with rumours rife that google could be looking to acquire twitter, grumbles can be heard wide and far, as demonstrated by the number of comments left on this recent techcrunch post. the reason? all of the cool apps appear to be getting bought up by big corporates - last.fm, flickr, delicious etc.
of course this is the dream for many of the founders – big dollar bills and a life of comfort with the potential of your app being rolled out to the mass market for whom you might not have been able to reach. however, I often wonder how that makes those founders feel. surely there has to be something a little bit sad about letting control of your baby, the project over which you’ve poured so many hours of work into and sleepless nights?
what about those who are kept on as part of the acquisition? to deal with the shift in culture when you’re acquired by a huge company such as google or facebook can’t be easy. where changing things on the fly and staying nimble might be easy to do when you’re a tiny startup – this isn’t as easy when you have a big boat to turn.
i’m definitely one of the grumblers, that’s for sure. i love twitter as it is. i know that the ev and the good guys there need to make money from the service but i’d be sad to see it end it’s startup journey. heck, i joined back in 2006 when you could almost hear the tumbleweed. maybe that’s just me though… after all, you’re talking to the girl that cringes every time she hears it mentioned on radio one, feeling it seep away from what was cool with the tech crowd to part of the mainstream web activity of many teenieboppers.
my social media cap tells me it’s a good thing – it’s increased reach and mass appeal can only be good for brands, but the early adopter in me sheds a little tear. no matter what happens to twitter, if it enables me to stay connected to as many people as i currently am and the failwhale (god bless his soul) only makes the occassional appearance, i’ll continue to love it. i can’t help it, it’s almost part of me. i wish ev and the team the best for whatever decisions are having to be made at the moment.
Rob says:
Mel, I have nothing to add to this but I will say that you are the hottest girl in the Internet industry and have been for many years!
Just thought I would share that.
April 3, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Hugh says:
Hi Mel. I agree with you. Google and FB is doing to the online world what Tesco has done to the high street. I totally know what you mean about cringing when you hear twitter mentioned on Radio 1 or Virgin and what not. I’m new on twitter – only joined early December 2008 – but even in that short time things have changed and twitter is for sure more mainstream now. The nice thing with twitter though is how you totally customize your twitter world only to include updates from people you like/respect/find funny etc. It doesn’t really matter how many teenieboppers join because we just won’t follow them. So long as the basic premise remains the same and above all else it stays simple I’ll be happy. I’d hate twitter to go down the same path FB did with all those shitty applications and stuff.
April 4, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Matt says:
Good piece Mel. Do you write for other sites?
April 5, 2009 at 11:40 am
Mel says:
Rob – thanks for being kind *blush*
Hugh – I agree with you. I actually really dislike the new Facebook format, it used to offer something completely different from Twitter, now it offers a similar format but I’ve lost all of the parts that I loved it for. Fail!
Matt – thanks. I’ve written occasional pieces as a guest writer on other sites, but nothing permanent.
April 5, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Tom Hall says:
Hi Mel,
I like what you’re getting at here, but you know, all these websites that you’ve mentioned being bought out by big corporates, well what if they weren’t? Do you think all of them would have survived? and how about their evolution in becoming bigger, better and ever more popular? Most of the time that isn’t going to be possible without the $$$, these sites aren’t going to be able to hire the best people in the industry that will be able to take the sites to the next level, or be able to draw in users for focus groups… etc.
As a developer, if I had spent hours and hours, and many sleepless nights over a project, then I’m definitely going to want a reward at the end of it, and that reward 90% of the time going to be financial gain – letting go of control, well that’s all part of the job!
Bottom line is, I don’t think these websites started up to provide a free service with nothing in return, why would they?!
April 5, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Thomas Eilers says:
Have been enjoying your comments on twitter, Keep the fun.
April 5, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Ross Williams says:
You know, this will always be a tricky issue until people are willing to pay for more on the internet.
I’m lucky enough to be an industry where I can charge our users a decent price to provide them with a service – but there’s lots of people who simply wouldn’t pay a cent to use something.
What if Twitter charged one cent per broadcast (per tweet, I think you kids are calling it these days). So if I update my status 100 times I end up paying a dollar. Would that be fair?
Either people pay for something themselves, or a bigger advertising-support monster will come and gobble it up. Then maybe they work out how to monetise it.
Micropayments and a centralised single sign-on system adopted by the masses, rather than simply the geeks and early-adopters – will help the best new apps to remain independent as they can earn money through their business directly, rather than relying on a valuation of their non-paying userbase.
April 5, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Hugh says:
@Mel Surely you didn’t like all that being invited to be a pirate/ninja bullshit? I think FB was probably at it’s best before all that came in. 2 updates ago I think. Your right though, FB = twitter with more characters. That said I don’t mind it. Aesthetically speaking it’s an improvement over what they had before and I reckon it’s got people talking more.
@Ross – Your 100% right. I’m starting to come round to the idea of paying for more stuff online now. If it meant twitter didn’t “sell out” or go crazy with ads I’d probably pay 1p a tweet. It’d be worth it for me I think. In about 4 months I’ve accumulated around 500 tweets so that would work out at just over a quid a month for me. Plus if a tweet cost it might actually increase the overall quality of peoples updates. Not saying it’s the way twitter should go just saying I wouldn’t kick up a fuss if it did.
April 6, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Darren McPherson says:
I don’t mind if it’s taken over by a large company. At the end of the day it’s most likely 50% of the reason why they started twitter in the first place. As long as they keep the same spirit as twitter and don’t corporate-fy it, adding loads of stuff people don’t want.
You never know, they might keep it the same but improve the speed, servers and reliability.
Only time will tell I guess. I would cross my fingers and/or touch wood, but a recent video changed my mind.
April 8, 2009 at 8:54 am
John Stokes says:
Whatever happens to Twitter going forward the wonderful thing is something new will always come along. That’s the beauty of the web that if someone has a great idea it will take off. The first people to try it will be the tech community who will carry it until its ready for main stream.
So I am not worried if Twitter screws up by changing too much or in fact become so normal that grandma is using it
…. I know that a quirky wonderful idea is out there somewhere!
April 9, 2009 at 5:18 pm