Twitter Clone - Good Business Idea ?

Gurus (Kevin Rose and his friends) have already started a clone (pownce.com) and it was a FAILURE http://trends.google.com/websites?q=pownce.com&geo=all&date=all

 

There is nothing wrong with copying a concept. The same way that Blogger has Wordpress, paypal has neteller and moneybookers you could make a killing if you develop the idea properly.

If you are going to clone twitter, unless you have millions of dollars to invest in marketing I wouldn't recommend it (but I might be wrong).

If you are going to take twitter concept and create a similar micro blogging website with more advanced features, if you have a good marketing strategy you could get somewhere.

This is only a personal opinion. The best advise I can give you is to analyze all the pros and cons of your project, consider the time it might take to actual start making money and be realistic.

There are thousands of people that have become millionaires with the most "stupid" ideas and nobody can tell you that you won't be the next one.

If you really believe in your concept and you are able to sell it go ahead!!!

The first step to beat twitter is to provide do follow links, just by doing that you'll have thousands of webmasters joining your site, most will probably spam the hell out of it, but it would generate thousands of user instantly.

GOOD LUCK!

 

Maybe yesterday.

 

Such a productive comment Brill...many thanks... !!!!!!!!

 

Somewhat a good idea. But if you are going to pattern your system with twitter, you must innovate some feature. Make it better that twitter. Combine idea from different social networking site. Investigate about twitter's weakness and make it your strength.

So whatever your plan is, just want to say goodluck.

 

Don't bother wasting your time. Think of something new and exciting. Ciaoda!

 

Men, is that true.
I can't say anything more.

Twitter is community. Community is king for twitter.
You can make community for twitter clone?!
Maybe on local international markets. But i know and there all busy.

 

Ideas not work with so big competitors.
Imagine, how you can win this war? With what idea?!

Features is nothing for this game. Community is king.
Surfers signup for community, not for options.

 

It's one thing to make a site similar to something that already exists, but a site like Twitter would be very difficult unless you find some kind of niche within that community that Twitter does not caters to. Otherwise, the whole point of social networking is to be where everybody else is.

 

Good artists copy. Great artists steal
Picasso

 

Didn't MySpace come first but look where is facebook now! It is basically the same concept with different features.
Hi5 is not as big as them but I'm sure they make hundreds of thousands if not millions a month.
Why shouldn't he try if he really believes in his idea?

It is better to try and fail than not trying at all.

 

I believe it still have room for expand.
But you must only targeted a specific region such as your country.
And do organize some event to create a buzz for your site.

 

Didn't they try that with pownce? I think there are a few others, never tried them though.

I don't think that microblogging is much more monetizable than geocities...maybe a little more with the social aspect...but, people go for their tweets, not ads.

 

I know that yedda is a clone of yahoo answers and they seem to be doing well. I think if you provide a platform for dofollow linking. It might work.

 

I disagree with some comments here - a twitter clone would probably never work if you're going after the same userbase as Twitter. I started a twitter clone not too long ago, but with a very specific theme, and it's catching on. The site will never become a multi million dollar business - for many reasons - one of them being that the niche is very small. But a very specific, small niche is easy to dominate as there aren't many competitors. In the end, I'm not doing this as a get-rich-quick project. I sincerely enjoy my niche, so slowly but surely, I'll find people who have similiar interests, and the money, if any, will come later. At the very least, by using a cheap hosting plan and an open source script, I already broke even so..whatever.