It looks like Twitter isn't going to be free anymore, at least not for everyone.

In an effort to actually make money off the service, Twitter is starting to discuss the possibility of charging for accounts that are used for commercial purposes. In an interview with Marketing Magazine, co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone said, "We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts."

The big question will be: What constitutes a commercial account?

Sure, there are tons of businesses using Twitter now that are probably making a good deal of money off the service (for instance Dell made over $1 million with its Twitter feed last year), but there are also likely to be just as many (if not more) that have Twitter accounts and aren't profiting from them. It will be interesting to see how Twitter decides who qualifies for a personal account and who will need to pay for a commercial one.

Stone's comment also makes it sound like Twitter has ideas for how to make the service "more valuable" for businesses, which may mean free users start to see some advertisements or unsolicited tweets from those businesses paying the premium price.

Twitter has been searching for a way to make money off the service for quite some time now. While the site becomes more and more popular everyday, that popularity hasn't necessarily translated into increased revenue for the business. Currently Twitter is backed by $20 million from Union Square Ventures, Digital Garage, Spark Capital, and Bezos Expeditions (led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos). The company reportedly turned down a $500 million acquisition offer from Facebook, so they have to have some idea on how they're going to start pulling in the cash.

In the same interview, Stone insisted that Twitter would not charge individual users, however starting to charge anyone (even businesses) certainly opens the door for personal accounts to be charged in the future.

Do you think charging for commercial accounts is a good idea? Would you be willing to pay for Twitter if you had to?

 

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