In This Chapter
Types of Twitter applications
Examples of Twitter applications
Sources for inspiration
Twitter has strategically taken on a role as a communication platform and is seemingly not out to solve every user requested feature demand. With their open API, this allows developers to find a niche in the Twitter application ecosystem by identifying a feature that Twitter users want but that Twitter itself does not address.
Before you jump in and start creating your Twitter application, you need to investigate the various applications that have already been developed. This is your opportunity to learn from those applications and gain inspiration, identify opportunities, and find your niche.
The Twitter application ecosystem can be broken into five different categories: desktop clients, mobile clients, Web applications, Twitter bots, and hardware. There are over 10,000 Twitter applications. In this chapter, I profile 34 example applications across all five categories just identified. You will get a sense of what each application is about, who made it, and how it is monetized, if it is monetized at all. Popular applications that don't have a direct revenue stream may still benefit the creators indirectly by increasing their name recognition, providing them with job leads, or simply satisfying their need to create. However, in the applications profiled in this chapter, I focus on how they create cash directly.
Desktop clients are applications that run directly on your operating system whether that is Linux, Windows, or OS X. One of the key strengths of Twitter desktop applications is that they allow you to keep a constant eye on your Twitter stream due to the dedicated application window and process. Here are a few popular Twitter desktop clients.
Web site: http://tweetdeck.com
Creator: TweetDeck, Inc. Founded by Iain Dodsworth (@iaindodsworth)
Description: TweetDeck's claim to fame is its multiple column layout. This allows users to segment their Twitter streams into groups. For example, you can add your close friends to one column and your professional contacts to another column. You can also create a column for search terms, @ replies, and direct messages. Additionally, TweetDeck integrates with Facebook. TweetDeck is an Adobe Air application so it can run on any operating system that Adobe Air can run on. There is also a complimentary iPhone application and Web version of this popular Twitter client. TweetDeck will even backup and sync your column settings across environments.
Monetization: TweetDeck is a funded company that has not settled on a revenue stream. However, TweetDeck is experimenting with allowing other Twitter services to bid on having their service integrated into TweetDeck. It is unclear whether any deals of this nature have been made.
Web site: http://seesmic.com
Creator: Seesmic, Inc. Founded by Loic Le Meur (@loic)
Description: Seesmic Desktop is TweetDeck's primary competitor. They purchased Twhirl, another popular Twitter desktop client, in 2009 and added column-based grouping similar to TweetDeck's. Since that time, TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop have been in an arms race to add features and improve usability. Both clients have very similar features, and choosing between the two seemingly boils down to personal preference regarding the user interface.
Monetization: Similar to TweetDeck, Seesmic is a funded company that has not yet settled on a revenue stream. However, Seesmic founder, Loic Le Meur, has mentioned a paid pro version.
Web site: http://twitterrific.com
Creator: The Iconfactory
Description: Twitterrific is a Twitter client for OS X and iPhone. It has a long history with Twitter users and has been around since early 2007. It is strictly a Twitter client and does not interface with other social networking sites such as Facebook. It also cannot manage multiple Twitter accounts, but its small desktop footprint and simple interface make it a popular choice among Twitter users.
Monetization: Twitterrific is shareware. The free shareware version is fully functional and ad-supported. The full version can be purchased for just under $15 and removes the ads.
Twitter is all about broadcasting to the world what is going on in your life at this very moment. However, not everyone sits near their computer all day waiting to tweet something interesting about their lives. As it turns out, interesting tweet-worthy events frequently happen to people when they are away from their computers. Twitter has addressed this problem by including text messaging with its service. If you have a cell phone, you can update your status anytime, anywhere. With smartphones becoming more prevalent, a market has opened up for mobile Twitter clients that provide a more enriching experience than text messaging.
Web site: http://atebits.com/tweetie-iphone
Creator: Loren Britcher (@atebits)
Description: Due to its simple interface and its ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts on the go, Tweetie has become one of the most popular Twitter clients for the iPhone. Nearly anything you can do on Twitter's Web site, you can do easily using Tweetie, including viewing popular trends, and saving searches. Tweetie also provides features absent from Twitter's Web site such as posting pictures directly to TwitPic, creating a Google Maps link based on your GPS location, and retweeting a post with one button click.
Monetization: Tweetie is sold in the Apple iPhone store for $2.99. Tweetie also has a free OS X desktop client that generates revenue through ads.
Web site: http://tweetdeck.com/iphone
Creator: TweetDeck, Inc. Founder Iain Dodsworth (@iaindodsworth)
Description: TweetDeck for iPhone provides much of the same functionality as TweetDeck for the desktop. Its signature draw is the ability to group the tweets of the people you're following into multiple columns. The other interesting aspect of TweetDeck is that it can back up and sync your groups and settings to your TweetDeck desktop client, and vice versa.
Monetization: Like the desktop version, TweetDeck for the iPhone is currently free.
Web site: http://tinytwitter.com
Creator: Kevin Cawley (@kcbigring)
Description: Tiny Twitter is a Java-based Twitter client that works on any Java enabled phone including Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Pocket PC. It has many of the same features found on Twitter's Web site and most notably, allows you to save money on text messaging costs.
Monetization: Tiny Twitter is free and has no monetization scheme that I am aware of.
Web applications are applications that you can access on the Internet through your Web browser. Twitter.com itself is an example of a Web application. Web applications have a lower barrier to entry for end users than desktop applications because the user does not need to install software. Web applications also don't typically require a specific operating system to run. This increases the potential market for Web applications.
There are probably more Twitter Web applications than any other type of Twitter application. To help in reviewing the Twitter Web application ecosystem, I've identified seven popular types of Twitter Web applications including customer relationship management (CRM), contact management, statistics, media sharing, information aggregation, information publishing, and advertising.
CRM applications help businesses communicate effectively with customers by helping the organization keep track of who communicated with the customer, what they talked about, and when. As businesses begin to rely on Twitter as a customer communication channel, the demand for a Twitter CRM system grows. And it's not just businesses that benefit from using a Twitter CRM system. Any Twitter account with multiple editors can use a CRM system to keep from stepping on each other's toes and improve communication with their readers.
Web site: http://hootsuite.com
Creator: Invoke Media Inc.
Description: HootSuite may have been first to address the growing need of a Twitter CRM system. Its interface allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts and to assign multiple editors to a Twitter profile. Each editor receives a unique login, so you don't have to share the organization's primary Twitter login credentials.
Monetization: HootSuite currently accepts donations. However, I suspect it will eventually implement a paid pro version of its Web application.
Web site: http://cotweet.com
Creator: CoTweet Inc.
Description: CoTweet has similar features to HootSuite, but you can also assign tweets to specific editors and leave notes about previous conversations with the customer. Assigning tweets to a specific editor keeps members of the organization from addressing a customer more than once on a single issue.
Monetization: CoTweet is currently in free beta. It has plans to create a paid pro version of its application.
Twitter has two basic types of contacts: those you follow and those who follow you. This raises the question of whom should I follow and whom should I allow to follow me. Twitter's interface for managing contacts is a relatively simple paged list. The simplicity of Twitter's own contact management solution has created an opportunity in the Twitter API developer world to improve contact management. Here are a few examples of contact management applications.
Web site: http://friendorfollow.com
Creator: Dusty Reagan (@dustyreagan; and author of this book)
Description: Friend Or Follow shows users whom they're following who aren't following them back, and vice versa, using a visual grid of profile pictures. It also shows users their reciprocated followers. The users can sort their contact list by a variety of options such as name, last tweet, and location.
Friend Or Follow is probably the most useful, well written, and sexiest application on the Internet, according to your author, the creator of Friend Or Follow. Please send money.
Monetization: Friend Or Follow makes its revenue through the Featured Users ad network and by giving its creator enough exposure to land a book deal on Twitter application development.
Web site: http://mrtweet.com
Creator: Yu-Shan Fung (@ambivalence) and Ming Yeow Ng (@mingyeow)
Description: Mr. Tweet recommends users for you to follow by comparing your social graph to other users, weighing recommendations from other Twitter users, and other user commonalities.
Monetization: Mr.Tweet currently does not have a revenue stream.
Web site: http://wefollow.com
Creator: Kevin Rose (@kevinrose)
Description: WeFollow.com is a tag-based Twitter user directory where you select up to three tags that you believe best describe your Twitter account. To be allowed in the directory, you must tweet your selected tags, adding to the viral nature of the directory.
Monetization: We Follow monetizes with Google Ad Sense.
Statistical Twitter analysis became a hot topic when businesses started marketing on Twitter. This is because businesses are interested in determining their marketing reach and the return on their marketing efforts. Twitter statistics can also be fun and interesting to non-business users who are curious about how they interact on Twitter. Twitter statistics are also useful for academic research.
Web site: http://twittercounter.com
Creator: Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (@boris) and Arjen Schat (@arjenschat)
Description: TwitterCounter tracks Twitter users' follower count over time. Users can proudly display their follower count on their Web site or blog using the TwitterCounter badge. TwitterCounter also keeps an updated list of the most followed profiles on Twitter.
Monetization: TwitterCounter sells a featured user position on its Web site that Twitter users use to promote their profile and gain new followers.
Web site: http://tweetreach.com
Creator: Hayes Davis (@hayesdavis)
Description: TweetReach calculates how many people have seen a word or phrase you've shared on Twitter. It does this by counting the amount of tweets that contain your word or phrase and then counts how many Twitter profiles may have seen those tweets. The tweets are broken into retweets, @ replies, and regular tweets.
Monetization: TweetReach searches at a fixed depth, but the user can pay a fee to get a deeper and more accurate report. TweetReach also uses the Featured Users advertising network to make money.
Web site: http://tweetstats.com
Creator: Damon Cortesi (@dacort)
Description: TweetStats graphs your personal Twitter stats including your tweets per hour, your tweets per month, your tweet timeline, and your reply statistics. It also generates a tag cloud of your most tweeted words.
Monetization: TweetStats users can order custom-built reports from Damon. TweetStats also makes money using the Featured Users advertising network.
Web site: http://followcost.com
Creator: Luke Francl (@lof) and Barry Hess (@bjhess)
Description: You can use Follow Cost to see how frequently a user tweets per day. Creators Luke Francl and Barry Hess also humorously provide the average tweets per day in milliscobles, a unit of measurement they created that was inspired by the prolific Twitterer Robert Scoble (@scobleizer). Aside from visiting the Web site to get a user's average tweets per day, you can use the site's bookmarklet or Fluid/Greasemonkey script.
Monetization: Follow Cost makes its revenue through the Featured Users ad network.
Twitter limits status updates to 140 characters or less. However, users aren't always content with this limitation. There are times when you might like to share pictures, movies, or long URLs with your followers. This need has generated several apps like the ones below.
Web site: http://twitpic.com
Creator: Noah Everett (@noaheverett)
Description: TwitPic is the most popular photo-sharing site on Twitter. It owes most of its popularity to its ease of adoption and API. Anyone with a Twitter account automatically has a TwitPic account, and the API has allowed third-party Twitter clients to integrate with TwitPic. For example, the iPhone app, Tweetie, allows users to take a picture using their iPhone and post the picture directly to their Twitter stream using TwitPic's API.
Monetization: TwitPic generates ad revenue using a combination of the video ad network VideoEgg and Google AdSense.
Web site: http://snaptweet.com
Creator: Damon Clinkscales (@damon)
Description: Using SnapTweet, you can easily post a link to your Flickr photos to Twitter. SnapTweet does this by monitoring your Flickr stream looking for new pictures or pictures with a specific tag that marks that the photo should be posted to Twitter. You can also direct-message a request to have a photo tweeted.
Monetization: SnapTweet currently does not have a revenue model.
Web site: http://blip.fm
Creator: Blip.fm. Founded by Brian Venneman & Jeff Yasuda (@jeffyasuda)
Description: You can use Blip.fm to share and discover music with your friends. You start by creating a profile and typing in a song you want to share. Blip.fm searches for the song on various public sites such as youtube.com. It then allows you to post that song along with a comment to your Blip.fm music stream, where all your friends can listen to it. Blip.fm can also cross-post your song selections to Twitter and Facebook.
Monetization: Blip.fm monetizes through advertising, selling merchandise, and by making referral sales on iTunes and Amazon.
Your Twitter stream is a flow of information. However, that stream is unfiltered, and it is difficult to key in on any one particular topic. You may be reading your graduate professor's tweet on quantum physics, while right above it is your grandmother's tweet about her cat Fluffo. Here is an opportunity to create an application that aggregates topical information in a central location.
Web site: http://cheaptweet.com
Creator: Hayes Davis (@hayesdavis) and Jenn Deering Davis (@jdeeringdavis) of Appozite, LLC
Description: CheapTweet is a social search engine for deals on Twitter. It automatically aggregates and categorizes tweets about coupons, discounts, and promotions into an easily searchable index. The CheapTweet user community votes on the deals, and the most popular ones filter into the "Cheapest Tweets" list.
Monetization: CheapTweet monetizes its Web site using paid sponsorships. Businesses and individuals can pay to have their Twitter profiles featured on the Web site. CheapTweet also has sponsored Tweets where a business can pay to have its tweeted deal placed on the top of the deal list. Retailers can also pay for the privilege of having a page totally dedicated to the deals of that particular store.
Web site: http://exectweets.com
Creator: Federated Media, in partnership with Microsoft
Description: ExecTweets is a Web site that aggregates the tweets from numerous business executives from large companies. Users vote on the tweets they find most compelling, and ExecTweets then posts the most popular tweets to its @ExecTweets Twitter stream. There is also a list of the current most popular links that the executives are tweeting about.
Monetization: Federated Media makes money through Microsoft's sponsorship.
Web site: http://tweetingtoohard.com
Creator: Trey Philips (@treyp), Michael Cummings (@michaelcummings), Jacob Morse (@jacobmorse), and Keith Hanson (@big_love)
Description: Tweeting Too Hard was created to give attention to Tweets that are braggadocios or arrogant. Users submit tweets they feel fit in this vein, and then the community votes the tweets up or down. The most self-important tweets get featured on the front page.
Monetization: Tweeting Too Hard makes its revenue through the Featured Users ad network.
Web site: http://twistori.com
Creator: Amy Hoy (@amyhoy) and Thomas Fuchs (@thomasfuchs) of slash7
Description: Twistori has a unique twist on information aggregation. Instead of aggregating tweets by topics such as celebrities or deals, Twistori.com aggregates tweets by emotions. It includes a scrolling list of tweets that contain phrases such as "I love," "I hate," and "I think."
Monetization: Twistori sells a desktop version that allows users to visualize their own search terms.
Creator: Cody Marx Bailey (@superphly), Aaron Farnham (@afarnham), Brian Smith (@brianthecoder), & Ben Burkert (@benburkert)
Description: Hashtags.org is a Web site that tracks the frequency that a hashtag is used on Twitter. You can search for a hashtag, and it will show you a graph of the hashtags use over time. You can also drill down and get details on a hashtag, such as the tweets that contained the hashtags, the people who tweeted about the hashtag, and related hashtags. Hashtags.org also shows you the current most popular hashtags, and it provides a directory of hashtags.
Monetization: Hashtags.org is monetized through the use of the ad network Featured Users and user donations. It is also exploring other revenue models.
I'll admit "information publishing" is a pretty broad category for Twitter. After all, tons of Twitter applications post information to Twitter. But what I'm focusing on here are applications that specialize in posting tweets to Twitter in unique ways. Read on; you'll see what I mean.
Web site: http://secrettweet.com
Creator: Kevin Smith (@mozunk)
Description: SecretTweet user's can anonymously post their secrets to the Web site, allowing the curious to read all about them on SecretTweet's Twitter account, @SecretTweetor, on the Web site.
Monetization: SecretTweet generates its revenue through banner advertising using BuySellAds, Google AdSense, and Featured Users.
Web site: http://twitterfeed.com
Creator: Twitterfeed, Inc. Founded by Mario Menti (@mario)
Description: Twitterfeed allows users to push RSS feed updates to Twitter, Laconcia, Ping.fm, or HelloText automatically. It was originally created as a side project by Mario Menti and has since become its own company, receiving investments from Betaworks and TAG.
Monetization: Twitterfeed currently has no publicly disclosed revenue source.
Twitter has opened a new channel for business owners, brands, and personalities to communicate with their customers, fans, and critics. Along with the ability to communicate, an advertising opportunity has emerged. Brands want to gain exposure to the millions of people twittering, but Twitter itself does not have a means for these brands to advertise on Twitter. However, a few third-party solutions have arisen to cater to advertisers' needs. Here are a few examples.
Web site: http://featuredusers.com
Creator: Dusty Reagan (@dustyreagan; and author of this book)
Description: Featured Users is an ad network where Twitter users promote their Twitter profile across a network of third-party Twitter applications by purchasing banner impressions. It provides a means for Twitter application developers to monetize their site with relevant ads, and it provides advertisers with the ability to promote their brand to Twitter users.
Monetization: Featured Users makes money by taking a percentage of each ad sale.
Web site: http://be-a-magpie.com
Creator: Magpie and Friends Ltd. (@beamagpie)
Description: Magpie is a Twitter ad network where advertisers pay Twitter users to tweet a marketing message to their followers. Magpie brokers the transaction and facilitates the whole process, including matching advertisers to Twitter users, reporting click stats, and giving the Twitter users the ability to manage the type and frequency of ads that are posted to their Twitter stream.
Monetization: Magpie takes a percentage of each transaction.
Web site: http://twittad.com
Creator: James Eliason (@jameseliason)
Description: Twittad allows advertisers to purchase and advertise on the background image of a Twitter user's profile for a limited amount of time. Twitter users pay a small fee to have their listing posted on Twittad; then they set the price and duration they're willing to sell their background. Advertisers then select from the list of Twitter users who have put their Twitter backgrounds up for sale. When advertisers select a Twitter account, they pay Twittad the money, which then releases the money to the Twitter user after each day of advertising.
Monetization: Twittad makes its revenue by taking a percentage of each transaction, and it makes a small fee for each Twitter publisher listing.
Twitter bots are Twitter accounts that are automated to accomplish a certain task. They may alert you of events on Twitter, such as when someone stopped following you, or they may perform a task if you tweet them a command. One compelling aspect to Twitter bots is Twitter's built-in support for text messaging. Twitter bots can leverage Twitter's text message support to allow users to accomplish tasks from their cell phones. You could consider Twitter accounts that are simply an automated import of blog's RSS feed a Twitter bot. However, I review some more complex and compelling Twitter bots next.
Web site: http://twittercal.com
Creator: Fred Brunel (@fbrunel)
Description: Twittercal is a Twitter bot that updates your Google calendar. Simply start following @gcal and grant access to your Google Calendar account at its Web site, twittercal.com. Then you can direct-message @gcal events.
Monetization: Twittercal has no monetization strategy.
Web site: http://rememberthemilk.com/services/twitter
Creator: Remember The Milk Pty Ltd.
Description: Remember The Milk is a Web-based to-do list. They have a Twitter bot you can follow and send direct messages to in order to update your to-do list. This is helpful because by using this Twitter bot, you can update your Remember The Milk to-do list via text message.
Monetization: The Remember The Milk Twitter bot is free. However, the bot adds value to the Remember The Milk Web service and encourages the user to purchase the pro account.
Web site: http://tweetname.com
Creator: Philip Kaplan (@pud)
Description: With Tweetname, you can check domain name availability and purchase domain names impulsively by direct messaging the Tweetname bot. To do this, you must first register your payment information at Tweetname.com. Tweetname stores your payment information and associates it with your Twitter account. Then when you want to check on the availability of or purchase a domain name, you simply direct-message @tweetname the command.
Monetization: Tweetname makes a commission on every domain name it sells.
Probably one of the least pioneered applications of the Twitter API is in the area of hardware integration. There are a few good reasons this area is relatively underdeveloped. For one, the Twitter API is constantly changing, and there is a risk that a Twitter hardware device will become obsolete if Twitter makes a change to its API. You have the same risk with software, but it's much easier to roll out a change to a Web site, and users are used to upgrading software. There is also a high cost barrier to manufacture and distribute Twitter hardware devices to a mass market. Therefore, most Twitter hardware devices are left to the do-it-yourself crowd. Still, the potential is there, and you may eventually see mass-market devices with Twitter integration built in.
Web site: http://bakertweet.com
Creator: Poke
Description: BakerTweet is a wireless device for bakeries that alerts their customers on Twitter when something fresh has come out of the oven. The plain white box contains a simple text display, a dial, and one button. The baker uses the dial on BakerTweet to select the baked goods that just came out of the oven and then presses the button to tweet the news. The baker can customize BakerTweets preprogrammed tweets and items via a Web interface.
Monetization: Poke sells BakerTweet on a custom order basis.
Web site: http://botanicalls.com
Creator: Botanicalls
Description: Botanicalls is a company that aims to bridge the communication gap between humans and plants. It sells a do-it-yourself plant monitoring kit. The kit consists of a leaf-shaped circuit board, soil probes, Ethernet port, power adapter, and various transistors, resistors, and other circuitry-related bits. Once assembled, the Bontanicalls Kit will alert you via your plant's Twitter account when your plant needs water or if it has been over-watered.
Monetization: The Botanicalls Kit can be purchased on several popular technology and DIY-related Web sites.
Web site: http://adafruit.com
Creator: Phil Torrone (@ptorrone) of Adafruit Industries
Description: Tweet-a-Watt is a do-it-yourself kit used to hack a P3 Kill-a-Watt power meter. Tweet-a-Watt plugs into any standard 140-volt US electrical outlet and tracks the power consumption of the device you plug into Tweet-a-Watt. As the name suggests, Tweet-a-Watt tweets your device's power consumption. It also allows you to log and graph the power consumption over time on your computer.
Monetization: Adafruit Industries sells the kit on its Web site.