>Twitter is a medium (as in new form of media) That's crap. All this talk about twitter as a medium, twitter as revolutionizing communication, twitter as a se

>Twitter is a medium (as in new form of media) That's crap. All this talk about twitter as a medium, twitter as revolutionizing communication, twitter as a service conveniently ignores the fact that twitter is a BUSINESS. It's purpose is to make money. Everything it does is subordinate to that goal. Maybe this wouldn't be true if it was just the founder's fun project, but it's not - they took tons and tons of VC money, invested on the assumption that they would be turning a profit. It doesn't matter how popular they are, or how many viewers they have if they can't leverage that into turning a profit. In the words of Musashi - "The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him." It makes absolutely no difference how popular or revolutionary you are if it doesn't make you any money. And while in pre-internet times, when viewers translated directly into dollars (which is why it's got such high valuation), it would be a safe assumption that it will, it's far from clear that the same rule applies today. There's many huge services that aren't profitable because no one's figured out how to make money off of them yet. Saying something like "I have no doubt twitter will do very, very well" seems unjustified given the fickle nature of internet users and the fact that the rules for building a profitable online service are more alchemical than scientific at this point.