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Twitter Targets Businesses With External Sign Up
Dec 7th
Twitters growth problems just might have found a solution, the popular social networking website has stalled in growth over time. This hopefully will give a jump-start to the website and bring new users. It also could be an aid to finding a business model for twitter.
Twitter is launching a new API this will enable you to sign up for twitter using a “third party website” or it could just be on another website. The new Twitter Sign-Up API is not available for public use as of yet but is seen being tested on the popular online local guide Citysearch.
They have made this intergration very simple, take for instance the “citysearch” website, if you have a profile on a website like this you can easily link the accounts together, and if you dont have a twitter account it will let you create one within the website for its purpose. If you create a new profile or claim one for your business (this is a new feature as of today), these options will also appear. Afterwards, tweets from your business will appear on your Citysearch business page. This new feature will be the first time anybody has been able to sign up for Twitter externally.
Twitter was able to grow at a really fast speed for the first 6 months of the year, although hit a barrier recently that it hasn’t been able to overcome, hopefully this will be the boost it needs to get going again. It makes sense to give people the ability to sign up through other popular websites and apps.
The API also may be a sign of Twitter’s future business model. With the likelihood of paid accounts for businesses and brands coming this year, it’s understandable why Twitter’s focusing on these businesses and business users. Businesses keep looking for new ways to integrate with Twitter and this may be the biggest thing for them for 2010!
Friendster To Be Sold For $100 Million
Dec 5th
Friendster the ultimate prehistoric internet social networking website, which predates Facebook and MySpace in the social networking space was founded in 2002. But it quickly lost ground to other social networking sites in the United States. Friendster is now mostly used in Asia where more than half of its registered 100 million users are from.
Friendster will be sold to an Asian company that do not wish to be identified as the information inst actually yet public! But how bigger risk are they taking by spending all this money? It is estimated to be sold for more than $100 million in a deal set to be announced by the end of the month.
TechCrunch, an industry blog, said in July it valued Friendster at $210 million, a small proportion of Facebook’s estimated $10 billion valuation.
Friendster, like Facebook, has been struggling to find an effective monetisation strategy. The firm rebranded its main website on Friday targeting a younger audience! China’s largest Internet firm by market value at $35 billion, was among the short-listed bidders, while Facebook also showed interest but was turned down due to competition. Friendster holds five U.S. patents related to social networking according to the United States Patents and Trademarks Office.
