Will we have to pay for Twitter?

December 4, 2008 | Written by

Twitter founder Ev Williams spoke at a conference last night where he partly detailed his outlook for Twitter, explaining his reasoning for turning down an offer from Facebook, and how their business model could be developed.

Here’s a digest of three articles on it:

Twitter CEO: The revenue’s coming soon, but I won’t tell you how (CNET)
"…[Williams] revealed that the company is in talks with large consumer packaged good companies, and whether that’s to sell the company internal services or to help the company monetize its own Twitter feeds, it’s promising."

Why Twitter Turned Down Facebook (NYT)
"…Mr. Williams said that Twitter gets daily calls from companies who want to pay for sponsorships, but it plans to avoid making money from ads. Instead, it will figure out a way to charge businesses who use Twitter to talk with customers or sell products. Companies like JetBlue Airways, Dell and Whole Foods Market have used Twitter in these ways."

A Tweet Time with Ev Williams (Portfolio)
"…He still isn’t saying exactly how Twitter will make money, but says he is confident THAT it will make money. Thanks to the downturn, he’s focusing on revenue earlier than he would’ve otherwise, and thinks Twitter will have real revenue by early 2009."

Most interesting for those pushing corporate involvement in digital media is the prospect of a business model funded by corporations.

Will corporations be less likely to engage in Web 2.0 if they have to pay to do so?

I think Twitter was smart to turn down the offer from Facebook. Mostly because there are bigger fish out there to sell to. If Twitter is looking to generate revenue outside of advertising, then it might be a very attractive acquisition for Google to diversify its revenue stream. Not to mention Ev was with Blogger when it sold to Google.

Some of my colleagues at Ruder Finn had this to say:

Given that Facebook seems a bit shaky in terms of revenue generation, they might be smart to turn it down. But it’s not as if they have their own revenue-generating idea just yet. I think Twitter is surviving on a hope and a prayer, at least as a business, and is far from unique as a service. (Eric)

I think we’ll see Twitter copy Yammer (which copied Twitter) and really focus on a subscription-based, secure "behind the firewall" version of Twitter for enterprise connectivity and collaboration. (Tyler)

More from RFI Studios

• Twitter hacked – Left Brain
• How to look at gender online (SFW) – Left Brain
• To Be Everywhere Online or Not? – Left Brain
• So Why Do Corporations Want to Blog? – Left Brain
• Twitter groups – Left Brain