Well, "If it was easy, everyone would do it," Battelle replies, adding that he can pinpoint at least three "major potential revenue streams" for Twitter. They are:
"Tweetsense" -- an AdWords and AdSense like platform for Twitter that has "major scale potential"; branded licensing, where Twitter could promote certain tweets and get licensing fees; and SMS deals
with the major carriers to promote mobile tweeting.
"Analysts who write stuff like this are clearly not thinking very hard about the potential of services like Twitter, nor do they understand the appetite for risk the venture capitalists backing such ideas have," Battelle says, adding, "the idea of the tweet as the query, the idea of brands wanting to have a commercial 'response' to searches (and tweets) on Twitter, these are not small ideas. The idea of real time search, conversational and social search, real time 'AdWords' -- these are not minor new wrinkles. They are here to stay."