The article points out real issues with the service which doesn't seem to have a business model (GigaOm posited that maybe they bought one in With Summize, Twitter To Buy A Clue). Everyone has an idea about a business model for Twitter and the article regurgitates the same old ones - advertising.
It also makes some rough calculations like a true dot-com financial projection sheet in an executive summary - except that there was a glaring mistake.
In calculating the potential revenue from advertising on Twitter, the article based ad impressions on Twitter's users seeing 10 ads per day. The problem is that so many people are using Twitter without going to Twitter - they can send and receive messages via SMS on their phone, or even use other services to send tweets.
How do you generate revenue from advertising if the people using your service don't need to come there and see the advertising?
Easy - sell something direct to users (I know, web startups don't seem to like this proven business model).
Twitter has the following options:
(1) Offer Users Value-added Services - Worpress already does this and the model is easy to adapt. Their blog software is free but you can purchase add-ons. I am sure that Twitter can come up with value-added services users will want.
(2) Charge marketers/brands/advertisers to use Twitter - I pay a monthly fee to manage my email list through a provider (most programs charge per user or by the quantity of messages). Zappos uses Twitter, see Inc. magazine's Zappos Finds a Use for Twitter. Really!, and many other companies use Twitter to quickly communicate with their biggest fans. I even use Twitter for Realvibez, tweeting about new videos uploaded to the site, news and blog posts. I would gladly pay a fee to be able to get valuable insight information on my tweets - how many read and so forth - plus be able to use such a great communications channel.
(3) Focus groups - I have seen Twitter used for focus group research and would gladly pay
Twitter to manage such a focus group for me. I will provide the
question and the account to tweet a reply to, Twitter can choose who to
send it to based on profile information.
Out of those 3 options, I believe that Twitter has the most opportunity with the second and third ones - corporate users. Companies like Apple and Nike, record labels and bands, MTV and media outlets, all of these could derive tremendous benefits from using Twitter to connect and interact with their evangelists.
Marketing people are supposed to be creative and these are just some of the ways we are already using Twitter.
Now it is up to Twitter to turn that into money and offer us some additional tools in order to generate some real revenue.
The problem with Twitter is that it has so much unrealized potential and many in the marketing world are dismissing it as a fad.
** update **
Look at how CNN Breaking News is using Twitter - twitter.com/cnnbrk - brilliant!
Naturally as a Jamaican I am even prouder than normal with our achievements track and field at the Olympics so far.
Usain Bolt simply demolished the 100m world record, set by Jamaican-Canadian Donovan Bailey years ago. Then, just to silence any naysayers who have not followed our achievements over the years and claim doping, as if this is a team that has been dogged with doping for years like certain other major countries, the women went out and took all the medals for the 100m as well!
Yam and banana indeed.
Upon seeing Bolt's run, I immediately recalled one of the shorts from Animatrix titled World Record. It featured a character that was set on breaking the world record and essentially ran out of the Matrix.
The character also happened to bee lanky just like Bolt and I figured it would be cool if we could somehow re-cut that video to reflect what the World had just witness. We had to get rid of the dreadlocks and modify the suit to look like the Jamaica outfit supplied by Puma.
I am a person who respects copyrights and I did my best to pay tribute to the piece and even plug the Wachowski Brothers movie coming out int 2009 - Ninja Assassin. I think we have a viral video on our hands and at least they will benefit directly from it and more people will be exposed to the Animatrix (I am surprised how many of my friends never watched it or even knew about it).
This is the reality that we now live in - A person can have an idea to use someone else's work in a way that both honours the original and exposes it to a different audience. I hope it does well and becomes a great promo piece for the Animatrix and Ninja Assassin.
p.s. Yes, I am a nerd for recalling so much detail about the animated short, but it was fun re-cutting the film and making our own little tribute to the achievements of the Jamaican track team.
Gary Unger, an author and advertising consultant who has worked on campaigns for the NBA, General Motors and other major clients chose to feature me in his first post for a series on his blog called the "Being Yourself Series". The series focuses on the failures or successes after reading a self-help book.
My story focuses on the before and after of reading Guy Kawasaki'sThe Art of the Start, one of the books I recommend to everyone I meet who asks for advice. I ended up getting the feature thanks toHelp A Reporter Out(HARO), a free service that has been paying major dividends for us (We will be featured in two upcoming books).
Peter Skankman, the person who runs HARO, sent out his usual list on Monday morning and I saw one that said the following:
"I am looking for stories of your success or failure from self help
books. Such as if you read Guy Kawasaki's book but your business
did not take off. Or you read Trumps books, but you're not rich
like him now. Or you bought "the secret" but the "secret" eludes
you and you read "blink" but all you succeed at was bad decisions
made quickly. Or hey, if they actually did turn your life/business
around send that in too.
My blog and book are about you being you "be yourself and have fun
doing it" is the main teaching theme. I will feature one or two
stories a week for the next month. Send text in email, no
attachments. Provide any links. Make 'em fun or funny stories."
Of course I submitted my story to the reporter and he replied that night wanting to use it as the first in the series.
We don't have a PR firm to handle this for us but I have proven time and again that small startups and entrepreneurs willing to be aggressive can secure good press mentions if they have good stories and can effectively communicate them.
p.s. Guy Kawasaki personally sent me an autographed copy of his book after we connected on Facebook last July and I treasure it (just ask my wife). I will forever promote his book because of how it has influenced my approach to business and entrepreneurship.
Web ventures backed by VCs are notorious for focusing predominantly on acquiring users first and leaving revenue on the back burner during the early stages. The perfect examples are YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
Their team deserves tremendous credit for what they have achieved.
However, 99% of entrepreneurs can't go about building their business this way because they don't have millions of dollars from VCs to burn through while they figure out a way to actually make money.
YouTube is still having trouble monetizing their audience and few entrepreneurs ever get that kind of big payout like Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Repeating what they did is possible, but extremely unlikely (except during a bubble of course).
Twitter did not have a business model when it launched and still doesn't have one, but it is growing amazingly quick and I am confident they will find a model (well maybe with Summize they now have one). They have been able to do this because they have raised over US$20 million from VCs - without a business model and a clear plan to generate cash flow.
The only sad part of this is that other entrepreneurs look at these case studies and try to do the same with their startups, except that they take out loans and use their credit cards. It is virtually impossible to use the YouTube/Facebook/Twitter model without VC money and succeed.
You most likely will end up with tons of debt - I am speaking from personal experience and still have the debt to prove it :-)
Normal entrepreneurs must focus on generating revenue because cash flow is the life blood of a business, especially a startup. Study these ventures and learn from them, but understand what you can and can't adapt, otherwise you are setting yourself up for failure and some serious debt (we are sitting on around US$65,000 from the first failure when we were busy chasing users and VCs).
Bottom Line: Have a cash flow plan early on so that as you add customers/users, your cash flow improves - you might just not need those VCs in the end.
My experience so far with NBC's video website for Olympic content has been less than stellar and I would not recommend it to anyone - stick to regular television.
The improvements are easy to see and there will be countless blog posts about how they should have done it. Instead of focusing on what they should improve, I want to share my idea for what they should have done in the first place since I think the entire strategy is the old media way of thinking.
Old Media Approach
Film content, edit to shorter clips and upload to website
Prevent full-screen of web video so that people are more likely to watch on television (i.e. more ratings)
Provide a sub-par experience on the web so people will watch on television - e.g. no commentary on web video
This kind of thinking is merely the application of old thinking to a new medium rather than taking advantage of what the new medium truly offers. The approach they should have taken was that of an online video site, not a television station going online.
Learning from what users do for anime coming straight from Japan and creating "fan subs" literally hours after an episode airs in Japan (and years before it usually makes it to America) is critical, and when combined with a YouTube approach to user-generated content, would have been much better.
NBC should have created a website more akin to YouTube: Users could record video from NBC's television feed and upload the clips that they liked. These clips would come with commentary and you would now have millions of people helping to catalog and tag the videos, making it much easier to find them.
NBC would be able to place advertising across the entire site just like how YouTube places ads on partner channels. They know what content is going up - it's theirs. Sifting out the limited crap that will get up is not hard, just look at the fact that YouTube sifts out porn.
NBC would also have created their own official channel on the website so we could get their direct content as well. Imagine the stickiness of the Olympics video site if people could leave comments?
It seems that old media companies today refuse to think of NEW ways to use a NEW medium and instead let their old ways of thinking restrict innovation.
Here is a summary of the new media approach I described above:
New Media Approach
Leverage UGC culture to get users to edit and upload clips recorded from the television broadcast
Millions of users catalog and tag videos
Allow users to leave comments and let other users be able to give a thumbs up or down so that spam and offensive remarks are quickly buried
Encourage people to share the video clips via Digg, StumbleUpon and more - use te social web to drive traffic
Place advertising across site since the quality of the content is a known factor
Create an official NBC channel on the site for NBC's owndirect content
None of this requires re-inventing the wheel, merely leveraging what already exists and adapting to your needs to generate revenue while providing a better experience for users.
Since that is not what NBC did, I will now go back to watching the Olympics on regular TV because I own a Mac at home and my PC at work doesn't seem to like the Silverlight player since it keeps freezing.
Of course that means that my DVR is working overtime and I am gladly fast-forwarding through every single commercial.
This week has been tougher than usual so far, mainly because I have been unable to find the time to do some key tasks - like porting over Realvibez videos to our new video player since Brightcove decided to screw us over.
I have had to work on a strategic partnership proposal for a website we are talking with, try to get more press coverage for the YouTube deal, work on financial projections for Realvibez for a person that has a potential investor with lots of money and modify our executive summary for another potential investor.
All I need to do is rip the videos, upload them to our new backend and then change the layout of each video page while embedding the new video code. Not so simple, especially when we are talking over 350 pages.
Times like these are when I wished we had the capital to hire staff, even part-time, but alas that day has yet to come and we must continue to do everything ourselves for the most part.
That's what makes me a toilet paper entrepreneur, but sometimes I wish I could just be a regular entrepreneur.
This weekend is going to be a long one and I guarantee I will get my work done. Hold me to it please. Monday morning, I must post about completing the video work and if not, please comment on this post asking me why I didn't finish.
I always say that one must make time for what is important and I am clearing the space to get this done - highest priority.
Anyway, I took time off to write this blog post because staring at a computer screen for 4 hours can't be a good thing (don't ask me how writing a blog on a COMPUTER solves that problem).
A welcome break from videos and excel spreadsheets, now to go watch tv or do something not computer related.
After our recent announcement regarding RE TV, I decided to offer myself for interviews with bloggers regarding the YouTube and RE TV deals and the first blog to take up the offer was YawdFromAbroad.
The interview is the most in-depth I have ever done and really gives a full history of Realvibez, most of my life, where we want to go and what drives me. Some of my friends and mentors get mentioned in the interview as well so read the full interview to see who appears.
I will post one question and answer to give you a flavour of the interview and encourage you to read the full interview. (This is also why I took that new picture that is now my Facebook profile picture)
YFA: Growing up did you and your brother know that you always wanted to be businessmen and/or entrepreneurs?
David: Growing up we weren't focused on long-term goals at all. When I started high school I asked my father how important 1st to 3rd form really was and he said that it was important but not the end of the World. I would need to do well to get the subjects I wanted for 4th form and to eventually take at CXC in 5th form but he told me to enjoy my first 3 years. I promptly decided to focus on the short-term, playing scrimmage at break time with friends and routinely coming 28th out of 32 in the class.
For 4th form everything changed and I was ready to focus on school and jumped into the top 10 of the class after that. It wasn't until I graduated high school at 15 and decided to apply for college in the USA after a trip with my parents that business became a real option.
At 15 I decided that I wanted to be a positive role model for young people around the World but especially young Jamaican males. I considered 4 options for my future: a politician, a university lecturer like my father, a professional football player and being involved in entertainment. I decided against politics because of my parents request and my feeling that I would have do compromise some of my ethics to get into a position of power that could actually have influence. The lecturer idea was discarded because I decided that young people already in university didn't need positive role models as those who couldn't get into university. That left football and entertainment so I pursued both equally.
I laid out a 15-year plan broken down into blocks of 5 years, planning everything down to around when I would need to get married. At the end of the plan, I was supposed to become a positive role model and the goal was to become the Chris Blackwell of my generation. That summer, my parents got the business ball rolling because they forced us to start researching and presenting business ideas. That continued every summer and every Christmas until I was 20, when they finally said yes to one of them.
In college I actually majored in Biology and minored in Chemistry and Religion for undergrad, but I took some business classes. It wasn't until my senior year that I really started to move towards business because football, my first love, didn't look like it was going to happen. Read the full interview.
Yesterday, August 1st, I was interviewed on South Florida's NPR station about Jamaica's Independence (Jamaica celebrates 46 years of Independence from Great Britain on August 6th).
This interview was the result of some interesting coincidenes, as well as my volunteer work with the Jamaica Diaspora Organization. I was asked to be the Youth Spokesperson for the Jamaica Diaspora Southeast US region - 13 US States, from Arizona to North Carolina down to Florida, and recently attended the bi-ennial Diaspora Conference in Jamaica, put on bythe Jamaican Government.
The Advisory Board member for our region, Marlon Hill (who also happens to be our lawyer), called me on Monday saying that he needed my "spokesperson voice" for an interview because he would not be able to make it due toa wedding.
I was supposed to only fill in for Marlon and Sheryl Wynter was to represent the Jamaica Consulate office in Miami. Unfortunately for her, she hurt her back and so I was left to carry the entire interview by myself.
The fact that these people could entrust such a vital interview to me, at just 27 years old, is definitely an honour, but it also goes to show how important it is to cultivate a positive reputation, volunteer with organizations and make your strengths known.
They knew that I have had lots of experience doing interviews and speaking in public so it was easy to call me to find out if I would do it.
That kind of personal reputation goes far and this interview will expose me to many more people in high places since we taped it and put it up on YouTube (on the Diaspora channel I created for the organization).
I have leveraged my knowledge to help the organization make better use of technology and they reciprocate by helping to promote me and my venture.
I hope that you volunteer with at least one organization this year.
I just completed some back and forth emails with some staff of an upstart website. This small site had an issue with our YouTube press release, saying that if we had been acquired by Google, we would have a seal and some special ID.
I did my best to point out that a "strategic partnership" is very different from "acquired" and they were the only people in the entire media universe who had misread our press release. Even after that simple explanation, they still persisted on the "acquisition" aspect and passed it on to what seemed to be a senior person. That person refused to get involved to solve the problem but also said that such a problem should not affect the possibility of doing business together in the future. The follow-up email went as far as to call us frauds and liars concerning the YouTube deal.
My business school experience, my mentors, my time in the corporate world and my years in business have taught me that the first impression of your company matters the most because it sets the tone for all future conversations.
If you present the wrong image, you should work quickly to identify the problem and rectify it, involving the highest levels of management if necessary.
To some this is just common sense, but alas, common sense is not so common as we all know from experience.
You have one chance to make a first impression so be very careful.
I recently had a discovery call with a large media company in the Caribbean that is considering investing in our venture. One of the people on the call asked why we were approaching them with an idea instead of a functional website.
I quickly pointed out the correct url of the site, the history of operations, the fact that the site has been live for years and the fact that we had just placed an advertsing campaign for an agency at a cpm rate higher than they are placing ads for on their own online properties.
She quickly apologized for making such a mistake and wanted to move to the next step as soon as possible because she was know much more interested.
If we had not dealt with her negative first impression, we wouldn't be getting very far and we also do not know who she would speak to. That belief could spread and contaminate the minds of other potential investors and hurt the reputation of our venture.
Entrepreneurs and business-owners must be vigilant about reputation, especially when you have a significant personal stake.
If you are not focused on your company's first impression with all people, you are taking a serious risk that will ultimately backfire.
Everyone loves to have support from others but entrepreneurs probably love it more than anyone else because we take so many risks that most people don't. Every supportive word, comment and email boosts confidence and so I had to share pieces of this recent email and note because it really helps to keep us humble and stay focused on the goal of being positive role models for people al over the World.
I recently did an in-depth interview with the blog YawdFromAbroad and this was what the interviewer/owner, Tremaya, had to say:
You guys are definitely genuine and easy to talk to and get along with, and more importantly you really care about what you do and others, and that's rare online and in the "real world".
You guys are definitely exciting and inspiring, it's one thing to hear about black success but it's another to see it. Honestly, it's like you guys are a God-send for me. I know I'm destined for greatness in my own life, and having a tangible source of inspiration, success, and mentorship is really awesome, that's a million times better than anything else you could do for me.
Just keep doing what you do, only better. As one of my favorite scriptures says, "Your gifts will make room for you".
Thanks for the kinds words Tremaya, that really put a big smile on my face.
One of my best friends, someone who has known me since 2002, Allison Cole, also wrote a note on Facebook today and here are some excerpts:
David is without a doubt, an entrepreneur and when I speak of the things that Jamaica needs to make a positive change and assert ourselves as "Brand Jamaica", David is one of the first people that come to mind.
There is no box
While in the middle of Half-Way Tree, going to the VP Records office, I asked David if he would buy a copy of my autobiography when I finally wrote it. He said: "Yes, and I would buy the rights to make the movie too."
This is the type of statement, I am used to hearing from David and his brother Robert. With these two, there is no box, neither is there any limit to what can be accomplished with a good business plan, a strong support system and a lot of hard work.
I see this new venture with youtube as the keystone for future RV branding and projects. I expect bigger and better things from both David and Robert.
I am proud of you both, as well as the extended RV family.
I have worked hard to represent Jamaica well on the World stage and dedicated time and effort through the Jamaica Diaspora Southeast Region and Upliftment Jamaica. I was asked to be a Youth Spokesperson for the Southeast US Region and I am supposedly going on NPR South Florida this Friday to talk about what the diaspora is doing to celebrate Jamaica's Independence.
Jamaica is a part of me and sometimes I feel that I don't get enough support from my fellow Jamaicans, especially my own generation.
Allison is one of those few who truly understand what I am about and gladly shares that with others. I couldn't ask for a better PR person, and she is just a friend!
These two people have treated our accomplishments for what they are - great things for Jamaica, not me personally. Humility is something that I focus hard on keeping and I guarantee that Allison has so many stories about me that she can quickly put me in my place if I ever cross over to the dark side.
Sometimes I feel misunderstood - many people mistake speaking up or showing that you understand your subject matter as arrogance. Tremaya and Allison don't make that mistake, they understand that I genuinely want to help others and play my role in bettering Jamaica.
The more people that I can get to see the real me, the more I will be able to help.
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, said it best:
"Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world"
