What happens if the real world bites Twitter on the ass?

Apr 24th, 2008 | By Steven Hodson | Category: The Social Web

Twitter - tits up - what happens then? Yesterday the tech blogosphere was all awash with talk about Blaine Cook leaving his position as Chief Architect at Twitter. Today the talk is about Lee Mighdoll the VP of engineering and operations leaving the company; and only after three months on the job. While one has to wonder just how many amicable separations there can be within one week my eye was caught by another part of the post by Duncan Riley on TechCrunch about the latest job vacancy at Twitter.

In his post Duncan notes that Twitter is possibly (according to TechCrunch sources) looking for a new round of financing despite the fact that their last round is only 9 months old. As Duncan also points out and as constantly mentioned in the wider tech blogosphere Twitter still has to be able to produce a viable monetization plan for the service. Regardless of the fact that their just launched a Japanese version of the service which is sporting advertising as a test, in the rest of the world there is nothing to indicate that anything beyond a purchase of the service is an exit strategy.

As Duncan asks in his post:

As time rolls on, no one buys Twitter and the money runs out; is the stress this causes now being reflected by the management issues at Twitter? It makes more sense than scaling: if Cook was out due to scaling, why wait till now given the dramatic failures of last year? How can someone like Mighdoll, praised by Twitter, leave after such a short time if all was well at the management level of Twitter?

I would also add as well what happens if there is no real monetization at the end of the fabled Web 2.0 rainbow for Twitter?

At some point the funding will run out and if they don’t find some way to stop bleeding money by being able to produce a viable income stream it could very well head for the TechCrunch Deadpool. While Pownce or Jaiku could benefit if this were to happen they still suffer from the same root problem as Twitter - a lack of a sound business model.

Where does this possible scenario leave the users or what kind of impact will it have on the developer communities that have grown around products like Twitter. Will they be as quick to rush in and work on applications for the next great Twitter like start-up that comes along without a way to sustain themselves.

At some point the real world of dollars and cents will rear its ugly head in this warm and fuzzy world of freenomics and Web 2.0. Sure there will always be another startup for these folks to run to but at what point will even the early adopters say enough is enough .. quit wasting our time and energy.

All these startup can hide all they want behind VC dollars and dreams of the big buy-out exit strategy but at some point point the real world will stand up and say that the time has come to start paying the piper.

Are we the users of Twitter ready for this?

What’s our exit strategy?

[graphic courtesy of Hugh MacLeod - gapingvoid.com]

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