Several tech bloggers received a notice this morning that Twtapps, a suite of – you guessed it – applications developed around Twitter, was for sale. Twtapps’ solo founder and developer Felipe Coimbra cited insufficient resources and a desire to develop new apps as the reason for the sale.
We asked a few questions about the state of the suite, including how much money he’s asking for, how the suite was monetized, how many users he’d seen so far, which apps had gained the most traction, and how life as a third-party Twitter app developer had been for him. Read his answers and more below.
As of today, about 83,000 Twitter users have used at least one of the Twtapps to create polls, look for a job, organize an event, or create a Twitter-friendly digital business card. Twtpoll, which Coimbra says is the largest Twitter poll and survey app, has recorded 1.6 million anonymous votes.
As far as monetization is concerned, Coimbra sounds as though he’s been so busy with development that he somewhat missed the boat. “There are still a lot of opportunities that I haven’t had time to explore,” he wrote.
“At the moment, we only provide a branded version of the poll, invitation, business card, etc. There’s no fixed amount for this service; we leave it up to the user to decide how much they think the service is worth to them. Twtapps generates enough to pay for all of the costs associated with maintaining its sites.”
And how much would the suite cost an interested buyer? Coimbra, who has been working full-time on the app suite since January, values Twtapps at $500,000, based on his estimation of how much it would take for anyone to develop as many apps with as much traction, particularly his most popular apps, Twtpoll and Twtvite.
Next up, Coimbra plans to work on a real-time analytics tool with Twitter and Facebook integration. The app will act as a complement to Google Analytics or other non-real time analytics tools.
As far as his existence in the third-party universe is concerned, Coimbra’s attitude suggests he neither lives nor dies by Twitter’s success or failure. “The way I built Twtapps was so that it could be used in any other social media platform (although it’s mainly based on Twitter), or even stand alone. So, if there’s any major change, acquisition, or problems with Twitter, Twtapps can easily be modified to focus on another social media site or (if we have built enough user based) branch out indenpendently.”
On his blog, Coimbra wrote. “This experience has been exciting and very hard for one person to manage, and I think there’s a lot of opportunities being missed. So I have decided to pass on the projects to other companies who might have the resources to bring these projects to the next level.”
So, what do RWW readers think: Is Twtapps worth half a million? Is monetization going to be a problem for potential buyers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Cheers!…
I care for such information a lot. I was seeking this particular info for a long time. Thank you and b…
