Bill Gross is no stranger to good ideas and the IdeaLabs founder (and paid search guru) has what may well be another one. TweetUp, newly launched this past Sunday evening, is being hailed as something that may very well monetize search for Twitter. TweetUp is designed to work in conjunction with Twitter’s regular search function and provide results based on keyword searches. Gross delves into the story in-depth on a recent blog post and MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan also has written a terrific article covering this launch.
Sound farfetched? Well, the service is modeled after Google’s AdSense and AdWords programs, and you’d be hard pressed to call either of them bad ideas. This is something that I’d venture a guess that many folks will be watching with interest. I know that I will be.
Interested in exploring? Go to TweetUp and open an account. There is an incentive for the first 1,000 users, which provides them with a $100 credit for their involvement as beta testers of the service. By signing up, users are permitted to add search keywords to their profiles. The service essentially allows users to bid for their tweets rise to the top. Their success in that regard will be based on the relevance of their tweet, number of RTs it receives, as well as the number of followers and relative “influence” in the Twitterverse of that particular Twitter user.
Gross is well-respected in the online world and came up with the idea at a TED event just a few months ago. In pretty much the speed of light, he managed to raise some $3.5 million in funding, so I’d say that the idea definitely has legs. Or at least his investors thought so.
Check it out. I’d love to know what you think.
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
