San Francisco — Twitter, the popular micro-blogging platform, which has attracted tens of millions of users but has yet to make money, took another step late last week by amending its terms of service to potentially open up the free service to allow advertisers to reach its 45 million regular visitors.
“In the Terms, we leave the door open for advertising,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in a company blog post late last week.
Twitter, which empower users to assail one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has seen explosive growth since it launched publicly in August 2006 but has been unable so far to generate revenue.
“The revisions more appropriately reflect the nature of Twitter and convey key issues such as ownership.” “For example, your tweets belong to you, not to Twitter.” “We would like to keep our options open as we have said before,” Stone wrote in a blog.
The company, established two years ago, has exploded in popularity but has restrained from introducing ways to monetize its internet traffic. Its founders have said they wanted to concentrate on growth and not alienate account holders.
“There are a few reasons why we are not pursuing advertising — one is it is just not quite as interesting to us,” Stone informed delegates and members of the media at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in May.
Stone later explained in a company blog post that while running traditional banner ads were not on their radar, it would look at other interesting ways to generate revenue from its growing member base.
While announcing the revised terms of service, Stone also addressed the topics of abusive behavior and spam. These are four highlights Stone called out:
The New Terms Read: “The Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the Content or information on the Services, queries made through the Services, or other information.”
Advertising: In the Terms, we leave the door open for advertising. We would like to keep our options open as we have said before.
Ownership: Twitter is allowed to “use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute” your tweets because that is what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you.
APIs: The apps that have grown around the Twitter platform are flourishing and adding value to the ecosystem. You authorize us to make content available via our APIs. We are also working on guidelines for use of the API.
Spam: Abusive behavior and spam are also outlined in these terms according to the rules we have been operating under for some time.
San Francisco-based Twitter has been exploring various way to make money and Stone said earlier this year that one method could be charging fees for commercial accounts used by businesses to spread messages on Twitter.
In June, Twitter began handing out authenticity badges as a way to verify that people “tweeting” are who they claim to be. Such badges are seen as something businesses might be willing to pay for.
Advertising revenue is the time-honored concept for websites to generate revenue while remaining free for consumers. Earlier this year Twitter was the subject of fevered takeover speculation after the company turned down a $500 million acquisition offer from Facebook.
The importance of the advertising revision seems to indicate that the micro-blogging start-up is accommodating to an advertising-based model, a dramatic change from comments Stone made in May.
Twitter, based in San Francisco and backed by venture capital, stressed its new clause on advertising was subject to change.
Certainly the ownership message is intended to debar the user backlash created by a revision to Facebook’s terms of use that some interpreted to mean that Facebook claimed ownership of user profile data and photos.