There are many ways to monetize Twitter. I say scale it (Goal: A Billion People On Twitter), monetize it, and then go public. This is a company whose market value will be in the billions. But monetization is key.
(1) Twitter Enterprise
There could be several versions. Companies could pay for premier accounts. Of course they could opt to have free accounts just as well, like many small businesses might. But my idea of Twitter Enterprise sees similarities with Google AdWords. Companies small and big use AdWords.
The first order of business would be help companies make sense of the vast order of data that might accumulate on Twitter around their brand names, mostly real time and near real time, but also digging into the archives. What if I want a snapshot for the past week, the past month?
(2) Twitter Ad Stream
The second order of business would be displaying ads. Use the real estate. My Twitter profile page has space for ads I think. Each tweet has its own unique web address. And each such page is more real estate for ads. Maybe ads on Twitter should be limited to 70 characters. And ad streams would be handled by Twitter Corporate. Catchy text plus tiny URL.
Once you create the concept of the Twitter ad stream, you could put that out many places including in the live streams of individual account holders. If every 30th tweet in my stream is a 70 character, one line ad, so be it. The ads should look like ads.Just like Facebook's ad space is different, (Facebook's Ad Space Is Different) Twitter's ad space is also different. It has to be to stand out.
(3) Tweet Ads
The concept has to be introduced. And it should perhaps be automated like AdWords. People and businesses sign up online, pay by credit card, design their 70 character tweet ads, and pick the kind of streams they would like to go down in. And of course the tweet ads can be retweeted.
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