Twitter confirms plans to pursue potential revenue streams

Posted by Soraya Kishtwari on March 30, 2009 at 2:27 PM

Social networking site, Twitter, has confirmed it plans to cash in on its popularity by offering a range of new paid-for business services. Cofounder Biz Stone revealed the company would be going ahead with plans to offer commercial accounts on sale to business customers looking to use a premium version of the site.

Based in San Francisco, Twitter launched in 2006 as a free text service where registered users can send messages of up to 140 characters in length to their network of followers.

According to Nielsen Online, the web data monitoring arm of marketing research firm the Nielsen Company, Twitter's number of unique users grew by an astounding 1382 per cent compared to the previous year to reach 7 million unique users.

Last year, the company rejected an offer of 500 million dollars by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a supposed takeover, with Stone and fellow partners Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass and Evan Williams feeling they still had plenty of unfinished work to do.

Last week, Microsoft and Federated Media revealed ExecTweets, a site which allows followers to stay up to date with Twitter postings made by executives.

Speculation regarding Twitter plans to introduce profit channels grew as it emerged the site had the potential to take the multimedia stage by storm however, whether the company's latest announcement will go down well as the anticipated business model people were hoping for, is doubtful.

Rafe Needleman questioned Twitter's priorities, given it has taken the company three years to hire someone to look into setting up a viable profit stream, adding: "Twitter won't become huge by making a few bucks with weird little projects here and there". Needleman goes on to observe that there are plenty of companies already profiting from Twitter, which are "giving nothing" in return, and suggests that Twitter introduces a way to make companies pay for any information used that will form the basis of data reports which then get sold onto third parties, before wondering why Twitter has yet to include any paid-for advertising.

Prices associated with opening a Twitter business account are currently unknown and, as yet, no specific date has been given for the launch. In any case, before we start piling on the pressure, we should not forget that Twitter executives had previously indicated that they were not banking on seeing profits before 2010 - that they have gathered speed in this area should therefore appease some people.

In the meantime, given the site's popularity is showing no signs of abating, Twitter's executives are probably right not to rush in with a half-baked business model, but one will be needed soon - even if just to make investors happy - but with only one guy hired to figure out how to go about doing this, some say even 2010 seems a little overambitious.

Sources: El mundo.es , Nielsen Online , Telegraph.co.uk , CNet News