Smoke on the water

Twitter's Biz Stone (via CrunchBase)

At the recent Web 2.0 conference, Twitter search deals were announced with both Microsoft and Google, something I was pleased to see given about a week earlier I had made the prediction in Digital Strangelove (slide 178) that a deal was imminent with one of them - turns out it was both.

Twitter's Biz Stone has gone on the record saying of all the options they are considering for a revenue model, advertising is the least appealing. My feeling on that statement is this: either they changed their minds, or they've done a deal to monetise the most natural part of their business while they think about the avenues they're truly interested in pursuing. It's akin to having a field of lavender and making a deal with local photographers to let them take pictures, all the while trying to figure out what you really want to do with all that crop.

I could be over-complicating things, an activity that is a favourite of mine as many an ex-girlfriend will attest. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is famous for saying he had little interest in a feature, such as video on an iPod, before revealing it the next quarter. I can't help but feel the web is so eager to answer Twitter's revenue question for them that they've jumped on the first clue that appeared and cried "Case closed!"

Call me paranoid, this one stays open in my book.