Michael Arrington discusses what he thinks is a fantastic idea in his latest post “Paid Twitter Streams Are Here: Super Chirp.” So Super Chirp is this new third party service that allows Twitter users the ability to charge others for access to their direct messages (Twitter’s private messaging system). The idea is that celebrities could say their extra special stuff to people who pay for it!
Here’s what I said in a comment on the TechCrunch post:
Wait, so as we Internet users complain about the last few remaining pay walls for what we thing should be ubiquitous information… we’re now supposed to be super excited for a new pay wall just because it has something to do with Twitter?
What goes around comes around, I guess…
Mike, if it’s such a fantastic idea, why don’t you drop the ads off your site and make every 5th post something I pay for?
I kid. Your site, as cool as it is (and I mean that sincerely), doesn’t have the “get out of jail free” card that makes Twitter, well, Twitter.
But what do you think? Is this something you’d see yourself paying for?
Couldn't agree with you more – just posted a blog post to our Twitter blog saying pretty much the same thing. Information wants to be free – and it's about time that people realized that.
These days, any way that a dollar sign can be attached to Twitter is hailed as “the answer to Twitter's monetization problem.” But I'm not entirely certain that there IS a problem. Twitter is a technology – a technology which could be folded into a larger-context social network to flesh out functionality. While that might not add value directly, it'll dramatically increase user engagement, and that's what will keep it going – the value that's added tangentially.
Nice post! Glad to see I'm not the only one bowing down to the Cult of Arrington.
Hi Rob, just checked out your post and didn't even think about one aspect which seems now like such an obvious hole in this whole idea:
“Will Super Chirp subscribers have to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement agreeing not to reproduce the content of monetized Tweets in whole or in part?”
Very good point!
Hi Rob, just checked out your post and didn't even think about one aspect which seems now like such an obvious hole in this whole idea:
“Will Super Chirp subscribers have to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement agreeing not to reproduce the content of monetized Tweets in whole or in part?”
Very good point!