back
6 comments
Is it that hard to guess? There are perhaps hundreds of companies using Twitter as a rapid-response support channel ( http://twitter.com/slicehost ). And not just small companies, but big companies like JetBlue, Comcast, etc. Some of these companies have people actively participating, others appear to have scripts that look for the mention of a company name and auto-follow those users' streams as a good-will measure (how easy and cool -- "JetBlue is following my tweets!"). Because of the novelty, Twitter-based support generates a great deal of word-of-mouth press, which is very important in a time when products and services that used to be considered necessities are now considered luxuries.

Will companies pay to have access to that channel? Absolutely. How much? Who knows, but I do not think that $100/month is unreasonable for small-to-midsize companies and $1000/month or more for larger companies -- it can be based on the number of tweets sent perhaps. Given that, twitter could be free for personal use but corporate use could require a subscription.

There - that wasn't so hard, was it? Not that I'm claiming I'm right or anything, but that's what I'd be considering.

Do you know of any such scripts that automate that?

It might be useful marketing for a lot of start ups though I'm not sure on the ethics. Would it be ok for Utility Mill to "follow" anyone who mentions Python, or is that too broad? Would it get annoying?

Aside from the content of the article I actually really enjoyed the honest reporting in this article. It was really nice to read some techpress that wasn't wrapped in a layer of the usual BS and just talked candidly about what happened at the conference.
"It's amazing anyone uses Twitter today." -- Evan Williams
Either from Subscription Fee or Advertisement Fee.
Pay per uptime fees?