Twitter names are suddenly becoming a lot hard to come by. Tweexchange aims at capitalizing on this increase in traffic Twitter is seeing by providing a marketplace for Twitter memebers to exchange, buy or find Twitter usernames from other existing members.
When you head over to Tweexchange you can search for you desired username and it also shows you what names are taken and recommends alternative usernames you might want to use. The site also lists Twitter handles for sale, which could be a lucrative business if the handles listed for sale are actually desirable.
If you do see a Twitter name available that you’d like to buy or negotiate, Tweexchange lets you send the owner a Tweet or email inquiry. Selling “free” Twitter names is apparently ‘against Twitter rules’, but it’s unclear as to how and if Twitter is enforcing this rule.
“Twitter Squatting” is become a popular phenomenon. People are taking up brand names, company names and famous individuals’ names as user names in the hopes of cashing in big one day, like many who bought popular domain names have in the past.
Tweexchange is a great idea but im not too sure if Twitter will allow this service to continue, but I cant really see why not, at the end of the day Twitter obviously has final say on all Twitter names and who owns them.
Over the last few months we have been doing a lot of work with advertising networks. I have noticed that with most CPM networks currently in the marketplace they provide quite low rates, apart from a few. With regards to these low rate networks I have noticed a key characteristic that most use Yield Manager from Right Media. Is this just a coincidence or does Right Media only provide their platform to remnant and low paying CPM ad networks?
US based FriendFinder Networks (formerly Penthouse Media Group) has filed a registration statement with the SEC to go public. The story was broken by Techcrunch and this seems like a huge leap for the adult network.
Little known Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital is representing them in the deal. The company hopes to raise $460 million in the IPO.
Penthouse acquired Adult FriendFinder in December 2007 for approximately $400 million. Currently the network has $244 million in revenues from the first three quarters of 2008.
This seems like a very interesting move by FriendFinder Networks. It shows that there is simply just so much money in the adult industry online and now they are looking to move public and grow the services even faster, while cashing out at the same time.
Where do you head to find technology company information? Currently, there are a lot of technology blogs that provide company directories, but I think there are two key players that stand out in this sector and I’m sure their pageviews will sore in the coming months and years. Those two players have to be Crunchbase and Tradevibes.
Crunchbase is the company directory from the superblog Techcrunch. Crunchbase is build on a wiki type system and instead of just writing about companies and collect data, Michael Arrington thought it would be a good idea to actually put it all together and make some more money from it. Crunchbase has a great look about it and it brings together information from some of the most well-known companies. On Crunchbase you can find descriptions of the company, funding information, location and telephone numbers, competitors and staffing information. I would like Crunchbase to find new ways to make money apart from advertising, like a highlighted company feature.
Tradevibes has a bit of a different layout, but essentially it is the same concept with the type of wiki development. Tradevibes provide a similar set of information as Crunchbase but it also has additional features, such as a fantasy exchange game, voting system on companies, and forums. The design on Tradevibes is actually a bit cluttered and there seems to be a lot of products that have simply just been put together to add features, instead of developing something in house that matches the site. For example, the job board in the left column from SimplyHired.
Both of these companies are leading the way in this niche, however there still seems to be a lot of issues in terms of design and integrating information that is actually needed, without information overload. It would also be nice to see integration with several technology blogs to provide news about each of the companies in the database, but so far even this seems to be limited.
Back in early November of last year, I preempted the launch of Spottt. Spottt is a free link exchange between sites via a 125 x 125 widget. Spottt is developed by the guys over at Adbrite, so they have a product that needs to work and actually launch into something worthwhile. Since Adbrite has had a lot of VC Funding, they will be really expected to not just launch a product for the sake of it, and actually turn it into a commercial entity.
This brings me to the all important point, is Spottt actually going anywhere? Currently, the site is so simplistic and has a lot of competitors doing exactly the same thing. So where is it unique selling point? If I was the VC in Adbrite who put in a slice of the money, then I would expect an out strategy for Spottt and within a year or two at the most. Will this actually happen? and what features are really missing from Spottt or sites like Spottt?
Spottt has finally launched! As I predicted last week the free advertising exchange has finally launched their product. It has been a long time coming for Spottt, since the product was launched at the Techcrunch40 Conference.
The service does everything it says on the can, it provides a 125 x 125 advertising exchange in which you upload your 125 ad to their site and place a widget on your site. This calculates the amount of impression on your site and exchanges them for other impressions on other sites with the widget. Thus, hopefully providing your site with more free targeted advertising and readers.
At present the site is very simplistic and is quite similar in many ways to Entrecard. Hence, im very interested to see if it takes off the same as Entrecard has!
