Twollow: SOLD
Last week I posted a review of the Twitter tool Twollow. I was interested to see that it almost immediately went under the auction hammer. The tool that took 24 hours to build, took only 7 hours to sell. Bidding started at $25, with the tool finally being sold for $1,750.00. I am surprised by for two reasons, one, it was developed in 24 hours which means the developer realized $72 per hour. Second, it was obviously built for sale. This is an interesting trend. Almost akin to the House flipping market and I wonder if it will follow the same pattern.
Tools for Sale
Will we now see a rush of tools for Twitter brought out simply for resale? I will be interested to see what happens to Twollow – there is no disclosure of who bought the tool. Considering it was really a work in progress and needed quite a bit of remodeling it might not have been the bargain that someone thought.
The model that was used was very interesting. Build & launch a tool. Garner blog coverage for it, on the auction site there were 6 different blog sites with articles about the tool, including this one. Then put it on an auction site like Sitepoint.
Facebook reportedly offered $500m for Twitter this week. An offer that was turned down by the Twitter team. $500m is not a bad offer for a company that is barely 2 years old with a tool that has really only started to gain popularity in the later half of 2008. If we take the interest by Facebook as an indication, tools that support Twitter and extend its functionality and usefulness, will ultimately attract the same type of attention. Tools that support business functionality are already starting to appear, last week I posted on Mashable a HOW TO using the Xpenser tool, which utilizes Twitter functionality to track business expenses.
Twollow had none of these to offer. There was no business functionality, no extension of existing Twitter use and yet it managed to attract both publicity and bids. One can only imagine the interest that a tool with both business and personal functionality might attract.
Tweetlater is a good example of one such tool, and one to watch. It has been extending its functionality over the past couple of weeks. Going from its original one trick of allowing you to schedule Tweets to adding Keyword tracking and @replies digests so that you don’t miss important replies. I think that Tweetlater would raise a lot more than $1,750.00 if it came under the hammer.
Twitter Tool Realtor
Perhaps there is an opening for a Twitter Tool Realtor? After all Twollow was a single function tool, the software equivalent of a Shotgun Shack, and that sold in 7 hours. A Twitter Tool Realtor could bring together developers with purchasers who could then take the tools to the next level.
What Twitter tools would you buy, and how much would you be willing to pay for them?
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Tweetlater adds new features
Tweetlater is a Twitter integrated tool that allows users to do exactly what the name implies, Tweet Later. Other features include the ability to auto-follow other Twitter users and to Post blog articles later.
There is much written about auto-responders and their place in Twitter. Some people feel they are very useful, some feel that they are so un-human that it takes the Social completely out of Social Networking. Guy Kawasaki admits that he autofollows everyone on Twitter that follows him. Others send an auto-response with a link to a welcome video (an idea I quite like) but it isn’t for everyone. Some users feel it is rather like going to a mixer and having a taped message that you play to people who come up to you and say hi.
Now the developers of Tweetlater have expanded their offering, taking their tool from being a one-trick pony to something that has real potential. Twitter used to have a feature that allowed you to track particular topics and be alerted via email or IM. This functionality doesn’t exist in the main Twitter.com tool anymore but others have provided it Tweetbeep has had this functionality for a while. This is all it does and it does it well. Allowing a user to define alerts, how often the Twitter stream should be scanned and whether @replies, specific users and even location specific information should be excluded or not.
Tweetlater’s keyword alerts has a less friendly UI than TweetBeep’s. It basically allows for the same functionality but only if you are familiar with Boolean operators – the standard in advanced searches. While they do provide a link to a how-to for people who aren’t used to using these it would be nicer if they simply built the functionality into the UI.
The other new feature that Tweetlater has built which is interesting is the @replies digest. This allows you to have an email sent to you with all the @replies to your account at user specified intervals. This is a great feature for people who get a lot of replies to their tweets and who don’t get the opportunity to be logged into Twitter all day scanning for replies.
With an option to have the digest sent at intervals ranging from once an hour to once a day its flexible enough to keep up with most users. I can see this feature being really useful for users who are travelling and don’t want to arrive at their destination and have to scroll through pages of @replies looking for specific Tweets.
I think the addition of features to the Tweetlater toolbox is a good move. There have been many cases of one trick ponies in the Twitterverse that have already ceased functioning. Like any new offering there is still some work to be done on the UI, especially for the Twitter alerts, but if they keep adding to the tools, Tweetlater could become the ultimate one stop shop for serious Twitter users.
What do you think? Do you want a one-stop shop for Twitter tools?
the IncSlinger 