With 70 percent of users outside of US, Twitter is actively trying to increase its international foot print. Twitter’s VP for international Markets Katie Jacobs Jones is chalking out her strategy with the goal of making Twitter accessible to every one on the planet. Twitter already supports 28 lanuages and is vastly used by politicians, athletes, entertainment industry and television channels apart from ordinary users.
Ms Stanton was recently at the re.publica Berlin, where she addressed Twitter’s plans for Germany and announced Twitter’s new office in Berlin. Twitter works closely with politicians, television channels and entertainment bodies to identify innovative and influencing ways of using Twitter also has a dedicated verification team who verify limited accounts. Ms Stanton clearly has her strategy chalked out which is to work more closely with political, entertainment and television bodies in other countries, to trigger the growth and acceptance of Twitter. The fact that we see entertainment channels using Twitter more actively for of their programming is all proof of her strategy at work.
Twitter has seen some rapid growth around the world except in China where it is banned. While Spanish continues to be the second most active Twitter language, Arabic is the fastest growing language on Twitter. With 600,000 volunteered translators, Twitter seems to have cracked the ‘translation’ jinx.
A Google and Yahoo veteran, Ms. Stanton was the Special Advisor to the Office of Innovation at the U.S. Department of State where she made extensive use of Twitter. Previously she was President Barack Obama’s appointee to the newly created position of Director of Citizen Participation.
Make sure to watch the following video of her presentation at the re.publica Berlin. Besides the detailed presentation, what was impressive was the way she responded to the questions from the audience. There were few great answers from her, but my favorite was her response to the last question when she was asked the reason for Twitter to select Berlin for the office in Germany. She responded by acknowledging other great cities in Germany like Munich and Hamburg, but cited the technology and creative habitat of Berlin as the reason. “Twitter is about breaking down walls, and we could not think about a better city than Berlin for our office,” she concluded.
Katie Jacobs at re.publica Berlin, 2012
