The man with the Midas touch
Evan Williams employs 29 people at twitter.com in San Francisco. His company does not earn a penny. And he recently turned down a take-over bid worth 500 million dollars. We take a peek inside the mind of this farmer’s son from Nebraska, who has already become the next star of the Web 2.0 generation.
Back in 1998, an Internet-savvy 26-year old launched his own Website, and christened it evhead. It had an air of self-confidence, somehow saying “this is the way forward.” Twitter, on the other hand, sounds more like a hip Internet plaything, a nice-to-have gadget that no one really needs. But in actual fact, the maximum 140-character long messages – or tweets – that millions of users post each day are anything but trivial chit-chat. “For millions of people, they are the single most important thing at that moment,” says Williams, co-founder and CEO of Twitter. “If there were anything more important than telling others what they are currently doing, thinking or experiencing, users would be doing that instead of being on Twitter.”
Powerful posts
His line of thinking is proving increasingly popular with the global Twitter community – which is growing at a rate that sometimes takes even Williams by surprise. Whether airplanes are making an emergency landing in Hudson River, bush fires are raging through California or an anniversary is being commemorated in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – users are sending tweets. When, at the height of recent election-result protests in Iran, Twitter employees needed to perform essential maintenance on the site, they received a request from none other than the US foreign office asking them to postpone – which they did. “I was very surprised that a two-year old company can make such an impact,” says Williams. What’s more, German newspaper the Berliner Zeitung ran the headline: “140 characters for the revolution.” And it became clear that no one needed to make forecasts about the power and influence social networks such as Twitter, Flickr and Facebook can have. It had already been proven.
Companies discover Twitter
Of course, millions of seemingly pointless tweets are also posted each day – “I’m bored”, for example. But this information serves its purpose, too. And in contrast to e-mails or text messages, posts can be viewed by an unlimited number of followers.
What’s more, companies have discovered the benefits of Twitter. British Airways and German national rail network Deutsche Bahn use it to inform customers of delays, report on weather conditions or promote special offers, for example. And leading mix-your-own muesli site mymuesli.com leverages Twitter to seek dialogue with its customers (corporate Twitter).
Williams’ contribution to the evolution of social networks has not been insignificant. In 1999, as co-founder of Pyra Labs, he developed the software Blogger (blogger.com). Four years later, he sold his company to Internet giant Google. Then, with fellow visionary Jack Dorsey, Williams founded Odeo and began to turn his attention to Podcasting. During this time, Twitter was born – as a kind of by-product. In 2006, Williams sold Odeo. But not before he spun off Twitter.
Built on solid foundations
The real breakthrough for Williams’ site came in 2007 when festival-goers at a famous Texas music event sent large numbers of tweets around the country, commenting on the acts performing. In May of the same year, Twitter was registered as a company, headed up by Williams’ partner Dorsey.
Securing financial backing for the start-up was not a problem for experienced businessman Williams and his younger, tech-savvy colleague. Prominent figures, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were vying to invest tens of millions in the enterprise. Following the sale of Pyra Labs and Odeo, Williams had built up a reputation on the venture capital market as a successful entrepreneur.
To this day, Williams, who became CEO of Twitter last October, has not revealed the business model behind his Website. And to this day, the company has made no money. A proposal to introduce micropayments – a charge for using the service where each post costs a fraction of a cent – was rejected by Williams. So Twitter remains free – for regular people and celebrities alike. What’s more, it refuses other sources of revenue such as advertising.
