TweetKnot is Bangalore based startup that provides you with the ability to build private / public groups using Twitter. The idea is create a ‘knot’ (community) based on a mutual interest. A knot can be made private, where only approved members can join the knot or the knot can be made public, where anyone can join the knot. The owner of the knot can specify the users whose messages should appear in the knot automatically. The owner can also follow any other Twitter users and the messages from that user will appear in the knot – for example, if I create a knot based on the theme of startups and I set the knot to follow TechCrunch, messages from TechCrunch will appear in knot automatically.
You can simply start using the service using your existing Twitter credentials. Messages can be posted from the TweetKnot site or from Twitter using the format ‘D TweetKnot <community-name>’. Messages can be read only on their site for now.
I think this is a pretty useful service to make Twitter usage more targetted — theme based groups keeps distractions and other noise from the Twitter stream at a minimum.
What do you think ?
But hows does this one make money?
I would like to make another point here. I am referring to startups in general, not specific to the one covered in this post:
The herd mentality is just too common. There are very few startups that will actually add value to the end user, and much fewer that will actually make even decent money. More and more startups provide the same solution to the same problem. Finally, it gets reduced to just “Hey! my site is coded and designed better than your site” rather than “Hey! I solve this problem quicker than you”. Web 2.0 may have simplified procedures, but doing business with it is the challenge. It does not take more than 2 months to code(read as rip-off) a web application….but it takes months and perhaps years to make money from it. Selling the service is still a big challenge. Coding a application isn’t. Overall, it seems that the so called “entrepreneur” is more obsessed with what he can do rather what the end user wants. More and more “hobby projects” are being miscategorized as “startups” and people thinking of themselves as “entrepreneurs”.
My words may be harsh, but definitely not harsher than reality! And I am speaking in-general of the startup scenario.
I have left entrepreneurship(because I failed out of my own foolishness, but my luck shone in stocks) – but I will request every entrepreneur to take a hard-and-brutal look at whatever your business is. Don’t be in a haste to tag it as a “startup” and yourself as an “entrepreneur” until you really feel it can make some money. If not, let it be a hobby project. The illusion is that you are an “entrepreneur” is very dangerous. It like when you are too close to the object, you can’t look at it the way it looks to the world. Also, always allow the enthusiasm to wane off before deciding on an idea. When enthused, every idea looks like a million dollar one even if its not work a penny. After the enthu is lost, most just keep moving round-n-round in the loop and breaking out upwards is unlikely. Infact, most will lose momentum while in the look and totally break down.
Thank you, and sorry for throwing cold water on anybody’s enthusiasm.
Very well said Rohan.I totally agree with you.
Mostly startups based on social networks try to get the users first and then think of making money.I personally donot agree to this thinking, i think startups should think of making money from the first step onwards.What if Twitter adds this feature to their site themselves, in that case TweetKnot will be wiped out in a day.
Just to add to my previous comment
http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/06/15-apps-rendered-obsolete-by-the-new-iphone-.html
These apps were added to iphone earlier but the new version of iphone ships them as features.Something similar can happen to TweetKnot (and they should make money somehow before that happens)
Rohan, you are right that Indian startups are not thinking much about making money but same is case with Twitter. They never had any revenue model in mind and even their real time search idea came to their mind only once they are popular.
Also Rohan, Facebook started as a hobby project and grew to become one of Internet Giants. So there is no difference between a hobby project and startup except the name. Let the guys try out who knows the next google can be from India.
Ramya,
Facebook was a copied project…… not a hobby…. Zuckerberg stole the code…. we all know that…..
I agree that twitter is one of the many startups not making money….
But I think it is not important for startups to make money on day1 …… if the response is good….. it will be a good take over candidate.
What is the probability that twitter itself will not implement this idea? Why do you think twitter will just sit back and allow a derivative of it to have all the fun?
Boy boy boy…! You seem to be struck hard! Anyways, everyone is entitled to have his set of opinions which might be incorrect.
Rohan, all that is matter is “Success”. Ok that facebook is copied, but enterpreneurship lies in the fact of “sense of timing”, being at the right place and an eye to spot the opportunity. Whethar you do it as an hobby and otherwise is I guess irrelevant.
And, as said in Gita..what matters is “Karma”..without giving too much relevance to so called and misused by so many as “Heard mentality” or “Me too” for many upcoming ideas…
If the guy involved has that level of faith, forget about idea, a mountain could be shaken…
So, Rohan, you might want to look into why you failed. Probably you gave up too early by giving lot of importance to immediate result without even harping on how to innovate and create killer value addition for the user…
cheers!
Yes, success needs perseverance – may not be instant. But only if you are “innovating” the product, not if you are “copying” it! Innovation is uncertain, but copying an innovation is certain. When you are copying it, you already know the procedures, the market parameters, etc. So all it takes is marketing to make money.
I have observed this all the time: That most “entrepreneurs” are so seduced by their idea that they end up applying motivational principles to situation which cannot take them.
Rightly pointed. All I would like to say are we rightly placed and informed to judge the “enterpreneur idea”. Or otherwise we would have ended up calling Google as “me too” idea in 1990s when Yahoo and altavista and lycos were doing failry good job…
So, there is always a chance that an innovation is being cooked within “Copy an idea” ..and its the time which give it flying colors…
I would in fact say that only people with good money want to copy idea as they could pump money in marketing…Pl correct me if I am mistaken in my opinion
Welcome to the twitter world..!
…and I thought it was “arrange marriages” through Twitter. No, seriously!