Twitter Co-Founders Remain Quiet on Business Model

At the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference, Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams were questioned by tech reporters and audience members about their vision for Twitter and what the company may have in store. It turns out that neither co-founder wanted to go into too much detail about just how or when the company is going to attempt to monetize its rapidly growing base of millions of registered users.

At this point, the company is operating primarily from venture capital funding, with investors confident that the company will either develop a strong revenue stream or be acquired by a larger company that can leverage Twitter's user base. But so far, there have been no real developments as far as establishing a true business model for Twitter.

The site and the service are all the rage at the moment, but even co-founder Biz Stone was quick to point out that, "Pretty soon, everybody's going to hate us." While that's an exaggeration, it is true that the window for being the latest and greatest is pretty small. At some point, a new idea or a new product will emerge that will attract the masses and they shiny newness will wear off of Twitter. The trick is to lock into a revenue model before that happens.

Twitter is also rumored to be in talks with a reality television production company to develop a reality show based on people tracking celebrities through Twitter. Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have already spoken out against the idea, saying that they'd rather not encourage anymore people to stalk celebrities.