how to monetize twitter

I figured out how Twitter is gonna monetize. Actually it’s pretty elegant, if I do say so myself.

There are other products and services sprouting up around twitter. They all use the twitter API to extend and enhance the basic twitter services. The natural response is head scratching and wondering “why doesn’t twitter do these things, or buy these other companies and incorporate these fabulous enhancements?”

That is to say, when you start using these other services, you realize how much the basic twitter interface stinks.

So, here’s the plan:

Twitter will always stay very simple, perhaps even frustrating, but free. Then they will charge others to access the API. Other services built on the back of twitter will try a wide variety of options to fund the service. Some will offer enhanced services for pay, some will offer lower-grade services for free, but with advertising, etc. In any case, it will create a competitive environment which will, through the magic of natural selection, find the best solution for funding the twitter service.

Often the best solution to a hard problem is to create a market, and let the market find the solution. Genetic programming.