Facebook Not Charging For New Profiles – Should Twitter Though?

Every couple of months rumors start swirling around that Facebook are about to start charging for their service and in the last week since they launched their new profiles those rumors have gone in to overdrive. It’s all a hoax though with some really bad spam links out there linking to malware and there is absolutely no chance in a million years that Facebook would ever start charging for their service. They just make way too much money from having it as a free service through advertising and by taking a cut from all the apps being deployed on the platform to ever consider charging users. All this talk of paying for social media profiles got me thinking though and about Twitter in particular. As Twitter struggles to find it’s revenue model would people pay for the service?

Could Twitter Launch Pro Accounts?

Only a few months ago Twitter bought Tweetdeck with the clear intention of making it a service for power users and although they haven’t done anything with it yet they are more than likely working on it as we speak. We know that Analytics are being tested with brands at the moment but still not available to the wider public. We also know that Twitter have already sold access to their data in the past (they had a deal with Google for a year that just ran out) on a large scale so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility to think they could set up some sort of pro accounts. With brands, businesses and individuals using Twitter for everything form customer service and sentiment analysis to driving traffic and market research the data that Twitter has is clearly very valuable. If Twitter wrapped it all up in a pro account with enhanced analytical tools and additional features that might just be something that people would pay a premium for.

Would You Pay For Twitter?

I’ve been thinking about it and while there is no way in a million years that I would ever pay for Facebook I might actually pay Twitter for the service. As a publisher who relies on it not only for distribution but also for the latest and best information I find it absolutely indispensable. If the service cost say $49.99 a year to get access to more info and better tools that is something I would have no problem paying. I realize I am a power user though so I thought I’d ask you guys the readers to see if you would pay?

Can Twitter Emulate Facebook

Pro accounts are not normally the best way of making money on a large scale and in an ideal world Twitter would look to monetize in the same way Facebook has. It’s well over 5 years since Twitter launched though and they are having serious trouble making money because people use it in a completely different way to Facebook. There is no rich media or apps like there are on Facebook so any revenue will more than likely have to come from ads within the stream which will upset users. Believe it or not Facebook had similar problems monetizing a few years ago before they cracked it so all is not lost for Twitter yet. I do suspect though that quite a large amount of pro users would pay a small amount for Twitter given how important it is to them. It probably won’t happen anytime soon as Twitter continue to search for the ultimate revenue stream that can scale but it’s an interesting thought. What do you think?