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Monetizing twitter is a hot subject, while twitter itself has not announce any business plan (apart from its Japanese version which does have sponsored ads), plenty of twit apps, even some business twitter accounts, cheap follower-chasing software have already started making money. Nevertheless, I feel the freshly cooked TwitPub.com has its own noble approach. Hence, I “ringed” the founder Darren Prosper, who was kind enough to give me quick, insightful background information about twitPub. Following is the interview Q&A. Enjoy!

Q: 1. How did you come up with idea?

Derren: We love the concept of Twitter. It’s such a wonderful tool to share your thoughts in such a concise and focused manner – plus it’s available on the web, mobile, iphone and any of your Twitter clients. We thought the premium tweets could be very similar to premium SMS that are available in many countries. People will actually pay per premium SMS (e.g. Joke of the Day, Horoscope, Feng Shui, StockTips and etc) on their phone. The problem here is that most of the content providers needs to be established and pay a big fee to start this platform. With TwitPub, you don’t need to have a startup capital and all you need is a private Twitter account and some good content which you think people will pay to read. Initially, we started TwitPub to support professional authors but any users are free to try out now.

Q: 2. Why paid tweets? Isn’t that outrageous? How do you control the quality of “professionals”?

Darren: I think everybody love free stuffs. The idea of Free is just too compelling. But at the same time, websites and publishers can’t afford to be Free if they wish to be self sustainable in the long term. They need to generate revenue if they wish to continue to deliver better service and great content to its users. TwitPub is just an alternative way for people to support their favorite authors and content providers. E.g. if you like this finance guy who has been giving out great stock tips, then show him the support by subscribing to his premium tweets for as low as 0.99 cents a month. Each content provider on TwitPub has a rating and comments column which allows users to provide their feedback. Buyers get a standard 30 days trial which means they can choose to unsubscribe if they don’t like what they see – and they won’t get charge for that.

Q:3. (You know I will ask this). How many real users (sellers, buyers) are there? How’s growth prospect?

Darren: We’re looking to grow very fast in the near future. We’re in the midst of partnering with bigger content providers to offer more attractive content to users. The growth has been very healthy and encouraging so far.

Q: 4. How long did it take you to develop the app? Do you do it full time with funding or bootstrap?

Darren: About 2 months from conceptual, planning, development to marketing. We’re working on this fulltime with several other interesting projects to be released soon. We’re backed by some private investors.

Q: 5. Finally, What do you see as the key to the future growth? Marketing plan, partnership, technology?

Darren: The idea for TwitPub is to be the marketplace for Twitter so users can buy and sell premium tweets. We would continue to explore this interesting area to help users to monetize their content and provide better service. We know content is key, so we hope to partner with some prominent brands in the near future. As for technology, we are cooking up some new interesting stuffs that might be a game changer. So, watch out for us at www.twitpub.com. Thank you. Note: You can also reach us at info@twitpub.com