By every definition (except revenue), Twitter was a major success in 2008. It grew from under 500,000 unique visits to nearly 2.5 million in November. Despite major stability problems and the infamous fail whale, Twitter has prospered and spurred its own mini-economy: Twitter applications.

Twitter applications are the websites and programs that use the Twiter API to do anything from collect data to creating a desktop interface for tweeting. Most are small and simple applications, and nearly all of them are free to use. Now there are literally thousands of applications for Twitter, and if you’re a frequent twitter user, you’re probably using at least several.

But what’s the value of these apps to their creators? Users have gained from being able to share twipics or making venn diagrams, but are Twitter applications a reasonable way to achieve a financial payday?

To answer that question isn’t sufficient. In order to get the full picture, we need to answer three related questions:

• 1) Can you make money off of Twitter applications?
• 2) Do you have a reasonable chance of making a payday off of Twitter applications?
• 3) Can Twitter applications be built into successful business models with a positive cashflow?

Q: Can you actually make money off of Twitter applications?

Answer: Absolutely.

Summize (now Twitter Search) has been the largest success story of the twitter applications - its simple and effective Twitter search (and its very capable leader Jack Dorsey) made it a prime target for acquisition by Twitter itself. Silicon Alley Insider reported that Twitter paid $15 million to acquire summize. Not bad a for a small team and less than a year’s worth of work, no?

But beyond Summize and Twhirl being acquired, there have not been many major paydays for Twitter apps. The bad economy only restricts cash that could be used to acquire these apps as well.

But yes, there is the possibility of making money developing an application for Twitter.

Q: Does a developer(s) have a reasonable chance of making money off of Twitter applications?

Answer: No, not currently.

Here’s how I start: Do you have a reasonable chance of making moeny off of a Facebook application? The answer is murky, even despite for Facebook’s 120+ million users. The heyday of Facebook applications has passed, and users have adopted application-blind behaviors that hurts the Facebook platform as a financial landing pad. Free apps generally make money through advertising, which had abysmal CPM rates (I know; I made Facebook apps for a short time). Paid apps simply don’t exist on Facebook - there is no micropayment platform and most people on Facebook don’t have the mindset or habit of paying for applications.

Now to Twitter. Twitter has 2.5 million users. That’s 50 times smaller than Facebook’s reach and userbase. Advertising is just not going to generate the money you need to sustain an application and pay for development (I doubt SMS advertising could even bridge the gap, and nobody will use an app that requires SMS ads).

As for acquisition? As I stated before, acquisitions are hard to find in this market, and even when the market was good, the highest acquisition was for $15 million, and was done by Twitter itself. Simply put, your odds aren’t good. When you compare it to the revenue you could generate with an iPhone app, you’re wasting your time. Unless you’re developing Twitter apps for fun of course, but I’m not concerned with that.

Q: Can Twitter applications be built into successful business models with a positive cashflow?

Answer: Don’t bet the farm on it.

Twitter has no business model yet, just a growth model. No revenue. Twitter has vowed to build a sustainable business model this year, but I need to see it first before I start dancing.

Let me be clear: I do not doubt that Twitter can find a business model. It will. But Twitter’s difficulty with business model reflects on how much more challenging it will be for smaller apps based on Twitter to make sustainable, consistent revenue. Advertising could be an answer, but you need a lot of eyeballs and an innovative advertising strategy to succeed. And paid applications? Unless someone proves people will pay for a Twitter app, I don’t think you’ll see a successful one.

So is there any real value in Twitter-based applications? The current verdict is: only personally, not financially. You are simply going to make more money writing an application for the iPhone than for Twitter, and you’re more likely to achieve success building your own independent business/website or making a Twitter app a small piece of your overall strategy.

But Twitter’s API is a fun and relatively simple thing to build upon, and because of that, personal projects are always easy to do. They can help build attention for you, or you can test out new development or marketing theories. But you’d be nuts to bet the farm on a Twitter application.

- Ben

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I hope you all have had a great holiday so far. Until I have time to write up a longer article on the many random thoughts I have, I wanted to ask you how you organized your lives.

What do I mean by that? What tools do you use to accomplish the task of making sure you, well, accomplish tasks?

I use a series of tools that are centered around a private Mediawiki, where I place all of my ideas, write out spec sheets, and link to the most important tools I use (finance: mint.com;business management: Basecamp by 37 signals, etc.).

So what do you use? Is it as simple as a checklist, as detailed as my Mediawiki setup, or as unique as employing a virtual assistant?

Comment below, or send me a tweet with your thoughts.

- Ben

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Every once in a while, you need to pause from work, pick up a good book, and lay down on your couch. I know a lot of us have the impulse to work all the time, through weekends and through our lives, but even if work is the most enjoyable thing around, you need to take a break from it. Take a vacation, take up a new hobby, play with the kids (if you have them), learn a new language or skill (I try to always do this), or sleep some more.

And when you get really overworked, don’t forget to watch the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam. They won’t be on much longer, but damn they are so cute.

My last note: Organize your life better so you use less of your time on rote tasks and more of it on what really matters. Hire an intern or a virtual assistant if you have to. You’ll be surprised how much it pays off.

- Ben

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A lot of people who read my blog probably already have decent habits tracking finances, but I have been surprised before. The point of this quick blog post is to simply say this: tracking your finances has never been more important.

As gas prices fall and stores open up new deals, the temptation to spend more or lose track of your finances will creep up. This is during a time where, at any time, your job could be out the window due to a line of credit being revoked or pressure by VCs for their companies to cut costs now.

And it’s also not just about you - it’s about your friends who may not be as online-saavy, but still use the Internet regularly. Checking finances at least weekly should be a habit, not a chore. And there are a lot of tools that help in this regard.

Here are my top three financial tools. I use each of them in order to make sure my financial house of cards are in order:

• Mint.com: By far my #1 financial tool. The winner of the TechCrunch 40, it connects all of your online bank accounts, Paypal, credit cards, and investment accounts and sorts through the data to give you a budget, alert you to bills due, and give you a comprehensive view of your overall wealth.
• My online bank accounts: Not enough people take advantage of online logins for their banks. I’m a Citi customer, and all of my asset and liability accounts (checking, savings, credit, loans, etc.) are in one place. I have auto-bill pay set up for several expenses, and I have auto-transfer of my wealth to my savings account, which eventually goes into an investment account.
• Yahoo! Finance: Surprised? Yahoo Finance is one of the best products Yahoo! has. I do a lot of technical investing, so the bar charts and technical indicators available for free via Yahoo! Finance give me a lot of data very quickly. Profiles are easy to set up, as well as news alerts on the companies I have investments with. In conjunction with a good online investment firm such as Scottrade, you really do have all the tools you need to make educated decisions with your money.

It’s nice to have that new iPhone or play around with Twitter, but always be aware of the financial and time costs related to what you do and what you buy. With Mint, you’ll be able to tell whether or not you can afford those nice things.

And please, for the love of all that is holy, have six months of salary and finances hidden away in an emergency account. You’ll be glad you made it if you suddenly find yourself handing out your resume in a 6.7% or 10.5% unemployment rate economy.

- Ben

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I’m about to venture into somewhat treacherous waters, so feel free to yell and rant at me in the comments if you feel the need. But I am of a strong belief on this one, so I wanted to discuss it. I think you can guess the issue I’m going to talk about from the title.

If you’re a tech-oriented person like I am, you probably sit most of the day in a comfy computer chair with your giant two-screen setup with tons of code/docs on one screen and your web browser/IM/Skype on the other. At least, that’s how I am (it’s really quite efficient). But the point is that you’re sitting in a chair all day, instead of on your feet and using your body. Especially when there’s major projects due, new features to launch, or staring a new job, you put workouts and proper diet on the backburner to get things done.

And so the cycle of bad health begins.

As millions of people can probably tell you, skipping proper workouts and not getting balanced meals becomes a habit once you start. And restarting the good habits is tough as hell. The New Years Resolution phenomenon still astounds me. A week after New Years, tons of new people with sweatbands in the gym. Two weeks later, 90% of them never return to the gym.

Why do I bring this up? I can’t stress enough the impact of your physical health on your ability to be a productive entrepreneur. Especially when you are the head of your own company seeking venture capital, your health and appearance are important factors in how people judge you and how you get things done.

Just a few key points you probably already know, I but cannot stress enough:

1) Your physical health affects your mental sharpness.
This article on LiveScience provides a great overview of studies that show a huge link between exercise, proper diet, good health, and a healthier brain. Physical exercise is still mental exercise for the brain. Eating good food is going to send nutrients toward the brain. Bad food is going to starve the brain of those same nutrients.

It’s simple why the correlation exists - the brain is part of the body. You can’t fix a watch without fixing ALL of its parts, and you can’t keep a body healthy by exercising only one part of it. Programming does not count as a cardio exercise, sorry.

The opinions and impressions people have of you are always going to be shaped by your appearance
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is a great book on this subject. It’s sad but true: the taller and thinner you are, the more promotions and money you can expect to make. Most people don’t do it on purpose, but if there’s two people with exactly the same proposal, who are they going to favor? Yes, the more attractive one. So do yourself a favor and make sure that you can win that tiebreaker.

Bad health decreases your bottom line and investment capability
There’s a reason health insurance is so expensive - health care for an ailing body is expensive. You’re spending less on your new idea and more on your new pain medication. See where the money is going?

Persistent confidence is a major key to successful entrepreneurship
Not just confidence, but confidence that can take a beating. Your idea is going to be berated, judged, shot down, burned, and insulted over and over again as an entrepreneur. If your confidence cannot take that beating, your’e in the wrong arena. There’s a direct link between your looks, your health, and your confidence. If you’re already in self-doubt because of your body image, your confidence may not be able to hold under the entrepreneurial pressure.

The issue of health for entrepreneurs is a personal one for me. A year and a half ago, June 2007, I weighed over 200 pounds. While not a fat kid, I was chubby and round. During that summer, I committed to putting off the weight and getting in shape for my health, my self-confidence, and the satisfaction of proving I could actually do it. By August, I was in the 170s. Today, I range in the low 160s with a toned and balanced body and a great deal of added confidence. It’s also proven to me that I can get things done once I’m in the mindset.

I know that a lot of people have genetics that hurt their health and their bodies, and little can be done about it. But that’s different than not actively trying to eat healthy and not putting in periodic work-outs. A good workout or two a week or replacing that damn soda with a glass of water and a cup of raspberries does wonders for your life. When you’re consistently working on improving your health, you can feel the results, even if the results aren’t immediately apparent at the waistline.

So if you’re an entrepreneur or if you just want to better your life, do yourself a favor and do the little things to improve your health. All I ask is for you to not ignore the connection between physical health and your productivity and mental health.

Here’s a random assortment of health articles to get your started:

• 7 Fail-proof Ways to Rev Up Your Fat Burning and Get Lean
• Stop the Laziness! 6 Simple Ways to Start Exercising Today
• Weight Loss for Back Pain Relief
• 15 Reasons Why You’re not Losing Weight

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I am live at Northwestern University for Entrepreneur Idol, a midwest college entrepreneurship competition between teams from eight midwest schools for a $25,000 top prize. This is its second year; I was part of the team that created the event last year.

I’m embedding and streaming the entire event here on my blog. Keynote speakers are Harper Reed and Scott Van Dens Plas of Threadless.com and David Hoffman and Co. from The Next Big Sound.

It starts at 1:00 CST if you’re wondering. Enjoy!

(taken down temporarily)

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Internet celebrity is a unique, rather odd phenomenon. We as a culture (I’m talking U.S. here) have an almost unhealthy fascination with the latest Britney Spears news or an unusual admiration for Samuel L. Jackson. As you might expect, this phenomenon applies to Internet culture as well.

We Internet nerds are no exception. We have given people like Tay Zonday millions of page views (and recording deals) and shower lifecasters such as iJustine with abnormal amounts of praise and love. We’re just a strange culture, aren’t we? And even more so, a lot of us would love this kind of attention, even if we aren’t willing to admit it.

Come on, who doesn’t want hundreds of thousands of readers for their blog? (And yeah, I know a lot of you out there want to be admired by strange guys playing WoW in their basements. Seriously!).

So, with the help of Sarah Austin of Pop17, I’ve compiled seven different themes for how people become Internet celebrities. Most are obvious, a few are Internet-specific, and a few more are more confusing than a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

(Thank you for your time Sarah!)

1) Do something unusual, something people have never seen
Unlike general celebrity culture, Internet culture seems to place high value on being original and unique. Doing something that nobody else can do or has ever seen is going to give you a better shot at being an Internet celebrity.

Example: Tay Zonday
You just don’t expect the deep and booming voice to come out of his mouth, and the lyrics are simple and catchy. Put both together, and you have something unique, addictive, and original. It helped propel Tay to commercials, record deals, and Internet stardom.

2) Do it by complete accident
There’s millions of YouTube videos, blogs, startups, and people on the Internet. What separates a few from the rest? Sometimes, it’s just dumb luck. You may not be shooting for stardom, but because of a combination of hilarity, uniqueness, and dumb luck (in some cases, back luck), your face spreads across the Internet.

Example: Gary Brolsma (Numa Numa Kid)
All he really did was lip sync and make awkward dance movements. I’m pretty sure 80% of guys have done that at a club, half of those caught on camera. But his video had just the right amount of head-scratching hilarity to propel him to unwanted Internet celebrity. After years of saying it ruined his life, he of course cashed a check and made a second video.

3) Be strange. Very strange.
Just be…weird. You make yourself memorable, and that’s a key to sticking around. Sometimes you can make yourself so memorable that people will want to burn the image out of their heads.

Example: Chris Crocker
I don’t have to post the video for you to understand the strangeness - you’ve already seen the “leave Britney alone” video enough times already. It’s become an Internet phenomenon with 23 million views. Even if he did do it as an act, it doesn’t matter - the effect is still the same. You know he is because it was one of the strangest videos you’ve ever seen.

4) Work your ass off
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Samuel L. Jackson didn’t become a star by laying on the couch all day. And Internet celebrity rarely occurs without creating lots of content, connecting with fans, building a brand, and sleeping half the recommended amount. Working your ass off does actually pay off. Seriously.

Example: Sarah Austin.
I had to suck up at some point during this article, right? But really, when you’re editing videos at 2:00 AM to get things just right, you know you’re talking to someone who wants success and will go through the grinder to get it. To be honest, a lot of the people who are popular on YouTube and on the blogosphere work ridiculous hours…

Don’t worry, we’ll talk about life balance in a future article.

5) Be really attractive, preferable in the form of a woman.
Do you really think Natalie Portman or Megan Fox would be on the big screen and in demand without having the looks to back up their acting skills? Having looks that make guys or girls oodle over you is simply an asset. Period. And unfortunately, there is a double standard based on gender on this rule as well.

Example: Justine Ezeraik
iJustine is a lifecaster. She’s also one of the top ten most followed people on Twitter and landed her own show, among other things. She has quietly built a mini-empire out of her lifecasting and her face. To build that empire (and that insane following), she has used two major assets - Tireless work ethic and attractiveness. I’m sorry, Justine just wouldn’t be an Internet celebrity if she had looks closer to that of the wicked witch. Guys go ga-ga for curvy blondes.

(Since I haven’t met my sucking up quota yet: Sarah Austin is also gorgeous)

6) Be passionate about your work
Being overly passionate about what you’re doing and what you love simply bleeds through your screen. Really, that’s all there is to it.

Example: Gary Vaynerchuk
This man loves wine like Favre loves football. Okay, dumb analogy, but you get the point. Vaynerchuk has built a brand by simply being passionate about his work, no matter where he is or who he is with. I can’t remember the last time he’s been off his game. And why is that? Because he is the same passionate wine man off camera as he is on camera.

7) Create something of great value
This is a different type of celebrity. And, in my opinion, the most important. Just as Bill Gates is an international celebrity and worldwide brand for creating Microsoft, the founders of great Internet startups can gain micro-fame on the Internet. This is because they’ve clearly built something people use everyday. They’ve built something of value, just like Gates did when revolutionized the world with Windows.

Example: Jason Calacanis
Say Jason’s name to Joe the Plumber, and he’ll wonder who you’re talking about. Say Jason’s name to Jane the Blogger, and she’ll know exactly who you’re talking about. Calacanis built Weblogs, Inc., making him one of the godfathers of blogging. Now he’s running around as the CEO of Mahalo, retiring and quasi-retiring from blogging in the meanwhile. But you probably already knew most of this, which is why he’s an Internet celebrity in his own right.

So, what should we take away from this little dive into Internet culture? That really, in the end, the same things that get people to the top of Hollywood can get you to the top of YouTube or the blogosphere. Hard work, providing value to people, some eye candy, and unintended hilarity all add up to Internet celebrity.

I don’t suggest debating about whether or not Internet celebrity is a useful pursuit of your time, because it doesn’t matter. It is established now. People are creating following and making money off of it. The question is how far it will go and how well it will translate to fame amongst the general population.

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