A Tale Of Two Twitter Services
shoemoney
·
·
3 min read
The first time I heard about Twitter was from my friend Neil Patel a couple years ago at the Elite Retreat. He was telling me all about this new thing that was going to change the way we communicate online... blah blah blah. The one thing that he said that really caught my attention was that he was one of the most followed people on the system (at the time, he was in the top 10). When Neil first introduced me to Twitter, he didn't take me to his profile. Instead, he showed me a website called to Twitterholic.
Twitterholic was one of the first services, if not the first, to track users and rank them according to followers and other stuff. When I started using Twitter last May, I went through my del.icio.us bookmarks and saw this Twitterholic service. They were still ranking users but now they were only paying attention to the top users. I even tweeted the Twitterholic founders and received messages back saying things like, "If you are important enough, we will find you". (These messages were also on their site.) Umm... okay you arrogant pricks. Here is my Twitterholic page. Notice how like, umm 5 months are missing! How busted is that?
So then I forgot about it... like I am sure most users did. But where one company gets lazy and arrogant, there is opportunity for another to come forward and take over their #1 position.
Let's fast forward a couple months. I start to hear about this service called TwitterCounter.
Out of the gate, TwitterCounter was pretty slick. They gave you a TwitterCounter Badge (kind of like Feedburner images) that showed your site's vistitors how many followers you had. It didn't stop there. They kept banging away at TwitterCounter...implementing slick charts, an API, and were OPEN TO USER FEEDBACK (instead of being fricking jerks!).
Now TwitterCounter has not only become the #1 service for keeping track of users growth, but they have also found a way to monetize the website by featuring users.
You can see my page here on TwitterCounter
Notice the featured user at the bottom? That's a paid placement. And it works. Look at the people from when they started placing their ads and their explosive growth and reach.
So I feel there is a huge lesson here - one that can apply to a lot of people out there trying to start and grown their own service. I see this happen all the time. When people reach the number 1 spot, they get all cocky and quit listing to user feedback. I have done it myself with some things and it's a tough lesson to learn. It's one of the reasons why I feel success that comes too quickly can be the worst possible thing for a young company/service.
I am sure that if today you asked the people behind Twitterholic about the service, they would say something like, "Oh well, it was a hobby. Who cares?" And that answer is all fine and good. Maybe it's the truth and I can understand that. However, I still think there is a valuable lesson here for those who are trying to start something from nothing.
Out of the gate, TwitterCounter was pretty slick. They gave you a TwitterCounter Badge (kind of like Feedburner images) that showed your site's vistitors how many followers you had. It didn't stop there. They kept banging away at TwitterCounter...implementing slick charts, an API, and were OPEN TO USER FEEDBACK (instead of being fricking jerks!).
Now TwitterCounter has not only become the #1 service for keeping track of users growth, but they have also found a way to monetize the website by featuring users.
You can see my page here on TwitterCounter
Notice the featured user at the bottom? That's a paid placement. And it works. Look at the people from when they started placing their ads and their explosive growth and reach.
So I feel there is a huge lesson here - one that can apply to a lot of people out there trying to start and grown their own service. I see this happen all the time. When people reach the number 1 spot, they get all cocky and quit listing to user feedback. I have done it myself with some things and it's a tough lesson to learn. It's one of the reasons why I feel success that comes too quickly can be the worst possible thing for a young company/service.
I am sure that if today you asked the people behind Twitterholic about the service, they would say something like, "Oh well, it was a hobby. Who cares?" And that answer is all fine and good. Maybe it's the truth and I can understand that. However, I still think there is a valuable lesson here for those who are trying to start something from nothing.