Hmm... the idea isn't so brilliant if I can't find a revenue model either.

In my opinion, Google is still a strong exit strategy for many years to come. Google has $7 B in cash, $29 B in assets and only $3 B in liabilities.

Of course I would never build a business with Google as an "exit" strategy, but I think that's the best option that Twitter has. Sure you can argue for the corporate spin, but I personally feel that is a weak play (like someone else said, there are a million other corporate collab startups out there already that can clone Twitter).

It makes even more sense since Evan Williams (founder of Odea, parent company of Twitter) sold his previous blogging company, Blogger, to Google.

You don't just get to choose who will buy you.

The only effect of Twitter going into the deadpool would be shock about how they could have possibly blown their momentum.

There is one source of revenue - licensing usage to other companies. I'm not quite sure why they haven't struck deals with companies like Yammer?

here's a novel one i thought up. Social Donation System. how it works is, users can log in and make donations, and the level of contribution is reflected by their profile. this is gauged against the average level of contribution of other users making a curve.

so people who don't donate might have a red light by their tweets or something. people that donate a little get a yellow, people who donate an average amount get a green light. people who go above and beyond get a blue star or something special to show that they have made an exceptional effort to support the community.

have it calculate daily or something non-intensive, but make sure as with all donation systems that everything is 100% transparent to users. it could work

There has to be some aspect of "keep paying me or I remove the benefit you're getting"

Donation-ware is great for single developers, not so great for startups looking to make sustainable revenue.

I like it.

if you want to make tons of money, simply billing the users is enough. don't charge the people who follow, but charge anyone who sends messages.

done deal.

not terribly interesting though :D

Twitter could do very well (and support a small happy staff) based on the model you describe. The investors would be none too happy about it, though.

and a business model is not a business, it's not going to make any money without a product. have fun with it, no one's going to make money selling ideas anyways

Say I want to spam 1000 users, I pay $10 easy huh?

Upgrade for $5 a month and you don't get spam.

Replace 'spam' with 'ads' not to piss off everybody

Just like on Flickr, people love to flaunt their upgrades.

Another interesting thing they could do would be to develop some killer add on like a location-based friend meet up deal or follower recommendation thing and force people to pay $6/mo to use it. I think twitter users would pay for anything that could help them accumulate followers or potentially meet someone new in person.

Adwords it is extremely beneficial to the advertisers. People use Google to search for X. There is money to be had for being found. That's a recipe for making a lot. The other elements of how they did it right is a recipe for making a big lot. Everyone focuses on the other elements. The Google ethos. The ad algorithms. The quality interfaces, etc. etc. etc..

Adwords unlocked an underlying value to paying clients. We can't assume that there is an underlying value to unlock every time.

"Help twitter find a revenue model" may be as useful as saying "Help Billy find oil in Germany." it assumes that something is there to be found. Adwords may have been impressive miners, but even they can't milk a lizard.

Possible focus areas:

1. statistics - fuzz out reporting after the hundredth follower and have it just say "lots"; pro membership gets you full detailed stats w/ graphs and demographics.

2. Every thousandth tweet (or every hundredth, or tenth if greedy) is an ad that shows up in the users twitter stream; pro membership makes that go away.

3. Pro Membership gets free design consultation for profile page (automated, or outsourced to art students), since most pro members will want to do their own design, this is not that expensive.

In other words, make it attractive for heavy users to pony up enough to keep things going.

"If Twitter fails to find a revenue model and hits the deadpool, it will have a chilling effect on innovation" - please. I believe I recall some innovation in pre-Twitter era and I'm pretty sure there it will continue after it as well.

That said, what's wrong with unobtrusive adwords? Or dare I even suggest location-based ads? I know several companies have tried the whole geo-location social networking thing and failed, but perhaps Twitter has enough traction that something like that would be relevant and productive for users.

But it is a good community. Not really based on hot stock tips, more like a high-level financial community.

If I am talking about a restaurant in Boulder and it shows me other places to eat, I might even finally click an ad on the internet.