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Micro-blogging sensation Twitter says it is making progress on ways to pump cash from the free service. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone had the blogosphere buzzing anew last week with talk of generating revenue from business accounts by year's end.
Stone said early this year that one method could be charging fees for commercial accounts used by businesses to spread messages on Twitter.
In fresh comments apparently aimed at the venture capital community, which has invested tens of millions of dollars in Twitter, Stone told of the potential for premium services such as pulling data from the sea of "tweets."
Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has seen a dizzying surge in popularity since it was launched in August 2006 but has been unable so far to generate revenue.
Stone's comments quoted in Venture Beat came as Twitter announced it is adding location to its globally popular microblogging service in a move that will let people see where "tweets" are coming from.
"We're gearing up to launch a new feature which makes Twitter truly location-aware," Stone said in a message at the San Francisco-based Internet firm's website.
Accurate "tweet-level" location data would let casual users as well as advertisers or businesses track messages based on neighborhood or city.
Outside software developers who create applications for Twitter will be able to experiment with the location API prior to the feature being added to the microblogging service.
Twitter users interested in letting their whereabouts be known will need to activate the new feature, which will be "off" as a default setting. Exact location data will not be stored for extended periods, according to Twitter.
In June, authenticity badges began popping up at Twitter as a way to verify that people tweeting are who they claim to be. Such badges are seen as something businesses might be willing to pay for.
© Wire reports
8 Comments
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Altria
Sorry guys, you should have learned by now that noone wants to pay for anything on the internet.
thepro
lol, people still care about this program?
TokyoLurker
if they start putting ads on Twitter, i think everyone will just get pissed. they use twitter to see message, not tons of Ads...
gogogo
TokyoLurker: There are already ads on twitter (the japanese version), twitter have also have announced banners for the rest of the entire site in the future
sf2k
it must be able to make money, then offer the service. Not have a service and search for a miracle. With investment in the basement this can't really ever be solvent beyond paying for corporate accounts for customer service. Thus that limits the bandwidth and it's no better than irc or messenger with a flashy new website. Yes I know they have investing but I think they'll never get their money back.
IRC for the win ;)
JayJayE
Many businesses already use Twitter to feed people to their websites. Musicians do the same. Recently Trent Reznors words of wisdom to musos was to "get a Twitter account".
Personally I can't get my head around or see the point in Twitter otherwise. But if Trent says it works, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Taka313
Twitter really worries me because of the amount of news that is passed along this way. It's stream of consciousness writing with no perspective, little to no attributation and even less fact checking. Yet, in many circles, it's the new "news."
To finish off my rant, I also find it to be navel gazing of the highest order.
That said, barbeque party at my house the day Twitter goes the way of the dodo.
Taka
Raja Kumar
Twitter put adverts in and use income to improve twitter web services excellences via many new idea-actions.