ExecTweets Only Hints at a Twitter Business Model

You probably thought the stock market rose yesterday by about 500 points because of some incredibly-complicated plan to lift the world out of the financial crisis. Those who tweet, however, are probably so self-involved that they think it was because the first inkling of a Twitter business model emerged yesterday, with the announcement by Twitter, Federated Media and Microsoft that MSFT would fund ExecTweets, a site devoted to what executives are saying on Twitter. As described in the site's "About" section: "ExecTweets is a platform that aggregates the tweets of top business execs and empowers the community to surface the most insightful, business-related tweets." (I guess that means it won't surface a recent tweet from Tony Hsieh, aka the CEO of Zappos, in which he said: "About to speak at conf. Spilled Coke on left leg of jeans, so poured some water on right leg so looks like the denim fade.") ExecTweets, however, is only the tip of a greater iceberg. On the Twitter blog, founder Biz Stone, writes: " ... if you're a major brand and you want to sponsor a topic-focused social media experience with Twitter, we suggest Federated Media--they'll fix you up right." So this is what Twitter's revenue model starts to look like: dozens of sites, along verticals, that are Twitter-sanctioned and advertiser-supported.

Interesting. But if that's the plan, Twitter, Microsoft and Federated should be a lot less demure, and much more creative, about advertiser involvement as this goes forward. It's not that the site has to shout "MICROSOFT!!!!", but to find the word at all on ExecTweets, you have to scroll down to the very bottom of a rather long page, where you'll be greeted with a banner ad. Boorrringgg. At the very top of the page, there's a visual which says, "Because it's everybody's business." Turns out it's a Microsoft ad as well, but contextually, as you can see here, it looks like the slogan for the site -- not something that bears clicking on. There is the kernel of an idea here, as marketing along verticals -- rather than to the entire Twitter universe -- is a lot more compelling, but there's a ways to go.