Tell HN: If I ran Twitter, this would be my business model.

[GroupRefer]

I may be crazy for doing this post and may be missing something very obvious, but I can't help feeling Twitter itself doesn't realize how big a part it can play in social discovery.

These days, most of the information you come across is through your social network and this will only increase. The articles you read through HN or Reddit or those new FB Open Graph Media Apps.

But Twitter has always been the best at spreading news fast. It literally feels like wildfire. And yet, they have made no effort to monetize this aspect. I see Twitter as this micro publishing tool for anyone with an account. People with a lot of followers, especially celebrities get paid huge amounts for certain tweets promoting products. But why does it matter how many followers you have? If i was Twitter I'd be applying the Google Adwords mixed with an Affiliate program model.

People could pick and choose ads they wanna feature within their tweets or for those who don't websites could link your twitter account to every time you tweet one of their articles, and just like a Google Adwords ad, you would get paid for any one who clicked your tweet and linked back to the website. This is what Dropbox does in a Referral program way where you have your unique link and every time someone signs up you get additional free space.

This is true Klout, because that is the most important information to a brand. Today, anyone can become a referrer of information, you don't even need a website anymore, and Twitter should really look at linking the referrers to media websites or big brands or SME's that work with Google. They should treat each individual account as Google treats a publisher with a website. Instead of brands doing Google Ads, i think they would much rather compensate real people doing it in real time within their sphere of influence. Today, if Paul Graham tweets something with a link, lots of people will click it, so why shouldn't he be compensated for that?

But What do I know?

[kalistoga]

You are missing so many things very obvious that I don't even know where to start.

1. Twitter is already doing ads, and they are not sharing revenue with their users. 2. Why would Twitter share revenue with users when they don't need to? 3. There have been a handful of companies that tried to do something like what you described. 4. Letting users generate revenue messes with the value of the network itself.

... and a ton more reasons.

[GroupRefer]

Google used to do ads and then stared sharing revenue with Publishers. Would love to know more about the other companies doing what I described and why they have not worked.