Study: No One Will Pay for Twitter
By Ed Oswald | Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 3:05 pm
The University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future released details of a survey Monday that found that half of all Americans have used a micro-blogging service such as Twitter. However, the more striking result was the response to a question if they would pay for the service or not.
Researchers could not find a single respondent that said it would pay a fee to use Twitter, which seems to suggest any business model for the company that would revolve around obtaining fees from its users would likely fall flat on its face.
“Twitter has no plans to charge its users, but this result illustrates, beyond any doubt, the tremendous problem of transforming free users into paying users,” CDF Director Jeffrey Cole said in a statement. “Online providers face major challenges to get customers to pay for services they now receive for free.”
Indeed, such an extreme response also shows that the company has done little to market itself as something that its users actually need. It might also suggest that more advertising and promotion deals may be enroute for the service, which honestly is probably one of the few profitable means of revenue for the microblogging service.
Is the CDF right? Would you not pay for Twitter if you had to?
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July 27th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
How many people were in the study, how many followers do they have, and do they tweet (at least some of the time) for business purposes. I imagine many in our business of building community, celebrities, companies, etc would pay. And that would offset the 'civilians' who have no desire to.
July 27th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
They might pay, but who's going to follow them and listen to what they have to say if the masses don't want to pay? How do Twitter decide who are 'civilians' who don't have to pay?
July 28th, 2010 at 2:51 am
I'd pay for Twitter to go away. 😛
July 28th, 2010 at 5:00 am
It's going to be a tricky landscape, if they're going to make people pay for their services. I'm sure, the business circle can and might be willing to pay, but the majority might just opt out, which would lead to a futile business/social strategy if there isnt an audience available.
July 28th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Even though I have 14,000 + Followers, I WILL NOT pay for Twitter! Even though I have a 80 + page website and several blogs, I have not spent so much as $1 on my Internet Enterprise. And even though it didn't start out that way, I am trying to prove that it is possible to launch an online business absolutely free. The one and only thing I paid for was my computer itself.