Tuesday, May 31, 2011

TweetDeck founder feared monetization efforts

TweetDeck’s creator Iain Dodsworth had a “big fear” that monetizing the social media service would drive away users, which is the reason he turned to raising funding over selling ads.

“If I see too much advertising, I turn off; it’s to the detriment of the quality of the product. I raised funding for this company just so I didn’t have to throw adverts at people and put them off,” he told BBC Radio 5live this morning, paidContent reported.

Unfortunately, a business can’t run on good intentions alone, and so it turned to targeting, hoping users would be interested in the content and wouldn’t find it to be a turn-off, he said.

“We’ve thought about this. If we were to put a World Cup column, sponsored by brand X, that seems a title bit more sophisticated than just slapping a banner ad right in front of you and distracting you. Because this audience is so savvy, whilst they won’t stand for certain low-quality advertising, they are interested in high quality.”

Last week, Twitter confirmed it bought TweetDeck. Many speculated that Twitter would kill the third-party developer if it bought it, but Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wrote: “In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love.”

A recent report from Sysomos showed that 42 percent of all tweets are made using unofficial Twitter services and apps, including TweetDeck, International Business Times reported.

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