By Eric Berlin of Online Media Cultist (FriendFeed/Twitter)

People have been speculating on how Twitter is going to make money for what seems like forever. This slideshow from Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist with Union Square Ventures (which has invested in Twitter), features a screenshot that may signal how it's actually going to happen.

Slide 22 simply reads: Where We Are Going


And from what I can see, I like the direction that Twitter is going in here, and think it makes a lot of sense.

Making the profile experience central
Bringing Twitter search into the profile experience is a huge no brainer, and something long overdue stemming from the acquisition of Summize in July, 2008. Twitter search is a fabulous way to pick up trending data about what people are chattering about right now, amongst many other uses, so it makes all kinds of sense for Twitter to base their monetization strategy around this killer app within their community's midst.

Adding value, not just adding ads
I think I've probably screamed louder than anyone else for two years that Twitter should simply (for starters, mind) throw a 728x90 ad banner at the top of every single Twitter profile page. Even at a ridiculously low CPM, or so my argument went, you're at least paying for some bandwidth at that point.

Well, Twitter ignored me, and maybe that's okay. (I said maybe!) I really like that the emphasis – at least on this slideshow presentation – is on bringing relevant and trending data to the user through Twitter search in real time.

Featured/matching users
Having an Adwords-like system that lets advertisers pay to insert featured and matching user profiles based on keyword searches is a great idea. (And just maybe that's why Google CEO Eric Schmidt dropped some snarky comments today about Twitter being a "poor man's e-mail system?) I've always felt that ads stop being annoying and negative exactly at the moment and time when you're delivered something that you actually want, and this is an opportunity to do just that.

Trending topics and nifty queries
It will be interesting to see how or if Twitter will attempt to make money off of featuring "trending topics" and "nifty queries." This could be an opportunity for advertisers to partner with Twitter for creative integrated campaigns. Think "win a Honda by tweeting your favorite thing about it," with associated campaign hashtag, except more creative!

Harrison Hoffman at Webware notes:

We have known that integrated search has been coming for some time, and Biz Stone even wrote that it Twitter would start testing integrated search in February, so this is no shocker. It is interesting to see how the microblogging service might be going about implementing it, though.

I have to note that in comparing Biz's small screen capture in the Twitter Blog post linked above to this one from Fred Wilson's presentation, it appears that Wilson's shot might be older, so Twitter's integrated search might look different in its current state.

While the page design and UI may get fiddled with before final deployment, I think we're finally starting to see Twitter's revenue model come into focus. And in this current economic climate, you'd think they'd want to get started on the making of the money sooner rather than later!

Read more by Eric Berlin at Online Media Cultist

By Corvida Raven of SheGeeks.net (FriendFeed/Twitter)

As RSS makes attempts at going mainstream, pioneering services such as Yahoo! Pipes, Toluu, ReadBurner, and RSSMeme are helping the process of expanding applications' possibilities with RSS. Now, you can add Feedweaver to that list.

One thing I've always looked forward to in the space of RSS is the ability to share personalized groups' feeds. I can't wait to see the day when we all will share groups of personalized feed recommendations with friends and family. The digital age would really be in effect for me if this were to happen. So imagine my delight when I ran across Feedweaver, a web feed aggregator that helps you personalize your feeds.

Simply put, you're able to turn a group of individual feeds into one feed for sharing purposes.

What will immediately catch your eye with Feedweaver is the site's design. This is one gorgeous site to look at. The simplicity of the site's design led me to feel like there wouldn't be a learning curve for using this site, something mainstream users often struggle with.


Creating a feed is simple, but also has the potential to be taxing. Once you give your personalized feed a name, you need to start adding URLs, and this is where you have your work cut out for you. On the Web, there is really no easy or automatic solution to adding feeds unless you have an OPML file. Unfortunately, Feedweaver doesn't offer OPML file support on the site, leaving you the arduous task of typing in every RSS link one by one.

Some of you may subscribe to hundreds of feeds. I do. If you were to create a personalized feed, how many blogs would you probably add? 10? 20? 50? 100?

Leave a comment saying "I definitely don't suffer from ADD," if you're happily willing to find and type in 20 to 40 RSS feed links to create one feed. It would even be easier if you didn't need to type in the exact feed link. Why not make it easier and let users type in site links too and have Feedweaver find the exact RSS feed link for us?



Feedweaver adds filtering into the mix by allowing the users to create keyword filters for each feed link that you list. When you're done, grab the url given by Feedweaver to share with friends and colleagues. Feedweaver allows you to come back and manage your group feeds without any fuss. If you have a few feeds that you'd like to send company employees or to groups of friends, Feedweaver would be a good service to use. All in all, it's an easy to use aggregator for anyone that's not dealing with information overload.

Read more by Corvida Raven at SheGeeks.net.

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Many are arguing what the real definition of influence is on networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Is it really defined by the number of followers a person has? Can it be defined by number of ReTweets? Or does Twitter's own hand-picking of influentials as recommendations define influence?

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

The South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas is a unique animal, combining the excitement of a massive multi-band concert with the geekfest of a technology event. And if you read some of the breathless previews and last year's reviews, you could be forgiven for thinking it's pretty much a week-long excuse to party. This year, after keeping a fairly low profile for the most part since starting this blog in 2006, I'm signing up to go. But if you think I'm going for the parties, you're wrong. I'm looking forward to meeting new people, new companies, seeing new ideas, and participating in what I think could be one of the more dynamic panels on the agenda.

That's right, I'm ready to work. If I go to zero parties, but get connected with even more people that matter and are being innovative in a down economy, then we will have succeeded.

My goals for attending SXSW 2009 this year are simple:

• Participate in the "Beyond Aggregation" panel
• Get introduced to new companies and services
• Meet up with peers in social networking and tech
• Come away with great story ideas

As such, I am 100% open to starting to fill up my calendar, so do hit up my e-mail with a subject line that includes SXSW09. I get in on Friday night, March 13th, and don't leave until the afternoon of Tuesday, March 17th. Phil Glockner, the newest member of ReadWriteWeb, will be my tag-team partner coming and going, so I am absolutely looking forward to that. If you're really good, maybe you can brief or meet both of us at once!

The panel is one I am particularly excited about, and has, in my opinion, with the exception of myself, some of the most-interesting characters presenting at SXSW09 this year.

Topic: Beyond Aggregation -- Finding the Web's Best Content
Day: Monday, March 16
Time: 10:00-11:00
Place: Hilton A

Also on the Panel:

• Melanie Baker (postrank.com)
• Micah Baldwin (lijit.com)
• Marshall Kirkpatrick (readwriteweb.com)
• Gabe Rivera (techmeme.com)

As you can see - a packed lineup from one of the Web's best tech blogs, two intelligent services aimed to find relevant content, and the most-widely known tech aggregation site. Not too bad for one panel.

When I participated at BlogWorldExpo last fall, I was a little surprised at the low amount of blogging I found about the conference in general. While, yes, people were tweeting about it and using hashtags, these microupdates are largely in the ether. For SXSW this year, I plan on doing my part to keep the full blog posts coming. Hope to see you there if you're going. Hit me up on e-mail, or of course, call my cell at 408 646-2759.