Twitter: Our business model will be add-ons, not ads
Twitter is probably the hottest startup around without a business plan. Over the past few years, Twitter has gained millions of users, become a media darling, and started attracting celebrity tweeters like nobody's business. But the company isn't really set up to make money... yet. But Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says that's all coming soon.What's interesting is that Stone says Twitter will buck the trend set by other web services by staying ad-free. Instead, the plan is to make money from "various add-on-tools and services" for business and professional users. For example, analytics tools, or a directory of commercial Twitter accounts. Some of those tools could be available by the end of 2009.
Stone says the company doesn't plan to show ads next to messages because a) it's not "interesting," and b) because it could tick off users. The first point sounds a bit odd, but the second one makes sense. While Gmail users have long been used to seeing ads near their email messages, imagine if every fifth message you received on an instant messaging client was an ad.
[via The Inquistr]
