More documents stolen from social networking site Twitter have been released on TechCrunch, showing the company’s executives would consider potential partnerships with Microsoft and Google.
The stolen documents show the scope of Twitter’s audacious vision. A February 25 strategy meeting outlined the goal to “be the first to one billion” users. “If we had one billion users, that will be the pulse of the planet,” the company wrote.
The Twitter team also discussed partnerships with Microsoft and Facebook, but said that the “Facebook sell always seemed wrong” and that it was “the wrong destiny for Twitter”.
But they are keeping an eye on the social networking market leader, saying threats such as real-time search and SMS features could hurt Twitter.
The company revealed more details of its future financial model in the meetings, proposing a $US1 fee per year for access, and saying that “we need to make $US68 million dollars by the end of next year”.
Meetings also discussed verified commercial accounts, which it described as “the fastest way to make money without putting a whole organisation behind it”. The company appears fairly set on introducing paid models, saying “we can give people stuff for free but not forever”.
Fascinating documents relating to discussions with Google have also been released. In a meeting on March 13, the company expressed fear that “Google would kick our ass at finding the good tweet” and “they can help us with relevancy”.
But the company also went on the defensive, debating whether “can we do to Google what Google has done to others?” perhaps in reference to Google’s dominance of online search.
A large outcome of the meetings was a focus on search. Twitter repeatedly discussed ways for the company to define itself, and said that “Twitter the product is a vehicle for Twitter search”.
Another meeting frustrated Google representatives, who were looking for a way to index ‘tweets’ from Twitter so they could be represented in Google searches.
The company seems to align itself against Google in terms of search, saying in a May 6 management team meeting that Twitter is “playing with fire here, where we know that Google is building the competitive product”.
But those discussions came to fruition on June 9, when a two hour meeting with Google executives produced a resolution from Twitter that an “agreement for some period of time makes sense – with our parameters”.
But they also wrote that Google product chief Marissa Mayer was a “huge distraction” in the meetings, and repeatedly asked for growth figures. Twitter eventually gave her a “constrained version of growth”.
Meanwhile, Google has announced its quarterly financial results, with profit higher than expected but disappointing revenue figures sending shares down 2%.
Google’s net income grew to $US1.48 billion in the three months ending June 30, up from $US1.25 billion in the same period a year ago. But revenue growth was just a disappointing 3%, growing to $US5.52 billion from $US5.37 billion one year ago.
Chief executive Eric Schmidt said in a conference call that the results were “good” despite the downturn, and that now “is too early for us to tell when the recovery will materialise”.
And another social networking site has been dealing with its own future, with MySpace chief executive Owen Van Natta saying in an email to staff that its users are confused about what the site actually does.
In an email to staff explaining the departure of senior vice president of product Tom Andrus, Van Natta said that “our users don’t know if we’re a social portal, a music site or an entertainment hub”.
The arrival of Van Natta, a former Facebook executive, in the chief executive’s role has signalled an era of change for MySpace, which has been shedding users while Facebook continues to grow. He said in the email that the site will continue to make changes to increase its user base.
“In the last week, we’ve made some small but meaningful site changes that will lay the groundwork to provide more clarity on our brand and business,” Van Natta said.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
