witter will struggle to make money, warns MySpace founder

Twitter will struggle to monetise its micro-blogging service, despite its recent USD1bn valuation, according to MySpace founder Brett Brewer. "I honestly think Twitter is going to have a hard time making a lot of money, certainly from advertising,” he says. “Now can they come up with other angles where people can pay money? Possibly, but it’ll be tough to justify that valuation."

Twitter recently closed a funding round worth a reported USD100m. However, Brewer believes the firm could still be squeezed out by Facebook. "If I was Twitter I’d be pretty concerned about Facebook and the products that Facebook is already launching and is going to launch that are going to make it even more Twitter like," he says.

Brewer admits that Twitter could pose a threat to Google due to its ability to publish information in real-time. He says that if Twitter search information proves to be more relevant than Google, then Google could start losing search share to the site.