BEST OF THE WEB: How Twitter is finally becoming a serious business

Twitter has been in a conundrum for a while now. It has this user base of millions but has found it hard to make much money. And over the past five years it’s had some incidents that have caused some analysts to believe it may even shut down.

Server outages, security breaches and a number of key employees leaving have fuelled that fire.

But over at Business Week, there’s an article that suggests Twitter may actually be on the verge of becoming a serious business. With the rise of Dick Costolo as chief executive in 2010, the return of ex-chief executive Jack Dorsey and a focus on small business advertising, Twitter may be closer than ever to being a massive money-maker.

The publication points to the appointment of senior executives, its advertising program using clients such as General Motors and Budweiser and the fact it’s set to turn over a massive $US260 million in 2012, according to eMarketer.

And there’s another change too – the fact that Twitter is now actively competing for advertising dollars. Costolo has apparently been pressing into staff the idea of Twitter’s mission.

“We can learn from those who came before us and the kinds of things that they went through. I think that will ameliorate some of the concerns that advertisers have,” he says.

For one thing, Costolo has been quick to poach talent from competitors, including Google. And he’s been steering the company in a direction that suggests they’re more of a communications tool than a social network.

One of the more important realisations is that tweets could be used as advertisements, although he says that was consultant Ashish Goel’s idea.

These promoted tweets are allowing the company to be seen not just as a quirky and cool social platform, but as a serious player in the internet advertising market. Massive brands including Starbucks, Virgin America and Best Buy are on board.

There are still some problems, however, including the fact Facebook is much better at targeting demographics. But Costolo is confident, suggesting there’s more worth in targeting users beyond an “interest graph”.

“These accounts I follow paint a very compelling picture of the kind of person I am, even if it doesn’t paint a picture of exactly which uniquely identifiable individual in the world I am,” he says. “I think that allows us to deliver powerful value to advertisers, and powerful value to those who want to speak freely.”

Is the iPad finally killing off the PC?

Apple has been saying for a while now it wants to usher in the post-PC era, when more users take care of business on tablets than on dedicated desktop computers.

That’s an interesting move for many reasons, not the least of which being Apple actually sells those desktop computers as well. But over at the New York Times there’s an article suggesting they may actually be doing what they set out to do.

There’s been a huge change in PC sales. In 2010, when the iPad first came out, PCs outsold tablets 20 to one. But now, according to research from Canalys, they’re outselling just six to one. That’s an impressive change, and as Cook recently said at a Goldman Sachs conference, it suggests the Apple plan is winning over.

So where does that leave the PC?

As Steve Jobs used to say, desktops are becoming a niche product. And Canalys analyst Tim Coulling told the publication the two products are “beginning to blur”.

“We’re going to see a lot of form-factor innovation. We’ll be asking, what is a tablet and what is a traditional PC?”

The top tech IPOs of the past 10 years

With Facebook’s float just around the corner, it’s good to take a step back and see just how well others in the social network’s field have performed.

Although the last year has seen its share of tech floats, the last decade has seen many others as well. And just how successful have they been?

This infographic over at Mashable has a great summary of the biggest tech floats including those of Google and Alibaba, summarising how big the companies were at the time, the valuation, the market cap, and how much the share price grew in the first day.

Google managed a respectable 18% rise, but Alibaba soared 192% on its very first day.

If you want to research to prepare for Facebook’s upcoming listing, this is a great place to start.

How Yelp transformed relationships between SMEs and customers forever 

Yelp became the latest billion-dollar tech company when it floated on the New York Stock Exchange last week. The online reviews service quickly saw its stock rise 64% on the first day, creating fortunes for its founders and executives.

There are a lot of reasons why Yelp is so successful, but this Atlantic piece articulates exactly why it changed the relationship between businesses and their customers forever.

The basic premise is this – that customers are now taking part in the local economy. The reviews on Yelp actually will help shift the way people spend their money. And because the site has reached such a large scale, it’s only going to become more and more powerful.

“Its reviews – a collaborative literature of prescription, persuasion, and snark – are a commercial manifestation of the cognitive surplus: They channel our creative and critical impulses into feedback that benefits the entire community and economy,” it says.

Yelp is not just a nifty website – it’s now a critical piece of how everyone does business.