14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter has announced that it has struck a deal with the largest carrier in Japan, NTT Docomo. Twitter has plenty of deals with mobile carriers, around the world, but what's special about this one is that it's over the Twitter data firehose rather than a SMS deal as is usually the case.
In essence, Docomo will now be able to access the full Twitter stream, all tweets and other data, as it comes in and leverage it whichever way it wants.
For starters, the carriers will integrate Twitter results in its search portal and will also enhance a feature that enables users to easily follow others via a mobile app.
"We’re excited to be working with NTT DOCOMO, the largest mobile operator in Japan, to help bring Twitter to even more people in new and exciting ways," Twitter announced.
"Tweets and other Twitter content will be included in DOCOMO i-mode portal search results, providing access to relevant, real-time information," Twitter explained.
"We’re also going to keep working with DOCOMO to improve the Touch-to-Follow iAppli feature phone app released last year, so people can continue to follow accounts easily and quickly and have a richer experience on their DOCOMO handsets," it added.
Twitter already has several deals enabling third-parties to access all of its data. In fact, this type of deals is the first meaningful revenue Twitter got.
But previous deals were with the likes of Google and Bing, search engines which later integrated tweets and other data, such as trending topics, into their real-time search results. This is the first time, however, that a mobile carrier signed this type of deal. It makes sense that the deal is in Japan though.
On the one hand, Twitter is particularly popular in Japan and has been so for years now. On the other, mobile web usage is very high in the country and, again, has been so for years, before the advent of the so called smartphones.