You’ve heard endless rumors, speculation, and theories as to how Twitter will monetize itself. Biz Stone has now confirmed Twitter will be launching its own fee-based services this year after watching others make money of Twitter themselves. The Wall Street Journal Reports:
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says the San Francisco start-up is watching the outside initiatives closely as it prepares to launch its own fee-based services this year, but doesn’t view them as competition. “We want to work with those companies that are already making an effort,” he says.
Mr. Stone says Twitter recently hired a product manager to oversee the development of commercial accounts. The accounts would offer users more features in exchange for a fee, but Mr. Stone says Twitter hasn’t set a launch date for them.
“This makes perfect sense,” says Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider. “There’s a lot of stuff companies would pay Twitter for, such as a way to verify the company rep’s legitimacy; to more analytics and information about who is reading their Twitter page; to better tracking features to see what people are saying about their company.”
Back in early February, Stone told Fiona Ramsay, “We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them.” He then continued, “We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.”
I guess we now just have a little better idea of when to expect something. Sometime within the next 9 months?
