Twitter going all out to make money
Twitter which has now signed up more than 100 million users, outlined on Wednesday several revenue-generating initiatives, declaring that making money was now a primary goal. The popular Internet service hopes to snag hundreds of millions more users in coming years by making the service easier, integrating Twitter directly into Web sites and focusing more on customizing the service for mobile devices.
At the company’s first conference for Twitter developers on Wednesday, CEO Evan Williams said generating revenue was among the key priorities going forward — a change of tone for a firm that had previously said it focused mainly on improving the user experience.
The comments come a day after Twitter rolled out a new advertising program dubbed “Promoted Tweets,” its first attempt to make money from its service and a milestone on the path toward an initial public offering.
“Money is important,” Williams said during a special talk at the event devoted to monetization. “It takes a hell of a lot of money to run Twitter. There has to be a very solid revenue stream underneath this to fuel it.”
While the fledgling advertising program unveiled this week now has just five advertisers in a trial run, Stone said in an interview that the company believed the new ad service represented one of the primary businesses that would finance the company’s operations going forward.
