Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder has announced this week that the microblogging service will begin charging companies for using the platform in the new year.
Businesses will be under no obligation to sign up to a paid Twitter account. However businesses who do sign up will be rewarded with an elevated level of access, including feedback and statistics. Many big brands have embraced Twitter as a method of communicating directly with consumers and engaging with customers. Businesses which sign up to a paid account will be presented with a layer of features, which will aim to allow them to become more effective at utilising the platform through the analysis of inbuilt analytics. Stone confirmed personal twitter accounts would remain free.
Twitter is currently valuated at around $1 billion and has yet to fully announce a long term business model for its service. These new paid business accounts will provide a very welcome revenue stream for the platform and it’s investors.
As part of the announcement Stone also revealed Twitter would consider signing deals with other companies to licence its content and live data streams. Last month Twitter signed partnerships with both Google and Microsoft to integrate its real-time search results in to each respective search engine.
He also didn’t rule out the possibility of partnerships with news agencies and media organisations. Twitter is often used by media organisations to gather news stories. News of significant events and other crucial events are often spread first on Twitter before being pickup by the mainstream media. An example of this is the plane that crash landed in the Hudson River in New York. News and even pictures of the crash appeared on Twitter within minutes of the crash, far quicker than the media could respond. Stone said he was looking forward to seeing what news organisation could really do with Twitter if they were given an increased level of access.
