Twitpay Announces RT2Give Service
Recently Atlanta-based Twitpay has announced that they are shifting their business model to focus on helping non-profit organizations solicit donations using Twitter.
The CEO of Twitpay, Michael Ivey, mentioned to me on the phone the other day that they are excited about having sold the company to some venture capitalists and how great it feels to be doing something that you love and also that you know will ultimately help people. Michael is a good guy. He also pointed out to me that the business model that Twitpay originally was shooting for had a pretty serious use barrier that needed to be overcome- the syntax required to send payments. If you are unfamiliar with the way that Twitpay worked, you could send someone money using Twitter by simply creating a tweet that followed this syntax:
Twitpay @someone $10 for some reason.Personally, I’ve been intrigued by this idea from day one, and have followed Twitpay very closely. I do agree with Michael that it was a challenge to get people in mass to use something that required such a precise syntax in order to work. However, they had made some pretty serious inroads, and had definitely established that there was potential in using social networks for payments. The real value comes in that when you “twitpay” someone, all your other Twitter followers also see that, so there is a marketing component to it. All of which leads into Twitpay’s new RT2Give service, which to me is nothing short of genius.
First, I’d like to point out that the SMS (text messaging) donations to the Red Cross for Haiti (remember text “HAITI” to XXXX) received over 28 million dollars in just about 10 days or so, and one of the reasons seems to be how easy they made it to donate. I know that I donated simply because I just had to pull out my phone and make it happen. No hassle. So what if you could do such a thing on Twitter, where once again not only would you be looking to solicit a very large number of “micro” donations, but you would also introduce a viral component to the whole thing. That is what Twitpay’s RT2Give service will offer non-profits.
To me, that is awesome, and this is the best part. When I receive a tweet that is asking for a donation (it will say RT2Give $10, for example) all I have to do is re-tweet and I have made a donation. Not only that, but my followers now see that re-tweet, and are given the chance to re-tweet themselves. Each time someone donates by re-tweeting, all of their followers are now introduced to the donation request. Imagine for a minute that if each time someone donated to the Red Cross their phone would have automatically sent a message to everyone in their contact list, suggesting that they do the same.
Definitely check out RT2Give for more information, and keep an eye out for ways that you can help non-profit organizations using Twitter.
Published by Brian Getting on Sunday, February 21, 2010.
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