Growth Matters: TweetSwitch Offers a New Way to Twitter

Tweeting is already an extremely easy task but a service called TweetSwitch is making it even easier. London-based Comufy, which provides the TweetSwitch service, makes it possible for you to send tweets from your instant messaging software or email software. No need to log on to twitter.com, no need to download any software and no need to register on TweetSwitch (though you still need to register on Twitter.com) Plus, the service is free.

Why sign up? Because it empowers you to control the way you receive messages. This can be important. For instance, if you are using Twitter because you want to find out what someone is saying as soon as they say it, email can be a slow way to find out. Better to have that information come to you via an instant messaging software program such as AIM or Live Messenger.

From Direct Mail to Twitter

The software, however, wasn't created just to make it easier to twitter. Instead, Comufy spent 2 years developing a direct mail technology to enable marketers to more easily reach you. Since most direct mail campaigns target people through email -- selling them things like clothing, newsletters and fitness products -- Comufy took the process one step further, allowing direct marketers to send targeted messages via instant messaging software, social networks, text messages and twitter. For direct marketers, this offered multiple ways to reach their customers and hopefully, generate more revenue.

When Sebastian Marion, COO of Comufy, heard that Twitter was not able to make its software operate with IMs and emails, a light went on. He saw an opportunity to use his company's direct mail technology and TweetSwitch was born and has become an instant hit. While the software is still in beta trials, it has grown from 100 users a few months ago to more than 1,000 users today.

Along the way, TweetSwitch has been refined. "Originally, the service delivered all of your tweets, but we found that for some users this was inappropriate as they followed hundreds of users and thus received thousands of tweets a day," says Marion. So TweetSwitch now lets users filter their tweets, delivering only tweets that are direct messages or tweets mentioning specified terms.

TweetSwitch is a free service and does not generate significant revenues. But Comufy is looking at ways to monetize its increasingly popular software program. The holy grail? Twitter buys the TweetSwitch technology and makes it available to its millions of users.