Twitter cofounder Biz Stone clarified on February 10 that the existing components of the popular microblogging service will remain free to both individuals and companies.
Stone responded to media speculation that the microblogging service would begin to charge companies – some of which have dozens of employees using the service for corporate purposes – for its services. Stone explained that Twitter may roll out revenue-based products this year.
What Twitter is thinking about doing is adding value in places where they are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services. They are still very early in on the idea and do not have any breaking news on this idea despite recent speculation. Stone did clarify, however, that people, companies, celebrities- everyone will be able to use Twiiter's services for free.
Companies such as Dell speculated that if the company became something that it isn't today- a free microblogging tool – and it becomes a paid advertising platform, then it's in a different category, and they would need to evaluate the use of its service differently.
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I believe that in order for Twitter to be able to stay afloat it will indeed need to turn a profit in the near future. So far twitter has done well by staying small(they only have like 25 people employed) and staying focused on what their core business is. One of the founders Evan Williams, who also helped develop this very site, stated in a recent article that they had originally seen themselves turning profits by 2010 but now their aim is for Q1 2009. He did not state entirely how they plan on doing that but he did hint that it would NOT be through advertising and corporate users but rather through consumer packaged goods companies.
I personally do not know how Twitter plans on making connections between their product and other consumer products but I will give Williams the benefit of the doubt. Shit, he sold this site to Google back in 2003 for an undisclosed amount(and we all know that "undisclosed" really means a LOT of money) so I would say Twitter is in good hands.
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