02/09/2012

The archive contains older posts which may no longer reflect my current views.

Twitter, interest graphs and doubts of a freemium account model.

Advertising on Twitter continues to cause much debate, especially now the service is to target users by their interests. There are calls in some quarters for a freemium account model so that those who want to can pay not to be targeted but is this a viable option?

value-added serviceEmploying our interest graph rather than our social graph is something that I've been talking about for a while and we are seeing shifts in this direction from across the social web.

Twitter's move to use its interest graph to target users for advertising is a long time coming but Twitter had to ensure it had sufficient data and a robust enough graph before it could reasonably expect advertisers to cough up their money on unproven technology.

It remains to be seen whether Twitter will enhance the user experience with the interest graph - it would make a lot of sense to do so as I have been saying for quite some time.

We have already seen the initial shoots of growth in this area (NASCAR, #discover to a degree) but there is a long way to go.

I said previously that the #discover tab needs to be tailored more to our interests so, perhaps, establishing a viable interest graph could power this at some point in future.

Is Freemium an option?

Twitter is criticised for going the advertising route with some saying they would be happy to pay a subscription to avoid the ads but Is this viable? While it may work in certain circumstances (mobile apps for example, but they are pulling from a central ad system) I don't believe it would on Twitter.

Each user that pays a subscription to Twitter reduces the value of advertising due to reduced impressions and resultant click-throughs. Will advertisers want to take the risk of targeting a smaller user base?

For Twitter itself the key question would be "do the subscription fees generated offset the drop in advertising revenue?"

How many?

Out of the millions of users on Twitter, how many are likely to be online during a campaign? How many of those would be willing to pay a subscription? How many of those would have been successfully targeted based on their interests and, finally, how many of those would actually interact with a promoted Tweet in some way? It's like a social Drake equation to calculate potential loss.

Potential advertisers loss from a freemium account model

If the total number of subscribers is a very small percentage then, perhaps, Twitter could afford to offer a Freemium model but as the number of subscribers increases I feel it would lose its viability.

Deep impact?

Reducing the number of potential click-throughs by enabling an ad-free option could have deeper implications for the non-subscribers.

I have considered previously the possibility of promoted tweets being expanded by default to ensure that they stand out in our busy streams. In a relatively small survey most said that they would not be impressed by this but, as Twitter is now such a part of our lives, they would tolerate it.

Some users, however, responded that any such attempt by the network to force content upon them in this way would cause them to leave the service so this is another potential area of loss for both advertisers and Twitter itself.

It makes me wonder what other implications a freemium model might have for those who don't want to pay.

Lead image from Tsahi Levent-Levi.

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Is Google+ about to allow multiple post attachments?

Does the Chrome "share to Google+" option indicate an upcoming ability to add multiple attachment types to posts?

One of the common requests when posting on Google+ is the ability to add multiple attachment types such as a link and additional images. Currently it is an either/or situation but is that about to change?

The latest update to Chrome for iOS introduced sharing to Google+ but, interestingly, the sharing dialog also appear to permit attaching images as well as the linked site.

The results of attempting this are, at present, inconsistent but show promise; let's look at what happens.

On the web

Somewhat disappointingly, attaching images via the Chrome share seems to take priority over the actual shared link when viewing the post via the web page:

On mobile

Viewing the post via the G+ application for iOS, however, is a completely different story. The post on mobile not only includes the shared link but also adds the additional images to the one included in the rich snippet so that you can swipe between them within the mobile interface as though you had initially shared multiple images on a normal post:

iOS image from snippet   iOS attached image