Published by Ewan Spence at 9:21 GMT, November 26th 2007
Popular Web 2.0 ‘microblogging’ site Twitter has put in place SMS usage limits for UK users . Each month you’ll only be able to receive a maximum of 250 SMS messages to your handset (although there are no limits on using it over IM or the Web). The change is likely due to the cost of SMS traffic on the parent company; unlike America, UK customers do not pay to receive text, so there’s no opportunity to do a revenue share with the outbound messages.
Mike Butcher at Techcrunch UK goes into a touch more depth on the call set up, which sums up as Twitter earning around 1-1.5p per inbound text, but having to pay 4p per outbound text. Which is cash negative. While start-ups generally have to run at a loss, there comes a point where the crunch on money starts to become obvious. Looks like Twitter is on final approach to this point. I wonder if they’re showing a profit on SMS revenue in the US and are limiting exposure elsewhere, or if other monetisation plans will be evident over the next few weeks and months.
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Categories: Software, Industry
Platforms: General
| unlike America, UK customers do not pay to receive text |
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