$23m Invested in Twitter Startups
Twitter is dominating social media-related headlines in the same way Facebook did last year, but a report by Chubby Brain for Sun Startup Essentials pegs investment in Twitter-related start-ups at a touch over $23m in 11 different companies, including the UK’s own Tweetdeck. The data was collated at the end of June so doesn’t include £100k raised by political tweetmongers, Tweetminister.
This area of investment will provide an interesting barometer into the health of the Twitter application ecosystem. With growth flat-lining for Twitter (1.25% in July 2009), innovation for the service needs to come as much externally as internally. Just keeping the lights on must be quite a challenge in itself.
And there’s plenty of Twitter-related innovation about but it’s not just bedroom developers and entrepreneurs that are learning from Twitter, Facebook is getting in on the act internally and with the acquisition of Friendfeed, the competition will be hotting up.
Twitter might be this year’s Facebook, news-wise, but the simplicity of the service combined with a developer-friendly environment that works well across web and mobile bodes well.
Only one challenge left. A business model.
14 August 2009 by Sam Michel
Sam Michel is the founder of Chinwag and blogs here for work, and more randomly at Toodlepip. He runs Chinwag Jobs, Digital Mission and tends to focus on murky place where technology, community and marketing collide. You'll find him on twitter @toodlepip.
Sam Michel is the founder of Chinwag and blogs here for work, and more randomly at Toodlepip. He runs Chinwag Jobs, Digital Mission and tends to focus on murky place where technology, community and marketing collide. You'll find him on twitter @toodlepip.
Comments
The Money!
@Sam - Perhaps more and more services will have to rely on an ad-funded business model which isn't such a bad thing as long as the user experience isn't compromised and the adverts aren't intrusive!
I still don't quite understand how Twitter start-ups get funding if they don't have a money making business model... Why would anyone invest in a company that isn't going to make any money?!
(I've been using Twhirl instead of tweetdeck which is pretty good and to no surprises free!)
Business Model?
Errr... Yeah - Are Twitter planning to make any money out of the service? If so anyone got any ideas how they are planning to do so?
Do any of the twitter services make any money?
Show Me The Money
@toby Good point. Some of the iPhone Apps like Tweetie have made some cash, although don't know how much. I imagine that Tweetdeck's new features will start to include premium services. As for the others, hope they're not relying on advertising.