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Twitter has struggled to bring more users onto its website. Approximately 70% of end-user interaction with the microblogging service takes place away from Twitter.com. As the company moves toward its search-based ad model, expected to be released later this quarter, website traffic is becoming increasingly important. Yet, it's this gap between use and on-site action that might protect the company going forward ... at least if Facebook can be used as an indicator.With Facebook Connect, members of the social networking site can interact with their profiles "remotely." If you want to share this blog post on Facebook, for example, you can do it without opening a new browser, plucking www.facebook.com on the keyboard and pasting the URL into the status field. This connection, even though it costs Facebook a pageview or two, reinforces the user's relationship with the site, increasing the likelihood that he or she will remain active overall. It also provides fodder for other members, fueling more clicks, comments and likes ... and ultimately cash in the Facebook till.
Now, apply this thinking to Twitter. You may use TweetDeck or Hootsuite, but you're still interacting with Twitter. Of course, there's more you can do off the site with Twitter than you can with Facebook, given the simplicity of the service, but the gap between current off-platform activity and the amount needed to generate some additional revenue without compromising the users' relationship with Twitter may not be as vast as it appears. And, if Twitter can monetize sufficiently with its current rate of user interaction with Twitter.com, it has plenty of capacity for growth.
By leaving revenue on the table, essentially, social media companies are investing in their futures. It's counterintuitive, but anyone who can remember the early days of the web will understand why.
No offense to AOL (AOL), which owns BloggingStocks, but "closed platform" brings back memories of logging onto the Web in 1995. For AOL users, the experience was defined by the AOL platform. As the Web grew outside these walls, the closed platform became less useful. Content creators wanted flexibility without complexity, which drove the creation of websites that could stand on their own, made visible to the broader public by search engines, directories and links among sites.
Social media companies are on the brink of experiencing a similar situation. MySpace, owned by News Corp (NWS), made an early bet on a closed system, which is why Facebook surged ahead of it. As social media users (and marketers) looked for new ways to tap into the 400 million people on Facebook, they began to find new ways to reach and interact with users – all within the constraints of the Facebook system. "Facebook has cut down on the virality of applications," according to AllFacebook, which is driving more of the action off the platform.
This translates to an increase in flexibility, even if it comes at the expense of the Facebook user base. By going off platform and using Facebook Connect, it may be possible to tap into the social media site's user base without sacrificing the freedom of the web – and beat the constraints that pressured the AOL platform in the 1990s.
It's always tough to see the value in sacrificing revenue, but for the likes of Twitter and Facebook, it may be a smart move -- one that keeps their users happy, which is the key to their longevity.
By leaving revenue on the table, essentially, social media companies are investing in their futures. It's counterintuitive, but anyone who can remember the early days of the web will understand why.
No offense to AOL (AOL), which owns BloggingStocks, but "closed platform" brings back memories of logging onto the Web in 1995. For AOL users, the experience was defined by the AOL platform. As the Web grew outside these walls, the closed platform became less useful. Content creators wanted flexibility without complexity, which drove the creation of websites that could stand on their own, made visible to the broader public by search engines, directories and links among sites.
Social media companies are on the brink of experiencing a similar situation. MySpace, owned by News Corp (NWS), made an early bet on a closed system, which is why Facebook surged ahead of it. As social media users (and marketers) looked for new ways to tap into the 400 million people on Facebook, they began to find new ways to reach and interact with users – all within the constraints of the Facebook system. "Facebook has cut down on the virality of applications," according to AllFacebook, which is driving more of the action off the platform.
This translates to an increase in flexibility, even if it comes at the expense of the Facebook user base. By going off platform and using Facebook Connect, it may be possible to tap into the social media site's user base without sacrificing the freedom of the web – and beat the constraints that pressured the AOL platform in the 1990s.
It's always tough to see the value in sacrificing revenue, but for the likes of Twitter and Facebook, it may be a smart move -- one that keeps their users happy, which is the key to their longevity.
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