Dave Winer's post and recent tweets about Twitter, its service and clones got me thinking.
How does Twitter generate revenue? If a clone were to emerge providing a similar service using Twitter APIs how would it it make money? Who would pay for the infrastructure? What form would that payment take if there was some commerce?
It seems to me that until Twitter establishes and reveals a business model all bets are off. Currently I can't imagine a business model (other than the old advertising chestnut). The only way I can see currently for Twitter to recover investor's money is for Twitter to sell itself and be incorporated into some other business that does have a revenue source. Then of course the whole user experience might have to change to accommodate the purchaser.
