Twitter could be set to start making money, with plans to
roll out commercial accounts later this year.
Co-founder Biz Stone has said the company is in the first phase
of introducing the accounts, which will allow business users to pay
for services such as detailed analytical data on people visiting
their page.
Twitter will make a range of features available that it thinks
can help businesses
make a profit. These will include the ability to certify
accounts (so far only available to a limited number of people).
Stone told Venture Beat, "We have identified a selection of
things that businesses say are helping to make them more
profit."
After the commercial packages, the company may build
business-oriented application programming interfaces (APIs),
creating a "commercial layer" over the social network. The
commercial APIs will be out later this year.
The announcement came after a number of indicators that Twitter
would be
going after the business market. It has released a business'
guide to using the site, introduced a more professional-looking
home page.
Twitter's business model has been the subject of much debate
over the last couple of years. Stone also did not rule out the
possibility of future acquisitions by the company, which has raised
around $55m since it was launched two years ago.