A couple of days ago Twitter announced that they had acquired TweetDeck. This is the second client that Twitter has purchased and I’m expecting it to be the last. Twitter now has the makings of a profitable company. But, not with advertising as many have expected. Instead, I think Twitter should develop TweetDeck into the premier Twitter client for companies looking to monitor their brand and research what customers actually think about their products.
Twitter would offer two client options. The free, standard option, Twitter, and the more feature-rich client, TweetDeck, that would be designed specifically for businesses and public relations companies.
Twitter could charge for TweetDeck licenses and finally begin to make money the way they should have been all along. By charging businesses and companies for tools that will make it easier to monitor what their customers think about their brand and product.
Companies would be able to use TweetDeck to get real feedback from their customers regarding their products. And, these opinions won’t be affected by the way a survey’s question is worded or by the possible answers that are given on a multiple choice survey. People voice their opinion on Twitter because they want to, not because the survey they’re taking gives them the chance to win a free iPod. And, those real opinions are voiced by people who want to express them, not because of the opportunity to win something, but because they truly believe in what they say. That information is incredibly useful to companies who want to know what their customers think about their products and services.
They could bring back track as an exclusive feature of TweetDeck alongside more search features and the ability to view a Twitter user’s entire tweet history.
It’s unfortunate that Twitter has to make money this way because I think Twitter itself is an amazing product. But, sadly there just isn’t enough people that would be willing to pay for it. The users are the product and Twitter is selling us to advertisers and they’ll soon be selling to companies who want to know what their customers (us) think.
