Comments from Twitter Founder Biz Stone Suggesting Enterprise Monetization Plans....sometime in the near future

Recent comments by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone particularly how Twitter is searching for ways to make money from its popularity.

- "Twitter is planning to introduce tools for businesses by year end and may charge fees for such services," co-founder Biz Stone said.

- "We're looking at who's using Twitter and for what"

- "Are there any commercial usages that are making a lot of sense?"

- Stone said "phase one" of that effort was spent collecting intelligence on how people use the service.

- The second phase will see Twitter launching tools and services on top of free micro-blogging, aimed at companies that wish to use Twitter to message customers.

- It will be "simple stuff" such as lightweight analytics, Stone said. He reiterated the company's commitment to keeping the service free for everyone but added:

- "If there is a way we can go above and beyond, and they (companies) can improve bottom line by offering services we can offer for a fee, (we) will do that."

Visitors to Twitter jumped 83 per cent in April from the previous month, to reach 17 million, according to comScore data.

techcrunch - twitter Reaches 17 million visitors in April based on Comscore Data

Twitter Reaches 17 million page views based on Comscore Data on techcrunch which is a significant increase in domestic traffic from March which clocked in at 9 million views.

Average time on the site is roughly 8 minutes which is significantly lower than other social networking sites like Facebook. Retention rates are two times lower than where Facebook and Myspace were when they were starting out according to Nielsen per below.

What other features are in store for Twitter?