Twitter has finally reached profitability for the first time after signing deals with Google and Microsoft to make the micro-blogging service searchable on the Internet, BusinessWeek magazine reported on Monday. Twitter had signed a 15 million U.S.dollar data-mining deal with Google and a 10 million dollar agreement with Microsoft.
Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek magazine quoted an unidentified person, said to be familiar with the company’s financing, as saying, “The deals were huge. With two scoops of the pen, a lot of revenue came in.” The magazine said the agreements to make Twitter messages known as “tweets” searchable by Google and Microsoft’s new search engine Bing “carry sufficient value to help Twitter achieve a small profit for 2009.”
It said Twitter also achieved profitability through the renegotiating of deals with telecommunications companies in order reduce costs. Twitter has been working on ways to make money from its globally popular service since its 2006 launch. Revenue producing ideas mentioned to date include selling premium accounts that businesses could use for marketing or image building. The San Francisco-based startup has attracted millions of users since it began.