Monetizing Real Time Data

TechCrunch has posted the 'Top 10 List' to monetization in real-time data from Ron Conway, an angel investor in Silicon Valley.

After reading through the list, 'real-time data' seems to be a euphemism for Twitter, which is, I suppose the only real-time data set available to the average business, and the largest one available to most others.

For reference, here is the list, directly from the TechCrunch article:

10. Lead generation

9. Coupons

8. Analytics

7. CRM

6. Payments - If I was at PayPal, I would be looking at this.

5. Commerce

4. User authentication - Corporate accounts want to pay.

3. Syndication of new ads - Twitter itself could just syndicate. Multi-billion.

2. Content advertising and advertising context and display

1. Acquiring followers

I would break the list down in the following way:

• What can third-parties do right now to monetize on Twitter? Given the current state of Twitter, there are certain things a company could start doing right now. (in ascending order of importance, as ranked by me, numbered from the original list)
  1. Followers - This is the first step - creating a brand identity on Twitter. There are many ways to go about this, from having a corporate-branded account that tweets official, corporate output, to having a visible person tweeting on behalf of a corporation.
  7. CRM - Again, there are many possibilities, from creating an official mode of customer interaction to searching for and responding to mentions of the brand on Twitter.
  9. Coupons -Posting special events or offers on Twitter that make it worthwhile for a user to follow your corporate brand on Twitter.
  10. Lead Generation - Who's searching for your product (or similar), or appears to need your product?
  
• What can Twitter do to take advantage of some of the items on this list? I think that, if Twitter wanted to, it could monetize similarly to the way Google does.(in ascending order of importance, as ranked by me, numbered from the original list)
  3. Ads - Paid Advertising/SEM, and Natural Search/SEO, on the search engine side could easily be modified for Twitter. Results could display for searches or individual tweets. Twitter search could even be modified to something other than 'most recent tweet' first.
  2. Contextual Advertising - Google has search history to determine user context, Twitter has history of user tweets (what do I find interesting), followers (who do I find interesting), etc.
  4. User Authentication - Verified Accounts, which allow public figures to 'claim' an official account, were a huge step in the right direction. I'm having a difficult time imagining 'paid' accounts, but if the verified accounts do not work out, they may become important. Or, perhaps, if paid accounts were certain benefits, such as priority in twitter queues or some method of discreet advertising.
  

It will be interesting to watch Twitter grow and mature over the next few years - and potentially that will include becoming profitable!