TWITTER HAS “scratched only 1 per cent of its potential”, the founder of the micro-blogging website has told a conference in Dublin.
The company will now focus on new products in addition to the current service, according to Twitter founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, who was speaking at the Founders gathering for web and technology company executives on Saturday.
Twitter, which has attracted more that 160 million users since 2006, is a website and mobile service that allows people to publish their thoughts to their followers in real-time.
Despite its popularity Twitter has resisted cashing in by inserting obtrusive ads into the service. Mr Dorsey said “the route to profit” would “emerge from the network”, by which he meant that it would be dictated by what users are comfortable with.
“Revenue for us is not really about making money but sustaining the product and supporting growth,” Mr Dorsey told the listening company founders hoping to emulate his success. “Whatever we do has to support the product – we don’t want to put a monetisation system on top of it that would be awkward.”
Mr Dorsey has stepped back from a day-to-day role at Twitter and is focusing on his latest venture, Square. It has developed a small square credit card reader which connects to a smartphone, allowing anyone to accept payments.
Aimed at small businesses and sole traders such as babysitters or dog walkers, Square has just completed a pilot with 50,000 users in the US and is formally launching in the US. Mr Dorsey said he hoped to have processed $1 billion in transactions by next June.
"I think [Square] can be huge. I'm only interested in building large impactful companies," said Mr Dorsey. "It has potential to match if not surpass Twitter's growth." Underlining the influence of Twitter, event organiser Paul Hayes told the audience that he had been in a taxi with Mr Dorsey on Friday night when he got a phone call from the X Factor'sSimon Cowell who said he wanted to be on Twitter, "but only if he could launch with a million followers".
At the conference there was a strong theme of selling Ireland to the next generation of successful web companies. John Concannon of Fáilte Ireland announced that a year-long promotion of Ireland, called “The Gathering”, would be launched at the White House next St Patrick’s Day by President Barack Obama and Taoiseach Brian Cowen.
Taking place throughout 2012, it will include a range of sporting and cultural events at home and abroad, including an American Football game between Notre Dame and the Navy in Dublin, the World Surfing Championship being held in Ireland and a global computer game event.
Mr Concannon told the founders that the Irish authorities “would like as many of you to work with us as possible” and urged them to think of ways their companies may be able to contribute to the Gathering.
All of the attendees were also offered a return flight to Ireland and accommodation for two people. Saturday's sessions also included panel discussions on the future of gaming and social technology. Oren Michels, founder of Mashery, a software company that allows publishers such as the New York Timesmake information available on multiple platforms, said that web users would always sacrifice some privacy if a service was convenient or valuable.
“The vast majority of people haven’t changed their Facebook privacy settings and their Wi-Fi router is still open,” said Mr Michels. “It’s not because it’s complicated, it’s because people are lazy and they don’t care about privacy as much as you think.”
The conference will also go down as the swan song for YouTube founder Chad Hurley who announced at Thursday’s opening session that he is stepping down as chief executive.