Twitter cofounder Biz Stone made a nice collage of headlines stemming from remarks of his and his partner Evan Williams, which were published in the UK’s Marketing Magazine and in New York Magazine. The title above the collage reads, “Nothing To Report Just Yet.”

What got the press all stirred up were statements the founders made about monetizing Twitter via commercial accounts. This was very exciting given all the jazz about the microblogging network some estimate to be valued at $250-500 million despite vows to avoid advertising and lack of revenue alternatives.
The money quotes are as follows:

From Stone in Marketing Magazine:

“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.”

From both in New York Magazine:

Neither Williams nor Stone will get into the details of their revenue strategies, though each says that charging companies for brand verification (assuring users that JetBlue’s Twitter is really from JetBlue, for example) and for targeted prompts for users to join company feeds seems to make more long-term sense than straightforward web advertising, which Stone says “feels tacked on.” Another possibility would be charging users to “buy” friends’ feeds, almost like a subscription, though both executives are wary of any model that charges individual users.

 Charging companies for brand verification. Hmmm. Wonder where they got that idea?

Bygones.

Stone posted on his blog that everybody needs to cool it. They were just “thinking out loud”. . .to the press. He clarifies, sort of:

“What we’re thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services. We are still very early in the idea stage and we don’t have anything to share just yet despite a recent surge in speculation. When we do, we’ll be sure to let you know.”