Twitter To Go Commercial?
According to a blog post made late last week by Biz Stone, co-founder of the increasingly popular micro-blogging platform Twitter, which has around 45 million users, the company has has changed its terms of service in such a way that it now “leaves the door open” for advertisers.
The service, which allows users to send short messages to each other, and which are seen by everybody who “follows” you, launched in August 2006, but has so far not been able to generate any revenue.
The Search For Revenue
Details have been minimal so far, but in what is largely seen as an attempt to finally turn it into a money making service, the new terms state, “The Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the Content or information on the Services, queries made through the Services, or other information.”
They also include the following: “In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services.”
One method of generating income that has been proposed in the past by the company has been to potentially charge fees for commercial accounts opened by companies, or by selling companies the “authenticity” badges, which verify that they are who they claim to be.
Tweets Are Safe
Although Stone said that the new terms allow Twitter to “use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute” messages on the services, he was quick to point out that users own their “tweets.”
“They are your tweets, and they belong to you,” he said.