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Privacy Issues and Monetizing Twitter

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Case Analysis: Privacy Issues and Monetizing Twitter Twitter one of the most popular social networking sites. Both personal and corporate users enjoy twittering to engage in information-sharing. It has social as well as commercial utility. However, as is also the case with Facebook, Twitter is still striving to make its business model profitable as well as generate user traffic. Advertisers and marketers are interested in Twitter's ability to provide data about potential customers as well as its ability to expose users to advertising. However, there have been a number of concerns regarding the monetization of Twitter. Twitter's potential for 'data-mining' is alarming to many users. "By virtue of having a large number of users, Twitter also possessed such a database of personal information, as well as a large archive of personal messages" (Privacy issues and monetizing Twitter, 2011, Richard Ivey School of Business: 6). Twitter has a wide variety of young users who are often eager many would say over-eager to share information about their personal lives. And as is the case with all social media, Twitter is operating in a 'wild, wild west' of a lack of legal restrictions. Despite concerns over alienating users, the desire to make what is now a relatively old and established site more profitable (perhaps in answer to the shaky performance of Facebook's public offering) has apparently won out. Recently, "in a move that has sparked privacy concerns among social media users,

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