Reading comprehension task from an article on Time.com

1. Read the following article and then answer the comprehension questions:
10 Ways Twitter Will Change American
Business
By 24/7 WALL ST. Friday, May. 29, 2009
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1901772,00.html#ixzz0d5GwKAEe
Microblogging platform Twitter has 32 million users, an increase from about 2 million a year
ago, according to research mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. Some Internet measurement
services show that figure increasing 50% to 100% month over month. While it is not clear that
Twitter will become as large as social networks MySpace and Facebook or video-sharing site
YouTube, the company could certainly have 50 million visitors by the end of the year. View the
10 ways Twitter Will Change American Business here.
Because Twitter can be used with ease on both PCs and mobile devices, and because it limits
users to very short messages of 140 characters or fewer, it has become one of the largest
platforms in the world for sharing real-time data. A number of large businesses and celebrities
have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. This includes personalities like Oprah and
Ashton Kutcher. JetBlue (JBLU), Whole Foods (WFMI) and Dell (DELL), along with other
multinational corporations, are among the most followed names on the service.
As Twitter grows, it will increasingly become a place where companies build brands, do
research, send information to customers, conduct e-commerce and create communities for
their users. Some industries, like local retail, could be transformed by Twitter — both at one-
store operations that cater to customers within a few blocks of their locations and at the
individual stores of giant retail operations like Wal-Mart (WMT). In either case, having the
opportunity to tell customers about attractive sales and new products can be done at
remarkably low cost while providing for greater geographic accuracy.
For Twitter to be a part of a company's efforts to communicate with customers, the customers
must be willing to "follow" the company on Twitter. That allows the individual consumer to
Task by Mª Jesús García San Martín. Artcicle from www.time.com 1

2. choose which firms he is willing to get messages directly from. It may not be surprising that
"new age" brands like Whole Foods and JetBlue have large followings and older and much
larger brands like Kroger (KR) and American Airlines (AMR) do not. Whole Foods and JetBlue
have successfully marketed themselves as being "customer-centric" — the kind of companies
that would not misuse the access to a customer's private Twitter information.
While there may be commercial value for using Twitter to communicate with customers, the
danger is that the Twitter community could turn against a marketer viewed as being too crass
by being relentlessly self-promoting. Twitter users have set up their own rules of conduct
when using the service, not unlike those with MySpace and Facebook. These rules were not
put together by Twitter itself, which mandates only rules of use. Like many social-network sites,
Twitter is self-governed by its members, and companies must take that into account as they
join the service.
Twitter is still in the early stages of developing a plan for making money as a company, but
plenty of large corporations like Starbucks (SBUX) are already using it as a marketing tool.
Twitter will probably evolve into both a community of individuals and a community of
companies that provide goods and services for those individuals.
Wall St. has come up with 10 ways in which Twitter will permanently change American
business within the next two to three years, based on an examination of Twitter's model, the
way that corporations and small businesses are currently using the service and some of the
logical extensions of how companies will use Twitter in the future. Some of these firms are
already using Twitter, but their efforts are in the earliest stages of development.
Wall St. evaluated other sensible and potentially highly profitable ways Twitter's real-time,
multiplatform presence is likely to be exploited — in the best use of that word — to expand
businesses both large and small.
— Douglas A. McIntyre
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1901772,00.html#ixzz0d5H7FpPR
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
1. Choose one reason why Twitter means a breakthrough in American business
a. It’s a private PC
b. It’s limited to laptops
c. It’s used to text others briefly
2. In Twitter you can share data
Task by Mª Jesús García San Martín. Artcicle from www.time.com 2

3. a. On the spot
b. At a time
c. In your mobile
3. Twitter’s the perfect place for
a. Enterprises to build platforms
b. Companies to increase locations
c. Business to promote their products
4. Twitter gives business the chance to
a. Provide customers with accurate brands
b. Target clients in the right areas
c. Make an effort and learn geography
5. Customers might choose who to be …
a. Texted by
b. Followed by
c. Surprised by
6. Which of the following statements is true?
a. Young firms focus on customers more attentively than traditional ones
b. Young firms worry about customers more deeply then traditional ones
c. Young firms misuse private data more often than traditional ones
7. Where does the danger lie in Twitter’s self-promoting policy?
a. Marketing could be forbidden there soon
b. The community might close down
c. Customers could feel snowed under with it
8. Twitter stands a chance of …
a. Splitting into two communities
b. Becoming a services tool
c. Being bought out by Starbucks
9. Twitter’s known to definitely … American business … in the future
a. Turn / upside down
b. Swap / with other models
c. Move / back to square one
10. Who assessed Twitter’s potential of usability in business expansion?
a. The platform itself
b. Wall Street
c. Real-time users’ presence
Task by Mª Jesús García San Martín. Artcicle from www.time.com 3