While many believe Twitter’s video feature may not do much good, Jason Calacanis sees huge potential in it
Twitter will soon unveil its new video feature to all verified accounts on its micro-blogging platform. While many believe the new feature won’t do any significant good, Jason Calacanis, the CEO and co-founder of Weblogs and an angel investor, holds a different view.
In favor of Twitter’s CEO
Talking on CNBC, Calacanis spoke in favor of Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and made his point about why the video feature will be a big deal. His view on Costolo runs counter to the view of many on Wall Street, as some have been calling for his ouster by the end of the year.
“Dick Costolo has taken an extremely complicated product, Twitter, and he shepherd it into massive revenue, which in the social networks is obviously very complicated,” Calacanis said.
The venture capitalist said Costolo has maintained very “solid growth” for the company. He added that the growth is not as aggressive as others expect when they compare Twitter with other products such as Snapchat or Tinder. Calacanis said it is very easy to “screw up” these complicated social networks but very difficult to establish and grow them. According to Calacanis, Twitter is one of the best places to work in technology, and people love it.
Videos present a massive opportunity
Highlighting the importance of Twitter, Calacanis said most of the world’s important personalities, politicians, celebrities, journalists and writers, are very much active on Twitter, but they have no accounts on Facebook and YouTube. Therefore, there is a “powder keg” that could burst the moment Twitter launches video for all verified users, which is expected to happen in the coming weeks.
Calacanis noted that the real thing to watch will be how the micro-blogging site creates a different revenue channel with the help of those very powerful people. When Twitter launches its video feature, it will be interesting to see where the most influential people in the world put their videos and whether it will YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, said Calacanis.
According to Calacanis, videos will garner cost per impressions (CPM) of between $30 and $50, and for Facebook, the number of views is higher but at a lower CPM. In an advising tone, he said if Twitter does the right thing by doing a 70/30 split in favor of content providers, then it will make humongous revenue from them.
