Twitter To Launch Paid Accounts From Next Year – Will It Affect The Current Social Media Scene?

Many social networks are finding ways to monetize their services so as to justify their soaring valuations. Twitter is a similar case in hand as after touching a record valuation it is doing everything possible to monetize its service without attracting ire from its users.

Paid accounts seems to be one area where Twitter is expecting huge revenues going forward. Many companies and media houses currently use Twitter as a tool to update their followers regarding news, product updates & offers. Twitter is expected to give paid users, a feedback and statistics tool to derive more value from their social media profile.

Twitter at the same time has conveyed that it will not force paid accounts on businesses and would make it a add-on service sometime next year. Many companies will like to own paid accounts on Twitter if they are given certain added advantage to know and exploit their follower base.

If Twitter could build a collection of services through acquisition of companies like HootSuite and twtpoll then it can have a viable business model in paid accounts. They should also offer lower priced accounts for small time publishers as those publishers constitutes a major chunk of Twitter users and could also board the wave if given chance.

Twitter is not just stopping at paid accounts as it also wants to leverage its tweet stream to its advantage. Co-Founder Biz Stone said that Twitter will even look at licensing its content to media companies allowing them to use twitter data stream more efficiently, a similar model recently applied by YouTube through YouTube-Direct.