Twitter paid services coming this year

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 20 May 2009 05:29

Your IT - Home IT

People have been wondering how Twitter plans to generate revenue. Now the company has revealed some of its ideas. Twitter has been the Internet growth story of 2009, with rocketing user numbers as it became part of the mainstream due to its adoption by celebrities and companies.

But there's no charge for using Twitter, so how can it be a viable business?

According to co-founder Biz Stone, Twitter has been looking at patterns of commercial use. He said the service isn't only being used by big corporations, pointing to the example of a bakery that tweets whenever a fresh batch of cookies is ready.

The next phase, he said, was to work out what tasks and services could be offered on top of the free delivery of tweets.

"By the end of the year I think we will have something out there," he said.

"It doesn't have to be this super home run in terms of making billions of dollars."

Please read on for examples of the paid services Twitter is considering.