Possible Rebrand for 'Misleading' Twitter Researcher

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has confirmed that his firm has no official links with Twitter Partners, a newly launched London-based agency which allows clients to receive feedback on their brands and products by monitoring the microblogging leader.

Stone confirmed on a blog post that: 'The name, branding, and suggestion that Twitter has some kind of equity partnership or an agreement of any kind in place is misleading and wrong.' The two sides are now working to clear up the confusion and it has been suggested that this could include a re-brand for Twitter Partners.

The new firm lists buzz monitoring, customer insight/profiling/segmentation, customer feedback and virtual focus groups among its services. Companies such as Dell and Starbucks have already used the company to market new products and interact with customers.

Twitter Partners is led by former Nielsen Entertainment President Peter Read and Scott Gallacher, the former digital marketing chief for broadcaster Sky. Other advisors include Lastminute's founders Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman, Last.fm's founder Stefan Glaenzer, Yahoo! Vice President Toby Coppel, and Lovefilm's 'Board Observer', Saul Klein.

On the firm's web site, the team of professionals are described as 'Twitter enthusiasts committed to building valuable apps and campaigns on top of Twitter', but since the launch, a statement has been added pointing out that the company is not formally affiliated with Twitter.

In Hoberman's opinion, market research on social networking sites could be worth a 'huge amount of money', and could soon become more valuable than traditional market research.

Web site: www.twitterpartners.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.