Is Twitter Suddenly Profitable?
This may not be a sign of a potential economic upswing, but it’s surprisingly positive financial info nonetheless: Twitter is profitable all of a sudden. And it’s all thanks to Google.
For months the way Twitter works financially has been a bit of a mystery since its amazing popularity would’ve launched it into some profit-making scheme much sooner, or so the Web had thought. But Biz Stone repeatedly denied Twitter would be moving into a Web-advertising mode–which would have seemed the easiest way for Twitter to earn cash–and has been touting business extras like analytic tools as Twitter’s road to profitability, over the long term.
Which is why the news over at Business Week about Twitter’s profitability is so surprising. The theory is that the extremely high-profile live Tweet-feed search deal with Google (and Microsoft too) is the key: It’s earned Twitter some $25 million in licensing fees. Combined with internal cost-cutting and leveraging of Twitter’s massive popularity to reduce the fees cell phone networks charged the company for SMS-based Tweeting powers, this has resulted in a positive number on the bottom line of Twitter’s financial statement. Read full story:
