Twitter's new e-commerce initiatives won't bring in a cent for now

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Twitter experiments with e-commerce on its iOS and Android apps
Less than two weeks after Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said that he would leave the company on July 1st, there is some speculation that the executive was essentially forced out because of the messaging app's failure to meet Wall Street analyst's expectations for the first quarter. In the hopes that it will eventually lead to additional revenue, Twitter is making it easier for users to find Tweets, videos and pictures relating to the things they buy, books that they read and places they visit on vacation.

Twitter will be offering special product and place pages that will show pictures and video about a product or a book. Users will get the opportunity to view a description, see pricing for an item and be given an option to buy a product, book a vacation or visit a relevant website. Twitter uses the book titled "The Martian" as an example (check out the slideshow below). Product images, videos and descriptions will be found on top of tweets that come from Twitter subscribers you follow, or on top of tweets showing news or other content relating to the book. While Twitter right now won't see a red cent from purchases made from these pages, in the future the company is planning on taking a cut.

Twitter is also starting a new feature called Collections which are basically products and places recommended from people who influence the public with their choices. That includes the favorite products suggested by Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande and William Shatner to name a few. Corporations showing off their favorite products include Nike, the Disney Store and Mountain Dew.

As we said, these new initiatives won't help Twitter meet Wall Street projections for now, but could be a big boost to the company down the road.


source: Twitter via re/code, MobileSyrup

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