Twitter confirms it will have paid-for business accounts

Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone has confirmed that the microblogging site will offer paid-for business accounts this year.

In an interview with the BBC, Stone revealed that business accounts will be the one of the first things Twitter will do in its aim of offering commercial services to make money.

It confirms quotes attributed to Stone last August, which said that it was already in the first stages of working to roll out commercial accounts.

"Twitter will always be free to everyone whether commercial or personal, but you'll be able to pay for an additional layer of access to your account," he said.

"You can learn more about your Twitter account," he added. "Get some feedback and analytics."

Stone also said that Twitter could potentially make money from the "licensing and syndication" possibilities of its open content.

"The idea that we can give away this real-time feed of data to other companies like Google and Bing, in order for them to create a better experience for searching Twitter," the co-founder said.

Stone said that the growth potential for Twitter was massive.

This was because its DNA was in mobile devices, and there were billions of mobile phones active around the world that could use the service - which doesn't need a high-powered phone to work.

"When we see the potential for growth we see over four billion mobile phones active around the world as compared to the 1.6 billion active web accounts," Stone said.

"When you look at this together you see a very broad potential for growth with Twitter," he added.

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Read on for our guides on using Twitter for business, as well as the top Twitter tools for business, and our list of the best Twitter mobile apps.