According to this article from Independent.co.uk Twitter's estimated worth is US$3.7 billion and it just got a fresh source of funding worth US$200 million. The article states that there are already about 175 million Twitter users world wide. They are almost becoming as huge as Facebook. The articles also says though that the investments made on Twitter is based on speculation that this will be huge in a few years time, monetarily at least since it is is already huge in the social media sphere. Well, obviously advertising is the means to monetize the platform and as mentioned in the article Twitter just recently launched 'Promoted' Tweets which is their form of paid advertising. At this point though I'm not really sure how to use their 'Promoted' Tweets (at least here in the Philippines) as I feel very few digital agencies really know how to effectively use the medium at the moment. But as a platform for companies that provide information (old media companies, news, magazines), Twitter for me has been very effective but for brands I still need to see how to effectively utilize it.
The growth of Twitter just like Facebook is staggering. Adding 100 million users from 2009 - 2010. This article from ReadWriteWeb.com outlines their growth. I have always mentioned that Filipinos are one of the most active users of Twitter and I can state the example of the Philippine Football Team fondly called the Azkals as an example. During their match with the Indonesians last Thursday night (Dec 16, 2010) the hashtag Azkals became the number 1 trending topic at one point. I really don't know how Twitter tracks these data but local topics have consistently ranked on Twitter (maybe I just don't notice that other countries have their share of trending topics as well).
Anyway, as social media goes, it seem Twitter and Facebook has solidified their positions. Some expert has to look at the life cycle of these social networks and try to predict what comes next. What's going to happen to MySpace, Friendster, Multiply, etc.? Is there space for new ones?
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