Would You Pay to Read Someone’s Tweets?

Would you pay to read someone’s tweets? For some time now, enterprising individuals have been trying to find the holy grail of Twitter monetization. Some have been blatantly spamming advertisements through @replies. Some have indirectly monetized their Twitter accounts by using it as a viral marketing tool. Still, others have created Twitter clients that are funded by advertisements.

Will you dare to venture into Twitter monetization by limiting your audience to paying subscribers? This is what TwitPub aims to do. It’s supposed to be a

marketplace made for Twitter so users can buy and sell premium tweets.

Is this a viable business model? It could be, if you are in the business of dispensing important, expensive advice.

While TwitPub’s activity may not be all that impressive, their service may have potential within the political and financial realms (as people would pay to access gossip and financial advice, especially in this economy).

I come from a school of thought that says the moment you set a price to your content, you would have already devalued it. For one, you are limiting your audience severely. Secondly, you won’t have as much interactivity and viral marketing potential if your content is closed. Of course, this may not necessarily be true in all cases, but unless you’re really famous and powerful, I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in paying to read your tweets. And if you’re already famous and powerful, you probably don’t need anyone paying a few bucks to read your tweets or to send you direct messages.

Would you pay to read someone’s tweets? And would you pay to get your direct message sent into someone’s inbox?

15 thoughts on “Would You Pay to Read Someone’s Tweets?

  1. Hard sell to say the least. Unless they plan in restructuring the entire twitter concept…I don’t see it’s usefulness.

    CouldB

  2. I agree to some comments here that i will not spend a single dollar to read someone tweets..for what purpose its a waste of money…i rather spend it to more useful things than paying for tweets of others..

  3. I wouldn’t pay to read tweets unless it were part of a larger service, like a membership site. But part of the fun of twitter is that it’s free!

  4. No, I don´t see the point in paying to see some other members Tweets.The internet is full of information and you will probably get more useful information by searching for it on Google.

  5. No. Not because I’m a cheapskate but because while Twitter can be useful and informative, it’s not useful or informative enough. There maybe tweet sources worth paying for — stock price movements, ball-by-ball sports coverage etc, but these are delivered better by other online channels.

  6. but not if you only get access to tweets. However being on a private “tweetlist” as a part of a course or consulting endeavor I think could work. Interaction between those that take part in the course and the courses teacher etc.

    I can see paying for tweets in that secondary form. But not only paying for tweets. Thats to little.

  7. Paying for tweets? No. Never.

    I have not read nothing worth being paid in Twitter never. I don’t think there will be anything worth a penny in the near future.

  8. It would be a hard sell for me to pay for tweets, even ones with valuable info. If I’m going to pay for content, I’d rather buy an e-book or take an e-course, rather than watch someone’s tweets with the same information. For me, and most, twitter is a conversational tool. Valuable tweets would get lost in the stream, and having to click on their names – I might as well subscribe via email or login to a site or something.

    However, I might be willing to pay for tweets in order to have a conversation with someone. For example, personal coaching with Donald Trump or a chat about juicy gossip with Britney Spears. However, I think responsivity would be be key. The cost would need to be high enough to limit access to only a few users, thus keeping the amount of conversations small enough to actually respond to them. It would be like a group chat for a very selective group.

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