle is not enough to help one enjoy TV and twittering gives us sth to do during the commercials. This may really be good for networks since people may be more inclined to watch events live rather recording them.
Mike
· 1 year ago
this is a genius idea. I had teh same one and came searching for it online and found this. Would love to find out more. It could be great for pay per view sports events where not everyone can watch - commentry by the fans for the fans type of thing. excellent.
All Comments
I think you may have just identified one very lucrative business model for Twitter.
First a little vocabulary off the top of my head:
Channel: A Twitter-based SMS conversation.
Event: A Twitter-based Channel with definite beginning and end dates.
Campaign: An open-ended Twitter Channel.
Moderator: A person/group responsible for moderating an Event or Campaign.
Sponsor: A person, group, organization, company which pays Twitter to be commercially affiliated with an Event or Campaign.
Anyone could submit a request to become a Moderator for an Event or Campaign. There would be both a free version and a paid version.
In the free version, you could be the Moderator but Twitter would assign to your Channel a Sponsor(s). The choice of Sponsor would be determined by Twitter. People, groups, organizations, or companies would sign-up directly with Twitter to be a Sponsor. The fee structure might be based on active users. Say RPMs (Readers per Thousand). The rate per thousand? Depends on the popularity of the Event or Campaign (Channel). Like Google Adwords, each Channel would be open for bids by 3rd Party Sponsors.
One simple example might be where a student from Boston decides to set-up an Event for Spring Break in Cancun. The student would then serve as Moderator for this Event and the service would be free to that Moderator/student and all Channel Subscribers. Twitter would put the Event out for bid and give Sponsors 1 day to place their bids. The winning bid? Corona Beer wins the Sponsorship of this Event by bidding 5 cents per student per day.
The Boston Spring Break in Cancun event then attracts 2,350 subscribers and the Event lasts from March 12 through March 18 (7 days). The cost to Corona Beer is $822.50 (2,350 x .05 x 7). Is the value to Corona Beer worth the cost? Don't know. Let the market determine that like it does with Google Adwords.
Then there would be a paid version. In the paid version, a person, group, organization, company would be both Moderator and Sponsor. I would guess that many companies would like to use Twitter for many different purposes (marketing, special sales, employee communications, customer feedback, fan-clubs, etc).
Twitter would still host these Paid Events and Campaigns. Additionally, Twitter would have both a Directory listing Events and Campaigns as well as a Search function for finding Channels of interest.
An example of a Paid Event might be a political campaign. For example, Barack Obama's political campaign would pay for Twitter to host multiple Channels related to Obama's run for the White House. There might be a Schedule Channel, a Live Channel where a staffer continually Twitters on what Barack Obama is doing, a Issues Channel, etc.
Another example might be Stop n' Shop supermarket. Stop n' Shop would Sponsor and Moderate a Campaign where they announce Daily/Weekly Specials. There might be separate Channels/Campaigns for each actual brick and mortar store.
You get the idea.
Free and Paid Channels (Events & Campaigns) would not be exclusive. There might be an official Events Sponsored and Moderated by The Academy of Motion Pictures itself and another Sponsored and Moderated by Vanity Fair. This is where Fred's request that someone build a Twitter Control Center comes into play.
For an Event like the Academy Awards you may want to subscribe to multiple Channels and the Control Center would let you simultaneously follow all Channels.
Thanks Fred, yes this could be very cool.
This got me to thinking that someone should build a tool that allows you to timeshift your Twitterstream. For example, if you started watching the Oscars 4 hours later, you could dial back your Twitter 4 hours (e.g. with a timeline slider at the bottom of the page) and you'd be able to see your Twitterstream in synch with the show that you're watching. You're own tweets would be back dated based on the timeshift. BTW, my wife thinks I'm nuts with these ideas.
Great idea. This is something I have been thinking about for quite a while. Wouldn't it be great to be able to subscribe to an event in such a way.
For the sake of discussion, I like to throw a couple of problems and a possible alternative solution:
First, in order for a person’s tweet to show up in the event, they would have to use one of the tracking keywords. That means correct spelling is required and existence of that keyword is a obviously critical. “John Stewart” and “Jon Stewert” wouldn’t be picked up. My idea of what keyword is associated to the Oscars event might be different than yours. Or, I might be a horrible speller.
But also, that means tweets couldn't become part of the context of the event unless a keyword was present. "Wow he just slipped on stage" (as Colin Farrell and John Travolta did) wouldn't show in the feed as there are no keywords that identify the context – yet obviously, this tweet should appear in the “Oscar Event Feed”.
So what is an alternative?
What if Twitter had the concept of events built in? For example, the organizers of the Oscars could register "Oscars" event at a Twitter event config site. Then, from my phone, IM, Twitter client, or via the web, I could get a list of current/upcoming events. If I had done that Sunday night, I would have seen "Oscars" as a list of events of the night. Then, I could type eventon Oscars on my phone. From this point on, all tweets I send would go to the "Oscars" event group. Also, I would receive all tweets from other people who were attending (have joined) the "Oscars" event via Twitter.
So rather than depending on keywords, I simply join an event. I get all tweets within the event context. When the event is over (i.e. the twitter event expires) then I stop getting tweets in that context.
Custom Twitter Nodes is the Answer-
In my opinion, it is this sort of functionality that will (should) take Twitter to the next level. What if Twitter were to add the concept of Custom Twitter Nodes where people could setup and configure Nodes to meet the needs of their event, or group, or whatever? The possibilities are endless were Twitter to start offering "Custom Twitter Nodes". Events would be one type of node with a set of rules. Perhaps there would be a Private Twitter Node type that people could setup and join without content being publicly available. How about an Custom Twitter node at the club? Or a conference? What about a Custom Twitter Node type for the grocery store? Hmmmm. Somebody might pay for that.
Yes, much of this functionality can be hacked by third parties. And many of these third parties are doing great and cool stuff. However, this type of service - Twitter Events via Custom Twitter Nodes - would be much better if it were provided by Twitter itself.
(Cross-posted at http://www.attentiongrab.com/?p=38)
I attempted to twit you during the broadcast, but you don't follow me (understandable considering the numbers who follow you). Do you track @fredwilson? http://tweetscan.com/index.php?s=%40fredwilson&u=
Anyway, I twitted you about Buzztter, which aggregates the top twitter terms into an hourly twit. Pretty fascinating (I found it as it had one of my tweetscan terms listed and it popped up on my tweetscan rss). I enjoyed "watching" SNL and the Oscars with it. Right now, it's buzzing about the apple store being down. Yesterday it was Youtube's troubles. Looks like it was created by @dara in Japan. http://twitter.com/buzztter_en or http://buzztter.com/en.
Take care
Gregg Smith (@taterhead)
The concept is great
But I found the interface clunky
fred
Gregg
Plug this into your favorite reader or just refresh it at will: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=WI5Tv...
I made it using the following terms: Hillary, Clinton, Barak, Obama, debate, brian williams, tim russert, mccain, democrat, texas primary, ohio primary, health care plan, iraq war, hate politics
How does one follow a hashtag? I see how to add one to my post...
Or like a Digg / Delicious spy... tweets scroll by.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/26/mypunchbow...
Disclaimer: I'm not associated with either of those companies.
My wife and kids won't know where to start with hashtags
Fred
I suppose If I was somehow forced to watch the Oscars I'd need something to do as well.
A service like Twitter seems to make us realize that the family circle is not enough to help one enjoy TV and twittering gives us sth to do during the commercials. This may really be good for networks since people may be more inclined to watch events live rather recording them.