Well, the news has been out for a few weeks and twitter has unveiled its plan to actually make some money!! Wierd, I was starting to wonder if Twitter didn’t like the taste of revenue or something. They obviously have a powerful platform and from the initial release, my immediate impression is that the route they are taking has potential and is a good one. It isn’t particularly innovative but it doesn’t have to be as long as it can maintain its service quality and experience.

They are calling it Promoted Tweets and are working with some major industry players to unveil it. Reuters described it as follows:

As Twitter broadens the program to include more advertisers, spokesman Sean Garret said, keywords on Twitter’s search engine will be opened to competitive bidding by advertisers, similar to the way that Google’s lucrative paid search advertising program operates.

Twitter also said on its blog Tuesday that the company planned to eventually serve Promoted Tweets ads beyond its search feature, offering the ads directly within users’ message streams.

I’d like to see twitter turn into a powerhouse but the snails pace has been discouraging.  Maybe I’m impatient (which I can be, coming from a bootstrapper’s approach myself).

I still think they ought to explore freemium more closely, offering paid accounts with more control, analytics, features, etc.  It could easily be done without degrading the experience, in my opinion…

Welcome to actual business, Twitter!!

This video from bNet describes some key advantages of moving with a freemium model.  Keep this in mind when developing your business model as this has completely made some businesses and allowed access to markets otherwise impossible to enter.

It is also important to understand the “seedy underbelly” of freemium. With the open, free model, you will also see an increase in abuse of your service. Check out this video on abuse of freemium:

As any regular reader will know, two of my most popular topics or themes are entrepreneurship and congruent with that, innovation.  Well, I want to share a theory of mine regarding innovation.  I don’t know if “theory” is the right word but it works for me.  It is a concept that I think a fair amount about.  It is the solution to many of our society’s and planet’s problems. And, guess what… it includes innovation!!

Common discussions in today’s society include efficiency, uses of limited resources, care of the environment, and related topics.  This are concerning and critical issues but one piece of the discussion that is often missing is the opportunities that lie ahead.  This includes innovation, technology, and more.  Many of the discussions are in a closed box as though we will never innovate or improve again and are left to find improved efficiency with what we have.  The result is always lackluster performance with incremental influence and essentially no solution to today’s issues.  Take examples such as cap & trade.  Scientific evidence suggests little, if any, measurable improvement by such enacted measures.  So why do we, as a society, interest ourselves in the wasted resources (in this case, increased economic costs), for little result? Again, the discussion and solution are discovered within the closed box and the supporting groups and individuals feel doing something is better than nothing, even without favorable result.  So what happens when we up top the box? Welcome to the key of societal development.

The new year is upon us!  Thousands of bloggers are discussing new year’s resolutions and its a great time to set up goals, renew efforts and get back into the swing of things.  Renewal is powerful and what a better time than following a long holiday vacation, the rejuvenation there from, and a new tax year.  Which brings me to my point today!  What are some areas to remember in business while making your resolutions and starting out in 2010?  Lets list them out:

• Get organized! – possibly a more common goal is to get organized.  The opportunity to re-look at your systems and methods of tracking the stuff that needs to get done is one that should not be missed.  Look at the tools you use, the concepts and tenets you follow (i.e. GTD, 7 Habits, etc.) and the schedule (work, home, balance) you keep.  We will be unveiling a new system and tool to help with this over the next few months called Akomplish.  I’m excited for what it will do and the flexibility it will offer for you to live and work the way YOU want to.
• re-address your tax planning – With 2009 said and done, it is a great time to look at how you do taxes, bookkeeping, and financial accountability and tracking.  It will be much easier to start now than shift gears mid-year and cause confusion and chaos for yourself and your accountants.  Look at the past year and see what expenses could have been written off but were lost in the minutiae of living.  I know, I know, accounting sucks and is no fun (unless you actually ARE an accountant, then it might be okay to you although you also may not like it!).  The advantages of doing it right the first time and from the beginning will pay off, no doubt about it.
• 2009 in review – Take a look at what was done and not done in 2009.  What could you have done better?  What should you have done but didn’t? What bold moves do you wish you’d taken?  Well, lets do them this year!! How can this information and introspection be incorporated into your new year’s resolutions?
• Life Balance – Well, you work too much or too little.  You probably don’t have any hobbies but “family” or something cliche like that.  By the way, family is not a ‘hobby’, although important to you.  What do you do with them?  What can you do to unwind and breakup the life of work?  Having hobbies will prove invaluable as stress mounts from other money-generating areas of life.  For myself, I find this solace in photography, painting, mountain biking, and the like.  In fact, my wife would contend that I have too many hobbies!  Either way, having a good way to be productive without ‘work’ or pay (this does NOT include watching TV or wasting time) is an important part of balance.  Now, maybe you are lucky enough to do what you love for a living! Yay, hooray! I don’t care… find another hobby as well.  That doesn’t mean you quit loving work but you don’t want work to burn you out of loving it anymore.  For that reason, find a hobby!  Now don’t neglect your family for this hobby, again we are discussing BALANCE.  Maybe share your hobby with them or find some other way to balance.

Well, there you go.  Four points to consider with your New Year’s resolutions!!  Any other major points that we all ought to consider?

Wow, I have been out of town and super busy for the last 2 weeks.  With the Holidays upon us and Thanksgiving just past, I chose to break from the blog for a time and spend it with the ol’ family…(inlaws actually…).  The break was most excellent with some relaxing beach time in southern California (as opposed to the usual Utah cold).  I did do some work here and there but mostly attended family get-t0gethers and other activities.  It cut November effectively in half regarding work!  December will likely pose a similar challenge as we near the end.  This brings up the interesting, and common, annual business cycle seen by many industries.

November/December tend to be quite slow for many aside from retail and a few others.  Not only are we, as consumers, less preoccupied with personal management matters and “boring” stuff, we are also less interested in offering our services!  Its the professional “double-dip” that leaves us with post-holiday cash-flow pains, especially as start-ups.  So what is the secret? How can a start-up or small entrepreneurial venture stay productive and possibly grow during the holidays?  Now, if you are retail or other holiday-friendly businesses, you don’t count. Whatever the strategies employed, I definitely prefer a level of respect for the season.  That is, be respectful of the consumers focus whether it be family, festivity, religion, or otherwise, don’t be the sore thumb phone call during Christmas Eve dinner!

Simply get creative, cater to the slightly modified wants and needs of the individual, and enjoy the season!  What tips or ideas do you have?

Google Wave is a forthcoming service that appears to be quite revolutionary in communication methodology.  It is a combination of email, message boards, and instant messaging mashed together in an intuitive fashion that heightens the efficiency and, ultimately, the productivity of communication.  Watching the video and checking out the post found here at bizzia.com gives you introduction to wave.  It may become a replacement for email, especially internally and beyond as its popularity grows and competitors adopt similar concepts.  I love seeing advancement in technology, more so when it will affect entrepreneurs and you can bet new ventures will pop up utilizing such new services and offering extensions thereof, just as you’ve seen with simple services like twitter.  Cool stuff! Check the vid out below. It’s kind of long but the first 20 min. or so give you the simple idea.