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The Real Twitter Needs To Stand Up

  • CNet, Wednesday, January 21, 2009 11:15 AM
Despite having a still relatively small user base, Twitter continues to receive an enormous amount of media coverage. Stories of tweets received after the US Airways plane crash and Barack Obama's inauguration permeate the Web, yet Twitter's business model remains a mystery. As CNet's Dave Rosenborg notes, "Ubiquity without clear methods of monetization can easily result in a situation where free really means free, with no way to make meaningful money."

With no clear path to monetization, Twitter users may start asking for proof that the service will exist in the future, Rosenborg says. In this case, proof means a clear business model. And at this point, monetization has become a community concern: "Users are not only rooting for the service to be successful, but going as far as providing ideas for ways that they want to be monetized."

Rosenborg claims the kind of community interaction and support fostered by Twitter is "unheralded," going well beyond that of other Web 2.0 sites like MySpace, Facebook and Digg. He adds that while Twitter may have built a nice little monopoly in the micro-blogosphere, the service has yet to establish itself as a real company.

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