Or maybe Twitter is brilliant

I just blogged about how Twitter’s move to ban recurring tweets is a step towards killing its business market. But it occurred to me. Maybe it’s a not a stupid misstep. Maybe Twitter is just eliminating one obstacle in its plan to support advertising and premium business accounts.

Twitter has already said it plans to serve ads in some way. Restricting users, bloggers, and businesses to a single tweet for promoting a message ensures that they can’t get any reasonable, free promotion. If Twitter offers advertising and restricts any form of repeat tweets, then the only avenue left is to pay Twitter.

That might mean Twitter charging users to advertise in the stream, allowing users to promote their message multiple times. Or it might mean charging business users for premium account services, which would then allow recurring tweets. One way or another, only those who pay will be allowed the privilege of repeating a message or a link to the same page.

As Kevin pointed out in a comment on my previous post, banning recurring tweets further moves Twitter to a two-tier class system. Those who have large followings will be more likely to have their message spread. Those who don’t have a much smaller chance.

It’s unfortunate, because Twitter has provided a nice way for smaller businesses and bloggers to get some notice. It’s helped level the playing field somewhat. It looks like that may be going to the wayside.

That gap is only likely to widen by charging businesses to advertise or charging them for premium accounts that allow better promotion. Advertising is generally done on a bid-basis. The more people who want to advertise using a given keyword or to target a given customer, the higher the price to do so. That will effectively eliminate smaller bloggers and businesses from the market.

Premium accounts might not eliminate the small guys, but it depends upon the pricing. If you have to pay more to reach more people or for more quantities of recurring tweets, smaller bloggers and businesses will drop off.

Even if this is Twitter’s plan, I think it’s not a good approach. At least not yet. I think Twitter needs a larger user base and more businesses before moving to this model. Otherwise, it’s still likely to kill its market.

What do you think?