“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.”

This is a company that was reported to have turned down a $500 million acquisition offer from Facebook – but probably not because they wanted to be a nonprofit. They knew (or at least hoped) that the site would eventually be worth a LOT more than that, once they figured out what sort of revenue streams they could generate, of course.

Back in December, CNET wrote an article about Twitter’s co-founder and CEO Evan Williams having a plan for generating revenue, just not telling anyone what it was yet. There were hints at generating fees from sales-related Twitter content and from corporate users. Looks like they’re still hinting at it.

It’s all very cloak and dagger at this point, which is fine, since it’s not a public company (although this guy clearly wants them to be) and it’ll help build interest. Williams is someone who co-founded Blogger and claimed, in the CNET article, that Twitter will dwarf Blogger.

The traffic numbers are beginning to support that claim. According to Alexa’s Twitter profile, it was the 224th ranked site in the world yesterday, based on a combined measure of page views and users (reach). Its three-month change in ranking is 376. Its reach has gone up 65.5% in three months and its page views per user has gone up 41.9% in that same time period. Those are some pretty big numbers for a site that was already pretty popular back in November.

But the question remains – does popularity equal dollar signs, especially in this economic environment?

UPDATE: After digging around on the Net a bit, I found out that hours after the Marketing article appeared, Stone denied that report – on Twitter’s blog. Oh, the intrigue.

“Was thinking that if each of us helped just 1 person find a job, we could start making a dent in unemployment. You game?”

He had a lot of followers on Twitter, most of whom were experts in the human resources sector, and the response was immediate and positive. Soon after that initial post, he came up with the name JobAngels. That was on January 29. Today, 11 days later, there are more than 1,000 followers on the group’s Twitter page, an article on About.com by Alison Doyle (the job search expert there), along with groups on both Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as, I’m guessing, many other blog postings.

On Twitter, the group welcome people to find someone to help out (which I’m researching now) and to submit a Tweet about themselves if they’re looking for work (which I did today). I have no idea how much I’ll be able to help other people or if I’ll get any responses to my posting. And while, sure, it would be great if something did happen, I’m more inspired by the fact that one person was able to start something of a mini-movement simply by one message to a group of people. That’s the beauty of social networking and Web 2.0 in general. A community of people from across the country or around the world, each of whom is willing and hopefully able to help others out, especially in a time of need.

Having been unemployed since mid-November, I know what it’s like. Inspiration is tough to come by these days. It’s easy to let yourself get down, especially when you read the news stories about all those unemployed people. That’s why it was so refreshing to find out about this group. I’m really hoping I’ll be able to help some people out, because I can say from experience that every little bit counts. And it’s such a wonderful opportunity to help, too.

If you can, please join JobAngels and help spread the employment love.

But, thankfully, the site simply provides a way to share videos with a shorter URL, a la tweetburner, etc.

I’m by no means a Twitter expert, but having spent a little more time there of late, I’m noticing how many more links outside of the site are popping up in people’s messages. When I first got on the site, it seemed to be mainly about what people were doing (or not doing).

“Eating at Rick’s. The service here sucks. And this hamburger smells like foot. Why is the waiter smirking…?”

“Picking the kids up at school, contemplating the meaninglessness of my existence.”

“That bitch did NOT just look at my man.”

And now that I’m following more people, more and more are posting links to news items, funny stories, etc. Maybe the little things in life aren’t enough to entertain people or this is just the natural transition of Twitter. Will there eventually be videos embedded into the site? Would Twitter then collapse in upon itself?

Well, as the article mentions, there are sites such as 12 Seconds and Seesmic that are specifically for posting very brief videos. But people don’t “Tweet” there so much as they briefly vlog.

Okay, let me just step back and mention that my brain just went a little haywire. I’m finding this happens on almost a daily basis as I realize how far behind the times I am online (or how clearly I’m showing my age).

Back in ’98 (11 YEARS AGO!! There went my brain again.), I started working for a company where I surfed the Web all day, as did all my coworkers, so we all knew the Web ridiculously well. Sure, the Web was a lot less packed than it is today, but there was still a ton of stuff and we all had a pretty good grasp of the newest, coolest sites. It’s what we were paid to do. But now – zoinks!

This is not to say sites like Tweetube, 12 Seconds or Seesmic shock me. I guess it’s just coming to grips with the realization that there’s no way I’m going to truly catch up. Technology is coming at us too fast and won’t stop. It’s something that was brought home by an article I read about Ray Kurzweil in the most recent Rolling Stone. Pick it up if you have the chance. There are some mind-blowing possibilities in the near future.

Let’s face it, though, should I really expect to keep up? I mean, writing this blog is my attempt at that very pursuit. I’m sure within six months, a year, I’ll have a much better idea of what’s out there – and realize how much I’m unaware of. What did  Socrates say? “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.”

I suppose my hope is that Twitter doesn’t stray too much from its current raison d’etre. Many times, there is beauty in simplicity.

Since I have accounts on each site, I didn’t need convincing on what those benefits are, because I’ve seen them myself – at least Facebook’s and LinkedIn’s.

For Facebook, I’ve:

• reconnected with a bunch of people from high school who I hadn’t talked to in a long time as we get ready for an upcoming reunion
• kept up with friends from all over the globe
• finished 10th out of 500,000+ in one of the weekly poker tournaments!

And on LinkedIn, I’ve:

• connected with people I otherwise wouldn’t have through the various groups I’ve joined
• targeted potential referrals as I look for work
• been contacted about a freelance job that, while it didn’t work out, gave me hope that possibilities do exist there

Twitter, meanwhile, I’m bad about. In the six months since I’ve joined, I’ve made a total of three updates – and the first one was on election night. I guess I have yet to understand the utility of it. I’m much more likely to make updates on Facebook, since more people I know are on it than on Twitter (at least that I’m aware of), so it’s like Twitter is, dare I say, overkill. And it’s not as if I haven’t tried, either: I even have a Twitterrific app on my iPhone, but it tends to get lost among my other apps (which include Facebook and LinkedIn). I think the solution is to merge my Twitter and Facebook accounts – then read through Lemley’s article again about its benefits.

I’d be interested to hear about what sites other people use in their social networking pursuits.