One of the success stories on MySpace was Ashley Qualls, a savvy 17-year-old, who set up a shop selling backgrounds for fellow MySpacers. It became a huge hit and she was the first real star of the MySpace generation.
On Twitter, there hasn’t been the same thing. Granted there have been examples of stars using Twitter to raise their profile and use it in a productive way. See Guy KamaZaki (@guykawasaki) as a classic example. But he was a star anyway before Twitter.
The reason there have been no new stars on Twitter is this.
1. You can’t make money out of it directly.
You can do it indirectly, through raising your brand’s profile and maybe plugging products – but not in the same way as Adsense as shown above.
2. Twitter‘s community don’t need any add-ons or plug-ins to enhance their experience.
Of course, you could try to sell customized Twitter backgrounds (and some do) but these haven’t really taken off because
3. Twitter users tend to be slightly older than the MySpace generation.
Maybe this is one reason they don’t care too much about adding bling to their Twitter page.
4. There is no place to put ads or other affiliate products on your Twitter page.
You could shows references to products in your profile but it’s too obscure to make any real difference.
5. Twittering tends to be a 1 way street.
It’s not a community in the sense the facebook or MySpace is and because of this the opportunities to make relationships and cross-pollinate business ideas and marketing opportunities doesn’t really exist.
But here’s a thought!
If you can show people how to make money while ‘inside’ Twitter – and not clicking through to other sites – you stand a very good chance of becoming the first real Twitter star.
Let me know what you think.
You can follow me on Twitter @ivanwalsh.
FYI: Aldian Prakoso discusses this example of successful long tail niche: Free MySpace Layout for Teenage Girls.
Aldian mentions that ”I learned that a 17-year-old high school drop-out girl makes $70K a month from AdSense revenue. Ashley Qualls is a 17-year-old high school dropout, home owner and millionaire. She makes $70,000.00 a month in Google AdSense revenue with her website.” http://aldianprakoso.com/long-tail-niche-free-myspace-layout-for-teenage-girls/
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