Yougov ‘can turn Twitter into a big money spinner’

TWITTER’S owners are still looking for ways to make money from the site.

But polling giant Yougov thinks it has found a way to turn the social media forum, where users post messages that must contain fewer than 140 characters, into a cash cow.

It will compile data from 10,000 ordinary people using Twitter and sell the information to firms such as Coca Cola, who are desperate to connect with its millions of users.when a user signs up to the site they can choose to ‘follow’ someone – meaning they can view that person’s comments, or ‘tweets’.

And whenever a topic or a word is mentioned by a large number of people, it begins to ‘trend’.

The most popular topics appear at the side of every single page of the website – bringing in automatic publicity for anyone or anything mentioned.

As yet, it is difficult for companies to track exactly how much attention is paid to them.

But Yougov plans to provide detailed analysis of how much these ‘ trending’ subjects really affect what people write about on the site.

It can provide a detailed breakdown of the types of people who pay attention to them – without giving away personal details.the scheme will also encompass messages posted on Facebook and will launch in the UK. The move comes as Yougov posted pre-tax losses of £275m for the first six months of the year – a period when it always makes losses. Shares in the company fell 0.25p to 67.5p.