A few days back, we tweeted an article we found that spoke to Twitter’s plans to go back to marketing to the private individuals, who utilise their service.  We also added to that tweet that it would take more than just marketing to keep the private user happy.  It’s clear now, after the most recent announcement from Twitter that their struggle to monetize the platform and yet still cater to the individual, is larger now than ever.  Twitter has announced that they will move to add advertising in your Twitter stream and nothing says poor user experience, than adding disruptive advertising, amongst the content users have aggregated, through following their friends and services they care about.

Twitter claims that they will only show relevant advertisers amongst a users stream, but their ability, thus far, to source users who I should follow has been poor at best, so I am doubtful of how relevant these advertisers will be.

Yes, it’s true, Twitter has 300 million users and their round table conversations are filled with sourcing ways to monetize their user base, but the risk they run is depleting that base number, with a disruptive ad model.

Will the next step be offering a fee-based service where users have to pay a monthly fee, to not see ads in their stream?  Regardless, and as we’ve stated before, moves such as this from the folks at Twitter are making it easier for competitive micro-blogging services to come on the market.  The question is, who will step up to the plate?