Twitter considers service fees, co-founders say (CBC)

[Drew Wilson]

Twitter Inc.'s co-founders say the rapidly growing online communications company will eventually charge fees for its services, but it's unclear which ones and what will drive revenue.

"There will be a moment when you can fill out a form or something and give us money," said Ean Williams, co-founder and chief executive officer.

"We're working on it right now," Williams said at the Wall Street Journal's conference D: All Things Digital.

Williams and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone mentioned possible revenue-generators, including a service that would authenticate the source of information. For example, Dunkin' Donuts could pay to make sure that impostors don't send messages under its name.

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The headline could just as easily have read, "Twitter considers suicide" if it was going to be for the whole site, but the story said for some of it's services.

In any event, watch for a Twitter clone to fill in the gaps if this stupid idea comes to fruition.

[fleecy]

they do so at their own peril...

[napho]

This is why the founders of things like this should sell and be rich. Eventually they need to make some money; free and being in the red is no business model. They're desperately looking for a way to cash in on this misleading success.

[fleecy]

true. charging user fees isn't going to work.

[RACKnRAIL]

I believe if they charge users a fee you'll see another look alike twitter pop up shortly thereafter that doesn't charge. There's always someone waiting to capitalize on someone's stupidity.

[1cooldude]

I don't use their service nor do I plan to use it now that it will come with a price.

[fleecy]

never got into that whole twitter thing. bad enough that i use facebook.

[RACKnRAIL]

never got into that whole twitter thing. bad enough that i use facebook.

ditto....except I don't use facebook either. I tried facebook for about a year. I got too many contacts (friends) I had endless messages everyday asking me to join this and join that, so I got sick of it and shut her down.

[1cooldude]

If this change does go through, I would expect a considerable drop in number of people using the service.

[drtoker]

I agree with selling, thats the way to go. Let some one else screw it up.

If they do kill it off, no big loss. It was all pointless chatter anyway, as if we didn't have enough of that when it first appeared.