Pretty much since the social media revolution took off in 2008, people began
searching for
ways to make
money from their
Twitter accounts. Waterloo University school friends Saif Ajani, Mike Rhemtulla and Minaz Abdulla joined them when they launched their company,
Assetize, in September 2009.
"We looked at the growth that had been happening on Twitter and thought that there must be ways to monetize it," says co-founder and CEO Ajani. "If you look at the history of other media developments ... every time there's a place where people can create content, there's been a way to make money from it."
Originally they looked at ways to have people embed advertising into their message streams, but found the approach too invasive. So they developed an application that would display advertising in the frame of links that people tweet (
it looks like this). As Ajani says, in addition to direct revenue, this creates viral revenue as links are re-tweeted across the network. The concept took off and in the first six months of operation, Ajani says revenue has grown approximately 50 per cent each month and the company's clients have served more than 147 million ads.
In addition to private users, the concept has attracted business from large mainstream media organizations, including the
Canoe network, publishers of the Sun chain of tabloids, who use the service to brand all their content and photos rather than to drive direct revenue. Ajani says the company is in talks now with a major American television network, and is in the process of launching a service for a professional sports organization.
The three founders have been working together from their Financial District offices since the launch, and are in the process of adding their first additional employee. Ajani says that's just the beginning, as he expects Assetize will "double or triple the size of the team over the next year."
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Saif Ajani, Co-Founder and CEO, Assetize