8 ms·

Testing a way for you to make purchases on Twitter

127 points by hornokplease 12y ago

flurdy 12y ago
As long as it doesn't get forced onto 3rd party clients, even their own Tweetdeck, then I don't really care. For now...
- Flavius 12y ago
  I don't get it. How can a "Buy" button bother anyone? You're following a company that sells something you're interested in, they have a promotion or something on Twitter, you buy it with one click. Am I missing something? Or is it just super cool to hate anything that could potentially generate some profit for Twitter?
  - rschuetzler 12y ago
    Unless it's not from a company I'm following. Inevitably this will show up in the ads I'm shown on the site, which are things I do not follow.
    - wodenokoto 12y ago
      With or without the buy button you are seeing the adds.
      - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
        Also, total change of culture from distributing (arguably) interesting and entertaining content to selling and promoting stuff. Result: more noise, much lower snr.
  - comeonnow 12y ago
    Because it opens the doors for referrals and sponsors. Personally I think it's a good idea, for the brands and people I follow I know I'll only be getting shown the 'Buy' button for targeted items. However, I know my friends and family follow people who are clearly paid to promote a product. Just to give you an example, Mark Wright is a reality TV celebrity here in England, and it's clear he is paid to promote diet supplements. if you check out his tweets you'll see that he's always retweeting, and taking pics of them (https://twitter.com/MarkWright_ https://twitter.com/MarkWright_). At the moment, conversion metrics are quite hard to get, however imagine if each one had a Buy button. It would be super easy to see which tweets leads to sales, which in turn will lead to a more aggressive sales pitch in order to bump up your conversions and maximise on referrals, as they'd likely to change to a percentage of sales rather than a fixed fee now that conversations are recordable. There used to be a thing that you have to disclose your affiliation (think it was cmp.ly) but don't believe it ever got enforced, much like the EU Cookie Law, kind of. Don't get me wrong, in my feed I trust people I follow and this won't happen. But for casual tweeters, it's just too easy to be exploited.
ebbv 12y ago
Because when I'm browsing Twitter my first thought is usually "Gee I wish I could buy some random thing."
- carbocation 12y ago
  The comment is probably glib but to respond to it in seriousness: Twitter is a place where you bathe in the stochastic. Why not see if it's also a place where people will make buying decisions based on the same? I think it's an idea worthy of experimentation.
- chrisan 12y ago
  Just a guess you aren't following "random" companies but rather things you are interested in? OcculusVR: New Rift is out! [Buy] SXSW: Tickets on sale now! [Buy] JKRowling: Just release my new Book [Buy] Steam: [Some new Triple A game] is released [Buy] RaspberryPi: New Pi Beowulf cluster available for purchase [Buy] RedCross: [Some disaster] we need your support [Donate] (I'm sure a donate will come along if this works) Anywho, there have to be _tons_ of impulse buyers in the world. People will click
  - liotier 12y ago
    > (I'm sure a donate will come along if this works) That would be a very relevant functionality : Twitter is all instant emotion and therefore a perfect platform for impulse donations !
  - lsorber 12y ago
    Going down this list made me realize how tempting it would be to have a buy button right next to the tweet.
mkr-hn 12y ago
So that means people could eventually buy the ebooks I promote right from the tweet. Neat.
chton 12y ago
I'm actually impressed they found a way to monetize their platform that doesn't involve obtrusive ads. This seems like a good source of income for them and their clients, and as long as they don't force you to follow commercial accounts, it will be almost invisible to anyone who doesn't want to see it. I'm cautiously optimistic.
- ricardolopes 12y ago
  Exactly my thoughts. I think at this moment we are all so scared of possible future changes, always for the sake of profits against users' will, that something as simple and inoffensive as this is actually a pleasant surprise. I hope they will be happy enough with the button's results to not jump to other, more irritating changes. And also hope that this is not just a door for some future ads spike.
- pionar 12y ago
  No, it's ads. You can just now buy from the ads directly.
  - chton 12y ago
    I don't know where you get that idea. They explicitly say "some Tweets from our test partners will feature a “Buy” button", there is no mention of ads. The implication is, if I don't follow their partners, I won't see the buy button.
    - spacefight 12y ago
      Until they start injecting the buy features into regular sponsored tweets. That will happen for sure.
      - chton 12y ago
        That's a possibility, but that still wouldn't be more intrusive than the current sponsored tweets. If anything, if this model is successful, they might even reduce the amount of sponsored stuff appearing in your timeline.
kkl 12y ago
Not sure how happy I'll be with the pairing of this and Twitter's supposed new "Facebook"-style timeline. Time will tell.
Grue3 12y ago
Because buying a product based on a 140 character description is a thing that should be encouraged.
- weavie 12y ago
  By the looks of it, clicking on the link brings you to a page with a lengthier description.
  - dmix 12y ago
    You can see more information, select variations of the product ('red or green') and there should also be a link to the vendors product page as well. The Buy button in the feed might confuse some users though, since it will likely open the information panel.
eik3_de 12y ago
If you don't like the direction twitter is heading, try quitter.se, ello.co, app.net
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- mkr-hn 12y ago
  The problem with those is no one I know uses them, and they're generally happy with Twitter. And I don't disagree with them. app.net wanted more than I could afford to follow more than a few people, but the others look interesting. I'll give them a look. edit: ello won't accept my email for the invitation request. Quitter looks like a clone of Twitter, and barely anyone in the public timeline speaks English. Not sure what to do with this. edit 2: It looks like it took the request and sent me ten different confirmation emails while showing an error on the form. This doesn't make me feel good about the service.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  Or, better yet, pump.io or identi.ca, federated services which can be bridged to Twitter.
tinkerrr 12y ago
Not sure how many people would like to associate their credit card information with their Twitter profiles. Maybe they can include other sensible options like Bitcoin?
rattray 12y ago
In an incredible turn of timing, I created a mockup of a Facebook icon for the exact same functionality about six hours ago: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sed9ewxz25turey/Screenshot%202014-09-08%2017.32.03.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/sed9ewxz25turey/Screenshot%202014-...
- psaintla 12y ago
  Facebook already tried something like this when they purchased Karma and it didn't work out too well.
pinaceae 12y ago
it is a big conundrum if your core product, through its simplicity, is really great. you hire all these product people, have all these investors, but any direction you can take the product actually makes it worse against its initial, great core use. twitter as a protocol is on a level with smtp - a lucky strike, hitting a need, something for the ages. journalists, media, etc. love it. RSS on a whole new level. but twitter as a product company? smtp is a not a profit model, you need to have real, closed products - hence the API limits, hence all this other bull. they have a narrow scope hit product and will kill it by making it broad. a little bit like google and search, put ads on it, done, the rest is noise driven by boredom and/or panic (we need to justify our existence!). twitters design team is bigger than most startups - and for what? the whole slack team fits into the twitter reception area and covers how many platforms, apps, use cases by now? you threw a lucky punch with a communication channel/protocol, but now you're stuck. aren't we happy that the smtp or unix guys as a whole didn't try the same. "monetize".
- chton 12y ago
  Here's what the problem is: twitter isn't a product company. It's a service company. They didn't just invent a protocol, like the SMTP guys did, they provide a service for free. That means they need money to hire people, maintain servers, and survive in general. Even if they didn't want to make any money, if they never cared for profit, they would still need a way to have their service generate income. I agree that it's a conundrum for them, but with this solution at least they're trying to do it in a non-obtrusive way that doesn't jeopardize the entire platform.
- pionar 12y ago
  Twitter isn't a protocol. If it was, there'd be Twitter (the protocol) based services everywhere, and it'd be open and federated. Twitter is a service. Services need money. It's a simple as that.
  - arrrg 12y ago
    Thing is, Twitter should be a protocol. It clearly fills an existing need (I see it as very similar to email in that regard, just filling a different need – people want to chat publicly with each other and in a very informal way inform the public about things), but it doesn’t really make sense as a service that wants to make money. Twitter should be just like email, not this one monopoly controlling everything. It’s sad that that’s the way it is.
WoodenChair 12y ago
It's interesting that they would not partner with Square somehow for this given @Jack...
grayclhn 12y ago
Lots of people enjoy shopping, so this isn't as obviously bad of an idea as some of the comments here imply. Open question whether this will be more like "hanging out at the mall" or "watching QVC."
abhimskywalker 12y ago
It would be interesting to see if content writers can promote their content through this to earn money through micro-payments. Likely Steps: 1. Capture attention in 140 characters. 2. Provide a good deal for the article/content at a small price Just being optimistic about news, article writers. I guess we might soon see Economist stories with nice 140 character titles and eye-catchy pictures with a buy button to read full article, post which it's added to your twitter shelf. I wonder if this just might prove to be the payment mechanism needed for such content consumption. Somewhat similar to the app-store economy, twitter might become the content-store. Let's see... Though I hope the dominant commerce part is kept as a separate tab perhaps like "Discover" tab, as I guess I wouldn't want to have my twitter stream as a series of ads. One or two "buy" tweets might be ok though I think... Will have to wait and watch how this goes.
- fideloper 12y ago
  I was thinking exactly this. While for purchases of multiple items in groups or of items which I typically research first (most things), smaller commodity or usually single-items purchases might make sense in this context. One such thing would be an eBook or similar that you'd buy from someone you know or know of on Twitter.
- GregorStocks 12y ago
  That sounds like it'd encourage misleading clickbait even more than the current Internet.
aapje 12y ago
My main concern is security. When Twitter stores your payment information it will be easy to buy something with a single click. But I've seen way too many Twitter hacking going on when I look at friends' timelines. If tweets like 'How I lost 100 lbs in 3 months! Click > bit.ly/youwillbehacked' can be posted without too much effort, these same hackers could buy stuff for free by just hacking into your Twitter account.
- blackaspen 12y ago
  Twitter offers 2 factor authentication for account logins (SMS a code every time you login).
  - cowls 12y ago
    This should be forced whenever you try to purchase something
ardahal 12y ago
A way to bet on a sport/game via Twitter would be an interesting thing to do. Couple of months ago, I actually looked for ways to do it around the Twitter's cards API but never managed to get beyond the initial thoughts of doing so.
shk 12y ago
After seeing this, I had a thought what if FB also brings 'buy' buttons on similar lines where pages can post items with a price tag and 'buy' button? It will surely be a nice revenue stream. Both FB and Twitter have an incredible reach. If Twitter can bring this experience about in a non-intrusive way, then it's a win-win for everyone.
- sjg007 12y ago
  They have.
  - shk 12y ago
    They are definitely trying to get the experience right by going with limited partners and exposing the feature to small user base. I imagine, if they had opened the floodgates immediately, then we would have seen the 'buy' button left right and centre on the feed.
amerf1 12y ago
Some of the participating followers in this program have millions of followers, Twitter is seriously getting into this purchasing business
brianbreslin 12y ago
This is the first positive move I've seen from Twitter in a long time as far as building a sustainable business. [edit] I say this after having tried every single one of their ad products without any success.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kordless 12y ago
There are exactly zero times I wished I could buy something from a Tweet with a button. Given that limited observation of buyer behavior, and knowing full well Twitter wishes to make profit, I'm assuming these buttons will be forced into my public stream somewhere, somehow. Some people on here think these buttons will be placed there by Twitter via ads, but I have another idea: Provide a micropayment channel program where, when I retweet a purchase button, I get part of the revenue share. Use cryptocurrencies to implement the feature. See @tipdoge for reference.
- herge 12y ago
  I'm going to guess you don't use the 'one-click buy' button on Amazon either?
  - kordless 12y ago
    I buy things off Amazon because I go there to buy things. So yes, I guess I use that button. :)
  - u124556 12y ago
    Amazon does use more than 140 characters to present a product.
    - jimktrains2 12y ago
      And often has reviews on the same page.
      - saryant 12y ago
        The reviews are the key. I always jump straight to the reviews. Half the time I never read the item description.
    - pradn 12y ago
      You can always add a link to the tweet for more details.
Erwin 12y ago
I wonder if there's a way to generalize this so any text or image can have metadata about purchasing the exact product. Something like a shorter UPC but with a non-intrusive reader embedded everywhere offering you to buy the product through manufacturer-controlled channels (varying depending on what country you are in). You "just" need to get enough users to install the scanning software; maybe the next iPhone will come with Apple Shopping that scans all text you see and all images for the metadata/watermarks. As it detected a product, the new second $ button lights up. Press down on it for a second, and the product information pops up (Apple Shopping knows your size/address/credit card already of course). Hold it down for a few seconds longer, and you've made your purchase. Don't, and a few weeks later maybe the seller gets to send you a 10% off coupon. Actually, Amazon's phones might already have something like that, letting you scan a bar code in a physical shop but purchase from Amazon.
- pjc50 12y ago
  Isn't this effectively the failed cuecat model?
foobarqux 12y ago
How are the economics of such a model for twitter? Retailer margins are usually thin and you need further split with stripe and the feed publisher.
liotier 12y ago
So, who has a good Twitter client capable of filtering the [redacted] Promoted Tweets ?
pain 12y ago
Will Twitter compete with tipbots, and will that effect their legality?
softbuilder 12y ago
See Chirpify[1], who has since pivoted. I don't know if that pivot was because of the idea or because Twitter decided it made more sense to be an ad wall than a platform. I really, truly do not understand Twitter's thinking. I'm sure on someone's spreadsheet of imaginary numbers it looks more attractive to be a billboard, but Twitter had the opportunity to be a true platform. A platform gives you control. It's a longer-term play, but my goodness the opportunities missed. Including this one, which could have been in play years ago. Whether people will actually use this feature is a whole other question. [1] http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sell-simply http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sell-simply Edit: Clarify first P.
- stdbrouw 12y ago
  This is a little bit too hand-wavy to me. You mention only a single opportunity Twitter missed by not focusing on being a "true platform", and then you immediately hedge by saying that you're not sure people will actually use it.
  - softbuilder 12y ago
    Sandy comes to mind, and is actually a better example. (Although Google seems to have forgotten it existed.) For clarity, I see Twitter as having this amazing potential as a message bus for both people, apps, and services. And I feel that potential has been squandered. I'm unsure if this particular idea is going to pay off. But the general notion of an ecosystem of services hanging off of Twitter seems like the right one to me. (This is usually where someone says app.net, and I say 'critical mass'.)
    - jfb 12y ago
      How do you make money as a message bus? I'm not saying I disagree (I take no position on the merits of Twitter-as-a-servce, as I am not a user), but clearly the Best Minds have decided that the attention economy (read: ads) is the way forward. How do you pay for that critical mass? Twitter isn't something that falls out of infrastructure -- decisions had and have to be taken to spend resources. While selling people to advertisers is getting harder, and therefore less margin-friendly, it'd take a braver company than Twitter to turn their back on the model. IMO.
liotier 12y ago
Let's hope that the selling-out of Twitter will give a nudge to its open decentralized competitors... I'm not holding my breath, but who knows ? I still dream of an XMPP Twitter...
- pradn 12y ago
  I don't think that Twitter's effort to monetize is directly equal to selling out. If the service's quality degrades significantly (too many pushy ads and buy buttons) then, I'd say it sold out. So far, I've found the ads fairly relevant and not too frequent.
  - liotier 12y ago
    I may be oversensitive to spam (I must admit that my love of ad-blocking software in all sorts of systems borders on mania) but the very idea that I now have to be wary of Sponsored Tweets that require an effort to unsee has already started to spoil the experience.
    - ericras 12y ago
      There's no such thing as a free lunch, etc, etc. I like the Sponsored Tweets compared to the alternatives: either paying to use Twitter or banner ads.
      - liotier 12y ago
        Or hosting your own... Take a look at http://twister.net.co http://twister.net.co - it has potential for scalable decentralized peer-to-peer microblogging.
johnrob 12y ago
Any app/website with a large user base should probably add this feature. The main value here, compared to simply dropping an ecommerce link in a tweet (the current use case), is piggy backing payment and fulfillment on top of the existing twitter user account.
- mahmoudimus 12y ago
  Would be interesting to see how these things develop -- fulfillment and payment processing are double-edged swords. Bolting on fulfillment to a twitter-purchase seems like a lot of work, but as another commentator said, I'm cautiously optimistic.
lordbusiness 12y ago
I can see this being useful, and welcome it. Particularly for music downloads a la iTunes etc.
f1nch3r 12y ago
Do not want.
dacort 12y ago
I think one of my favorite things about this is that it actually makes product information available in the meta tags. <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:id" value="n6NDAWFNqjkNZftJWq0BQw==" /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:title" value="Small" /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:inventory_count" value=1 /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:price" value=75000000 /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:tax_category" value="included_in_price" /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:last_updated" value=1409259500000 /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:attribute1:text" value="Small" />
king_magic 12y ago
The question on my mind is this: how can this possibly make anyone any money, given Apple's 30% cut on in-app purchases? I seriously doubt Apple would give that up.
- j_s 12y ago
  Interesting point - depending on how this is implemented, all iOS Twitter clients could already be violating the App Store guidelines!
pla3rhat3r 12y ago
Wonder if this spells the end of companies like Chripify that do this as their business model.
- pla3rhat3r 12y ago
  Didn't realize someone had already commented on that very thing. :\
piyushpr134 12y ago
This could become big. Imagine celebrities tweeting buy link for their album or donation links when some calamity strikes or AMZN/Flipkart launching an exclusive deal/product on twitter or imagine launch of a new book/phone/car and tweeting buy button to prebook it. This could take impulse buy to a whole new level. Has Twitter finally found a viable business model ?
samstave 12y ago
SO, now twitter wants to store financial data on users now too? No thanks
samstave 12y ago
Bought on Twitter: Twought.
Lidador 12y ago
Don't we all have a friend or two who tries to sell you stuff while we're hanging out with friends on a night out? That's what buy ads feel like on social networks.

127 points by hornokplease 12y ago

flurdy 12y ago

As long as it doesn't get forced onto 3rd party clients, even their own Tweetdeck, then I don't really care. For now...

Flavius 12y ago
I don't get it. How can a "Buy" button bother anyone? You're following a company that sells something you're interested in, they have a promotion or something on Twitter, you buy it with one click. Am I missing something? Or is it just super cool to hate anything that could potentially generate some profit for Twitter?
- rschuetzler 12y ago
  Unless it's not from a company I'm following. Inevitably this will show up in the ads I'm shown on the site, which are things I do not follow.
  - wodenokoto 12y ago
    With or without the buy button you are seeing the adds.
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      Also, total change of culture from distributing (arguably) interesting and entertaining content to selling and promoting stuff. Result: more noise, much lower snr.
- comeonnow 12y ago
  Because it opens the doors for referrals and sponsors. Personally I think it's a good idea, for the brands and people I follow I know I'll only be getting shown the 'Buy' button for targeted items. However, I know my friends and family follow people who are clearly paid to promote a product. Just to give you an example, Mark Wright is a reality TV celebrity here in England, and it's clear he is paid to promote diet supplements. if you check out his tweets you'll see that he's always retweeting, and taking pics of them (https://twitter.com/MarkWright_ https://twitter.com/MarkWright_). At the moment, conversion metrics are quite hard to get, however imagine if each one had a Buy button. It would be super easy to see which tweets leads to sales, which in turn will lead to a more aggressive sales pitch in order to bump up your conversions and maximise on referrals, as they'd likely to change to a percentage of sales rather than a fixed fee now that conversations are recordable. There used to be a thing that you have to disclose your affiliation (think it was cmp.ly) but don't believe it ever got enforced, much like the EU Cookie Law, kind of. Don't get me wrong, in my feed I trust people I follow and this won't happen. But for casual tweeters, it's just too easy to be exploited.

ebbv 12y ago

Because when I'm browsing Twitter my first thought is usually "Gee I wish I could buy some random thing."

carbocation 12y ago
The comment is probably glib but to respond to it in seriousness: Twitter is a place where you bathe in the stochastic. Why not see if it's also a place where people will make buying decisions based on the same? I think it's an idea worthy of experimentation.
chrisan 12y ago
Just a guess you aren't following "random" companies but rather things you are interested in? OcculusVR: New Rift is out! [Buy] SXSW: Tickets on sale now! [Buy] JKRowling: Just release my new Book [Buy] Steam: [Some new Triple A game] is released [Buy] RaspberryPi: New Pi Beowulf cluster available for purchase [Buy] RedCross: [Some disaster] we need your support [Donate] (I'm sure a donate will come along if this works) Anywho, there have to be _tons_ of impulse buyers in the world. People will click
- liotier 12y ago
  > (I'm sure a donate will come along if this works) That would be a very relevant functionality : Twitter is all instant emotion and therefore a perfect platform for impulse donations !
- lsorber 12y ago
  Going down this list made me realize how tempting it would be to have a buy button right next to the tweet.

mkr-hn 12y ago

So that means people could eventually buy the ebooks I promote right from the tweet. Neat.

chton 12y ago

I'm actually impressed they found a way to monetize their platform that doesn't involve obtrusive ads. This seems like a good source of income for them and their clients, and as long as they don't force you to follow commercial accounts, it will be almost invisible to anyone who doesn't want to see it. I'm cautiously optimistic.

ricardolopes 12y ago
Exactly my thoughts. I think at this moment we are all so scared of possible future changes, always for the sake of profits against users' will, that something as simple and inoffensive as this is actually a pleasant surprise. I hope they will be happy enough with the button's results to not jump to other, more irritating changes. And also hope that this is not just a door for some future ads spike.
pionar 12y ago
No, it's ads. You can just now buy from the ads directly.
- chton 12y ago
  I don't know where you get that idea. They explicitly say "some Tweets from our test partners will feature a “Buy” button", there is no mention of ads. The implication is, if I don't follow their partners, I won't see the buy button.
  - spacefight 12y ago
    Until they start injecting the buy features into regular sponsored tweets. That will happen for sure.
    - chton 12y ago
      That's a possibility, but that still wouldn't be more intrusive than the current sponsored tweets. If anything, if this model is successful, they might even reduce the amount of sponsored stuff appearing in your timeline.

kkl 12y ago

Not sure how happy I'll be with the pairing of this and Twitter's supposed new "Facebook"-style timeline. Time will tell.

Grue3 12y ago

Because buying a product based on a 140 character description is a thing that should be encouraged.

weavie 12y ago
By the looks of it, clicking on the link brings you to a page with a lengthier description.
- dmix 12y ago
  You can see more information, select variations of the product ('red or green') and there should also be a link to the vendors product page as well. The Buy button in the feed might confuse some users though, since it will likely open the information panel.

eik3_de 12y ago

If you don't like the direction twitter is heading, try quitter.se, ello.co, app.net

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mkr-hn 12y ago
The problem with those is no one I know uses them, and they're generally happy with Twitter. And I don't disagree with them. app.net wanted more than I could afford to follow more than a few people, but the others look interesting. I'll give them a look. edit: ello won't accept my email for the invitation request. Quitter looks like a clone of Twitter, and barely anyone in the public timeline speaks English. Not sure what to do with this. edit 2: It looks like it took the request and sent me ten different confirmation emails while showing an error on the form. This doesn't make me feel good about the service.
JoshTriplett 12y ago
Or, better yet, pump.io or identi.ca, federated services which can be bridged to Twitter.

tinkerrr 12y ago

Not sure how many people would like to associate their credit card information with their Twitter profiles. Maybe they can include other sensible options like Bitcoin?

rattray 12y ago

In an incredible turn of timing, I created a mockup of a Facebook icon for the exact same functionality about six hours ago: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sed9ewxz25turey/Screenshot%202014-09-08%2017.32.03.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/sed9ewxz25turey/Screenshot%202014-...

psaintla 12y ago
Facebook already tried something like this when they purchased Karma and it didn't work out too well.

pinaceae 12y ago

it is a big conundrum if your core product, through its simplicity, is really great. you hire all these product people, have all these investors, but any direction you can take the product actually makes it worse against its initial, great core use. twitter as a protocol is on a level with smtp - a lucky strike, hitting a need, something for the ages. journalists, media, etc. love it. RSS on a whole new level. but twitter as a product company? smtp is a not a profit model, you need to have real, closed products - hence the API limits, hence all this other bull. they have a narrow scope hit product and will kill it by making it broad. a little bit like google and search, put ads on it, done, the rest is noise driven by boredom and/or panic (we need to justify our existence!). twitters design team is bigger than most startups - and for what? the whole slack team fits into the twitter reception area and covers how many platforms, apps, use cases by now? you threw a lucky punch with a communication channel/protocol, but now you're stuck. aren't we happy that the smtp or unix guys as a whole didn't try the same. "monetize".

chton 12y ago
Here's what the problem is: twitter isn't a product company. It's a service company. They didn't just invent a protocol, like the SMTP guys did, they provide a service for free. That means they need money to hire people, maintain servers, and survive in general. Even if they didn't want to make any money, if they never cared for profit, they would still need a way to have their service generate income. I agree that it's a conundrum for them, but with this solution at least they're trying to do it in a non-obtrusive way that doesn't jeopardize the entire platform.
pionar 12y ago
Twitter isn't a protocol. If it was, there'd be Twitter (the protocol) based services everywhere, and it'd be open and federated. Twitter is a service. Services need money. It's a simple as that.
- arrrg 12y ago
  Thing is, Twitter should be a protocol. It clearly fills an existing need (I see it as very similar to email in that regard, just filling a different need – people want to chat publicly with each other and in a very informal way inform the public about things), but it doesn’t really make sense as a service that wants to make money. Twitter should be just like email, not this one monopoly controlling everything. It’s sad that that’s the way it is.

WoodenChair 12y ago

It's interesting that they would not partner with Square somehow for this given @Jack...

grayclhn 12y ago

Lots of people enjoy shopping, so this isn't as obviously bad of an idea as some of the comments here imply. Open question whether this will be more like "hanging out at the mall" or "watching QVC."

abhimskywalker 12y ago

It would be interesting to see if content writers can promote their content through this to earn money through micro-payments. Likely Steps: 1. Capture attention in 140 characters. 2. Provide a good deal for the article/content at a small price Just being optimistic about news, article writers. I guess we might soon see Economist stories with nice 140 character titles and eye-catchy pictures with a buy button to read full article, post which it's added to your twitter shelf. I wonder if this just might prove to be the payment mechanism needed for such content consumption. Somewhat similar to the app-store economy, twitter might become the content-store. Let's see... Though I hope the dominant commerce part is kept as a separate tab perhaps like "Discover" tab, as I guess I wouldn't want to have my twitter stream as a series of ads. One or two "buy" tweets might be ok though I think... Will have to wait and watch how this goes.

fideloper 12y ago
I was thinking exactly this. While for purchases of multiple items in groups or of items which I typically research first (most things), smaller commodity or usually single-items purchases might make sense in this context. One such thing would be an eBook or similar that you'd buy from someone you know or know of on Twitter.
GregorStocks 12y ago
That sounds like it'd encourage misleading clickbait even more than the current Internet.

aapje 12y ago

My main concern is security. When Twitter stores your payment information it will be easy to buy something with a single click. But I've seen way too many Twitter hacking going on when I look at friends' timelines. If tweets like 'How I lost 100 lbs in 3 months! Click > bit.ly/youwillbehacked' can be posted without too much effort, these same hackers could buy stuff for free by just hacking into your Twitter account.

blackaspen 12y ago
Twitter offers 2 factor authentication for account logins (SMS a code every time you login).
- cowls 12y ago
  This should be forced whenever you try to purchase something

ardahal 12y ago

A way to bet on a sport/game via Twitter would be an interesting thing to do. Couple of months ago, I actually looked for ways to do it around the Twitter's cards API but never managed to get beyond the initial thoughts of doing so.

shk 12y ago

After seeing this, I had a thought what if FB also brings 'buy' buttons on similar lines where pages can post items with a price tag and 'buy' button? It will surely be a nice revenue stream. Both FB and Twitter have an incredible reach. If Twitter can bring this experience about in a non-intrusive way, then it's a win-win for everyone.

sjg007 12y ago
They have.
- shk 12y ago
  They are definitely trying to get the experience right by going with limited partners and exposing the feature to small user base. I imagine, if they had opened the floodgates immediately, then we would have seen the 'buy' button left right and centre on the feed.

amerf1 12y ago

Some of the participating followers in this program have millions of followers, Twitter is seriously getting into this purchasing business

brianbreslin 12y ago

This is the first positive move I've seen from Twitter in a long time as far as building a sustainable business. [edit] I say this after having tried every single one of their ad products without any success.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kordless 12y ago

There are exactly zero times I wished I could buy something from a Tweet with a button. Given that limited observation of buyer behavior, and knowing full well Twitter wishes to make profit, I'm assuming these buttons will be forced into my public stream somewhere, somehow. Some people on here think these buttons will be placed there by Twitter via ads, but I have another idea: Provide a micropayment channel program where, when I retweet a purchase button, I get part of the revenue share. Use cryptocurrencies to implement the feature. See @tipdoge for reference.

herge 12y ago
I'm going to guess you don't use the 'one-click buy' button on Amazon either?
- kordless 12y ago
  I buy things off Amazon because I go there to buy things. So yes, I guess I use that button. :)
- u124556 12y ago
  Amazon does use more than 140 characters to present a product.
  - jimktrains2 12y ago
    And often has reviews on the same page.
    - saryant 12y ago
      The reviews are the key. I always jump straight to the reviews. Half the time I never read the item description.
  - pradn 12y ago
    You can always add a link to the tweet for more details.

Erwin 12y ago

I wonder if there's a way to generalize this so any text or image can have metadata about purchasing the exact product. Something like a shorter UPC but with a non-intrusive reader embedded everywhere offering you to buy the product through manufacturer-controlled channels (varying depending on what country you are in). You "just" need to get enough users to install the scanning software; maybe the next iPhone will come with Apple Shopping that scans all text you see and all images for the metadata/watermarks. As it detected a product, the new second $ button lights up. Press down on it for a second, and the product information pops up (Apple Shopping knows your size/address/credit card already of course). Hold it down for a few seconds longer, and you've made your purchase. Don't, and a few weeks later maybe the seller gets to send you a 10% off coupon. Actually, Amazon's phones might already have something like that, letting you scan a bar code in a physical shop but purchase from Amazon.

pjc50 12y ago
Isn't this effectively the failed cuecat model?

foobarqux 12y ago

How are the economics of such a model for twitter? Retailer margins are usually thin and you need further split with stripe and the feed publisher.

liotier 12y ago

So, who has a good Twitter client capable of filtering the [redacted] Promoted Tweets ?

pain 12y ago

Will Twitter compete with tipbots, and will that effect their legality?

softbuilder 12y ago

See Chirpify[1], who has since pivoted. I don't know if that pivot was because of the idea or because Twitter decided it made more sense to be an ad wall than a platform. I really, truly do not understand Twitter's thinking. I'm sure on someone's spreadsheet of imaginary numbers it looks more attractive to be a billboard, but Twitter had the opportunity to be a true platform. A platform gives you control. It's a longer-term play, but my goodness the opportunities missed. Including this one, which could have been in play years ago. Whether people will actually use this feature is a whole other question. [1] http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sell-simply http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sell-simply Edit: Clarify first P.

stdbrouw 12y ago
This is a little bit too hand-wavy to me. You mention only a single opportunity Twitter missed by not focusing on being a "true platform", and then you immediately hedge by saying that you're not sure people will actually use it.
- softbuilder 12y ago
  Sandy comes to mind, and is actually a better example. (Although Google seems to have forgotten it existed.) For clarity, I see Twitter as having this amazing potential as a message bus for both people, apps, and services. And I feel that potential has been squandered. I'm unsure if this particular idea is going to pay off. But the general notion of an ecosystem of services hanging off of Twitter seems like the right one to me. (This is usually where someone says app.net, and I say 'critical mass'.)
  - jfb 12y ago
    How do you make money as a message bus? I'm not saying I disagree (I take no position on the merits of Twitter-as-a-servce, as I am not a user), but clearly the Best Minds have decided that the attention economy (read: ads) is the way forward. How do you pay for that critical mass? Twitter isn't something that falls out of infrastructure -- decisions had and have to be taken to spend resources. While selling people to advertisers is getting harder, and therefore less margin-friendly, it'd take a braver company than Twitter to turn their back on the model. IMO.

liotier 12y ago

Let's hope that the selling-out of Twitter will give a nudge to its open decentralized competitors... I'm not holding my breath, but who knows ? I still dream of an XMPP Twitter...

pradn 12y ago
I don't think that Twitter's effort to monetize is directly equal to selling out. If the service's quality degrades significantly (too many pushy ads and buy buttons) then, I'd say it sold out. So far, I've found the ads fairly relevant and not too frequent.
- liotier 12y ago
  I may be oversensitive to spam (I must admit that my love of ad-blocking software in all sorts of systems borders on mania) but the very idea that I now have to be wary of Sponsored Tweets that require an effort to unsee has already started to spoil the experience.
  - ericras 12y ago
    There's no such thing as a free lunch, etc, etc. I like the Sponsored Tweets compared to the alternatives: either paying to use Twitter or banner ads.
    - liotier 12y ago
      Or hosting your own... Take a look at http://twister.net.co http://twister.net.co - it has potential for scalable decentralized peer-to-peer microblogging.

johnrob 12y ago

Any app/website with a large user base should probably add this feature. The main value here, compared to simply dropping an ecommerce link in a tweet (the current use case), is piggy backing payment and fulfillment on top of the existing twitter user account.

mahmoudimus 12y ago
Would be interesting to see how these things develop -- fulfillment and payment processing are double-edged swords. Bolting on fulfillment to a twitter-purchase seems like a lot of work, but as another commentator said, I'm cautiously optimistic.

lordbusiness 12y ago

I can see this being useful, and welcome it. Particularly for music downloads a la iTunes etc.

f1nch3r 12y ago

Do not want.

dacort 12y ago

I think one of my favorite things about this is that it actually makes product information available in the meta tags. <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:id" value="n6NDAWFNqjkNZftJWq0BQw==" /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:title" value="Small" /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:inventory_count" value=1 /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:price" value=75000000 /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:tax_category" value="included_in_price" /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:last_updated" value=1409259500000 /> <meta property="twitter:item:variant1:attribute1:text" value="Small" />

king_magic 12y ago

The question on my mind is this: how can this possibly make anyone any money, given Apple's 30% cut on in-app purchases? I seriously doubt Apple would give that up.

j_s 12y ago
Interesting point - depending on how this is implemented, all iOS Twitter clients could already be violating the App Store guidelines!

pla3rhat3r 12y ago

Wonder if this spells the end of companies like Chripify that do this as their business model.

pla3rhat3r 12y ago
Didn't realize someone had already commented on that very thing. :\

piyushpr134 12y ago

This could become big. Imagine celebrities tweeting buy link for their album or donation links when some calamity strikes or AMZN/Flipkart launching an exclusive deal/product on twitter or imagine launch of a new book/phone/car and tweeting buy button to prebook it. This could take impulse buy to a whole new level. Has Twitter finally found a viable business model ?

samstave 12y ago

SO, now twitter wants to store financial data on users now too? No thanks

samstave 12y ago

Bought on Twitter: Twought.

Lidador 12y ago

Don't we all have a friend or two who tries to sell you stuff while we're hanging out with friends on a night out? That's what buy ads feel like on social networks.