Monday, January 3, 2011

Oneforty sheds 'Twitter app store' tagline

By Galen Moore

It doesn’t look like Twitter is going to produce consumer demand for apps, in the way Apple Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone has.

That’s according to Oneforty Inc. founder and social media maven Laura Fitton, who says her company is shifting its focus to businesses and brands, which are spending much more than consumers on Twitter-related software and expertise.

“Increasing budgets are being assigned to this area. Excellent communicators are being thrust into the limelight and told to ‘go figure out social,’” Fitton said. “They have a budget, and they’re being almost harpooned by two other sets of companies – one is people who make [Twitter-related software] tools and one is all these experts.”

Oneforty provides a digital recommendation engine and marketplace for Twitter applications. The Cambridge company is backed with $1.9 million from Boston VC firm Flybridge Capital Partners, San Francisco VCs Javelin Venture Partners and angel investors.

Like the iPhone, Twitter early on opened an application programming interface (API) to outside developers, allowing them to extend the social microblogging service. Apple has turned its iPhone app store into a cash cow – and competitors like Google Inc.’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android have followed suit. When Oneforty launched in 2009, it was described as an “app store for Twitter.”

But Twitter hasn’t followed the same path, Fitton said. “That hasn’t happened and I don’t think Twitter is that interested in having it happen.”

In 2010, Oneforty began publishing its users’ Twitter “toolkits” – lists of favorite apps for completing specific tasks or categories of tasks. Fitton said the most popular toolkits have been those that focus on business applications.

Now, Oneforty is working on turning its recommendation engine into offerings that can be sold as a paid subscription, Fitton said. On the other side of the market, Oneforty is also working on paid lead generation and other marketing services for companies that sell Twitter-related products and services.

“Which one we see the highest resonance on is the one that goes to market first,” she said. “We already have revenue streams because of the app store origin around referral and things like that.”

While Twitter integration will probably remain a threshold for an app to be listed on oneforty.com, Fitton said Oneforty will increasingly deal with services and products that encompass other social media platforms. “We’re not really confining ourselves to Twitter any more,” she said.