Hey Twitter, Now You're Worth US1Bil Can I Have A Loan?

I have a Twitter account, which officially makes me the most 2.0'est member of Deflux. And it's the word on everyone's lips it seems as Twitter announced over the weekend that they won't be selling the company to one of the giants of the online landscape anytime soon. Seemingly they've locked in US$100 million in finance to allow them to operate whilst they investigate possible business models - of which you'd have to think targeted advertising would be at the top of the list, although they themselves pointed to fees for commercial accounts and selling demographic/ user trend info.

Valued at a hefty US$1 billion - despite not actually making a profit yet - Twitter can improve it's tech base and employ more staff with the cash injection, as it is prone to outages here and there. And they always have the fallback option of being bought - they turned down Google and M$ earlier this year -  however if they themselves can turn a profit that valuation look set to soar.

Meanwhile Twitter seems to be one of those odd technologies - media reports famous people joining everday it seems (OMG! JK Rowling is on Twitterz!), whilst moderately recent reports put Twitter retention rates at 40% - so 60% don't return after a month of signing up.

Meanwhile businesses still scratch their heads about how and when to join yet another social battlefield! Perhaps the best advice is to remember that social spheres are more about raising brand profile and sentiment and less about selling product... which can be a hard sell from our side of the fence to prospective business users!