Hubbard Lands At Twitter

Former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard didn’t take much of a break after exiting the company Aug. 3. He’s landed at Twitter as the social media giant’s first head of commerce, Twitter announced Aug. 27. He reportedly started work the previous week.

Hubbard will head up Twitter’s push to enable shopping via short posts on the service, according to Bloomberg. Twitter is reportedly seeking new revenue sources in advance of a potential IPO and targets $1 billion in 2014 sales.
A spokesman for the company confirmed that Hubbard has already started work at the San Francisco-based company and reports to Adam Bain, Twitter’s head of global revenue.

The company plans to tap into a $370 billion e-commerce market by 2017, according to Bloomberg, by offering retailers tools for selling goods and services inside tweets.
“We’re going to go to people who have stuff to sell and help them use Twitter to sell it more effectively,” Hubbard told Bloomberg.

Sounds simple, but there is a strategic twist. Rather than competing with merchants and payment service providers like PayPal, Hubbard told the news service the goal is for Twitter to team up with them, perhaps for a percentage of transactions.
“One of the hallmarks of Twitter’s entire approach has been partnering,” Hubbard told Bloomberg. “We’re going to take the same approach with owners of physical and digital goods.”

Hubbard oversaw Ticketmaster’s online overhaul as CEO and, before the merger with Live Nation, helped that company ramp up its own e-commerce efforts. He joined Live Nation when it acquired Musictoday, where he had also served as CEO.

Daily Pulse