There are thousands of apps built on top of Twitter, but are any of them a true killer app that could give rise to an entirely new sub-industry? Venture capitalist, and Twitter investor, Fred Wilson doesn’t think so. While Twitter desktop clients, mobile apps, photo uploading services, and URL shorteners have all made Twitter what it is today, he points out:

Much of the early work on the Twitter Platform has been filling holes in the Twitter product.

Wilson is still waiting for the equivalent of the desktop publishing startups which defined the early Mac computer or Lotus Notes for the PC. The time for filling holes is over, he suggests. Twitter is now big enough for some killer apps to emerge and create entire new businesses.

Wilson rattles off some obvious (to him) opportunities to create new Twitter startups around social gaming, verticals like finance and movies, enterprise apps, information discovery, and analytics. Of course, many startups are already tackling some of these areas, which is why Wilson thinks the real killer apps will be less obvious until they hit us.

What will those killer apps be?

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• FRED WILSON
• TWITTER

Person: Fred Wilson

Companies: Etsy, Outside.in, Return Path, Kik Interactive, Union Square Ventures, TargetSpot, Inc., DonorsChoose.org

Fred Wilson began his career in venture capital in 1987. In 1996, Fred co-founded Flatiron Partners. While at Flatiron, Fred was responsible for 14 investments including, ITXC, Patagon, Starmedia, TheStreet.com and Yoyodyne. Fred currently serves on the boards of Alacra, Comscore, iBiquity, Return Path, Instant Information and Tacoda Systems. (Source : Union Square Ventures)

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Company: Twitter

Website: twitter.com

Launch Date: March 21, 2006

Funding: $1.16B

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates 140 characters long. Twitter “is a real-time information network that connects [users] to the latest stories, ideas, opinions, and news.” The service can be accessed through a variety of methods, including Twitter’s website; text messaging; instant messaging; and third-party desktop, mobile, and web applications. Twitter is currently available in...

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