For around five years now, Twitter has helped lead the world in social media. It’s connected us with celebrities and other people who we wouldn’t even reach otherwise. But why stop there?
Twitter is announcing it’s first commercial product. They’ve brought in the big timers. Former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard will lead this team. All summer long, ‘buy now’ buttons have been seen all over Twitter. Well, by a few people have anyway. Is this why? Twitter talked about this button in a blog today. You can believe the buy now button will be seen by more and more Twitter users over time. That’s right: If this thing is successful, you can literally buy from your Twitter account, from the ‘buy now’ button to the payment processing to the shipping. It will all be as easy as Ebay. They’re partnership roster is increasing in a hurry. This roster includes online shopping company Fancy, digital company Gumroad, and payment company Stripe. It’s got backing from celebs like Eminem, nonprofits like Donors Choose and retailers like Home Depot. Gumroad has been convincing Twitter to start this commercial product service for over a year. They’re not the only ones. Facebook is also developing a commercial product system.
Let’s see how this goes. It sounds like the right things are being done and the right connections are being made. We don’t have a date yet. We don’t even know if this is going to work. Let’s face it, Ebay and others could you some competition. But what will these commercial products be? Will they be electronics, or clothes, or food, or travel/vacation, or household products? Another question: Will people use Twitter as a shopping network? Or will people just hold on to Twitter as a social network? Will other social media networks even want to take this endeavor?