Twitter's surprise new revenue plan

Posted by Luke Johnson on Tue 19 May 2009

No to advertising, yes to business add-ons

Vowing not to charge users access fees and to avoid placing ads on Twitter may not seem the best way for a web start-up to make money, however the men behind Twitter plan to do just that.

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The latest of the social-networking phenomena, Twitter last year turned down a $500million buy-out offer from competitor and social-network behemoth Facebook. Now, looking to turn its ever-increasing user base into ever-growing mounds of cash, the leaders over in Twitter land have been putting their heads together.

Their grand money spinning idea involves a range of add-on tools and services aimed at their professional and business users. These add-ons are said to include a directory of commercial accounts to verify their legitimacy and ‘lightweight analytics’, presumably so Twitter users can delve deeper into their stats.

Deciding not to sell their souls or micro-blogging service to the advertising devils appears to be a brave move by the Twitter owners. However, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone reasoned the decision to avoid advertising was simply because “there are no people at Twitter who know anything about advertising”.

Fingers crossed Biz doesn’t come across a copy of Advertising for Dummies and we can continue to Tweet ad-free.

Another revenue producing avenue Twitter is looking to head down would involve communication with mobile phone operators, ensuring Twitter works on their networks and sharing the generated profits. They've already partnered with Vodafone here in the UK, offering free messages on your mobile if you're a Vodafone customer.

Link: Twitter