The jury's still out on Twitter

The jury is "very much out" on whether social media tool Twitter can turn its growing popularity into revenue, according to one commentator.

Tim Houghton, managing director of New Media Intelligence, said that the time had come when social networks such as Twitter needed to find a way to generate revenue, but that in terms of generating page views they had been "incredibly successful".

Using the example of Facebook, Mr Houghton explained that while some 11 million Britons now had an account - 20 per cent of the adult population - it had been "very poor" at monetising this traffic as when they had tried to commercialise the site there had been revolts from the users.

"They are struggling and obviously Twitter are now having to grapple with exactly the same thing - runaway popularity but not very much in the way of revenues," he added.

Following a study by Nielsen Online, chief executive officer of the group John Burbank said that social networking is set to continue to alter both the global online landscape and the wider consumer experience.

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