Twitter’s business model is, put lightly, of dubious efficacy. They have a metric asston of users and a headcount well into the hundreds and, to my crumpled little brain, it’s fairly clear that they need to start making more dough.
I’m happy to announce that I have the answer.
Many of us have friends that we know “in real life” (which is to say, in person) that also use Twitter. They’re fine people in most cases. Trouble is, these people suck at Twitter and you wish they’d stop using it. But, of course, you can’t unfollow these nice folks because that would lead to an uncomfortable confrontation and, in all likelihood, a dissolution of the friendship. Nobody wants that.
Irrespective of how it came to be, many of us feel trapped into following people we’d rather not, but won’t unfollow because of the offense it may (read: almost certainly will) cause.
Here’s how we fix this.
Twitter creates a new feature—call it “Ghost Following” or something—where I provide the Twitter username of a certain person + $1 per year. Now, as far as this person knows, I’m still following them. If they browse to my profile on Twitter, it will say that I’m following them. Trick is, I’m actually not.
I would totally use this service. I’m sure I’m not alone.
If 2% of Twitter’s 300 million users paid just $1 per year, that’d be $60 million annually. That’s a conservative estimate, if you ask me.
Boom.
