Branding your existing product as a Twitter app isn’t a recipe for success
It goes without saying that Twitter is the big success story of 2009. Everyone wants a slice of the Twitter action, but the Twitter boom can’t last forever.
Among the sea of Twitter related tools and sites has been a number of companies with existing products who want to cash in as well. Mashable today reports on TwitCam, a live streaming Twitter application (yeah, WTF is right) from Livestream, the company formerly known as Mogulus.
The name might be funky, but the product is familiar: it’s Livestream with the added benefit of being able to log in with your Twitter credentials….and not a thing more. But it comes with Twitter I hear people saying… so does nearly every live streaming site now.
Justin.tv is also getting in on the act with a service called CamTweet (currently in closed beta) which offers…you guessed it, Justin.tv with the added benefit of being able to log in with your Twitter credentials…oh, and it has a Twitter term in the sites name.
I’ve picked on those two today, but they are far from the first to try to cash in on the Twitter craze. I understand the short term thinking behind the moves, but it’s a risky strategy over a long period. Companies such as Livestream and Justin.tv dilute their core brand by splitting its services between the original site and the Twitter related sites; yes, it could be argued that doing so may drive growth, but that growth may come at the cost of the original site. The bigger risk is investing money and time in an overcrowded market that is due for a crash some time before the end of the year. The growth in Twitter can’t last for ever, and the growth in Twitter applications is about 100x more unsustainable again.
Some of the other rebranded products of late (this doesn’t apply to Livestream or Justin.tv) share another trait: the original product was mostly unsuccessful and the rebranding is an attempt to find success. I’m at a loss to see how rebranding a dud as a Twitter application will make it any less of a dud…but then again you can only try.
