LONDON – Twitter has hired former online strategist Robin Sloan from Current TV to work on developing its media partnerships business, one of the areas from which the social media network could generate significant future revenues.
Sloan, who was a vice-president of strategy at Current TV, has been hired by Chloe Sladden, who is another former executive at the TV network headed by the one time US vice-president, Al Gore.
Media partnerships are one of main planks, along with advertising and paid-for corporate accounts, of Twitter’s strategy to generate revenues.
On his blog, Sloan wrote: “I’m going to be working on media partnerships with my friend and erstwhile colleague @ChloeS. This couldn’t be cooler: it’s everything at the intersection of Twitter and media, from live events on TV to citizen journalism on the web.
There are few details available about how he will work with media groups, but Sloan added he would work with Sladden and “producers, reporters, developers and strategists at media organizations that want to do cool, transformative things with tweets.
“You don’t need me to tell you that Twitter is fun and useful. Got it.’
He added: “Twitter media partnership work ahead: there will be a place to talk about that, too. When it’s ready, I’ll point you to it.”
One of the first comments posted on Sloan’s blog was from Jennifer Preston, social media editor at ‘The New York Times’.
“Congratulations and welcome to the Twitter media madness. I look forward to working with you and Chloe, who is amazing. Lots of territory to explore,” Preston said.
Media organisations have been some of the biggest adopters of Twitter, with accounts such as ‘The New York Times’ attracting huge followings. The paper’s @nytimes has in excess of 2.3 million followers, making it the biggest newspaper on Twitter.
Its huge following puts it close to other big Twitter news players such as CNN’s @cnnbrk and MSNBC’s @breakingnews, which attract in excess of 2.8 million and 1.6 million followers respectively.