by Angela Guess
Todd Wasserman reports, “Twitter has sold a bunch of old tweets to a firm called DataSift, which will analyze them for marketing purposes. The Mail Online reports that DataSift is the first such company to get access to the tweets, which go back two years. Another 1,000-plus companies are on DataSift’s waiting list. DataSift confirmed the report to Mashable, but Twitter could not be reached for comment. The former has launched a product called DataSift Historics, which lets companies extract insights and trends that relate to brands, businesses, financial markets, news and public opinion, a rep says. DataSift will analyze public tweets, not private ones. If you delete a tweet, it’s deleted from DataSift’s archives.”
Wasserman continues, “Selling old tweets would be one way to monetize Twitter’s archive. So far, Twitter’s focus has been on building revenues by advertising to its 100 million or so active monthly members rather than selling its data. Twitter makes the bulk of its revenues through advertising. A private company, Twitter doesn’t disclose its finances. However, eMarketer estimates that Twitter will earn about $259.9 million this year and $399.5 million in 2013.”
photo credit: Twitter
