Anytime a company requires a new round of investment money, you know things are not going good.

I mean, Twitter has been around for 4 1/2 years now.

And it still doesn't have a strategy to monetize its tweets?

Twitter is an example of what I've talked about on this blog a couple of times before. It's a cool idea in search of a business plan. But if you want to make money, you have to start with the business plan first...

In affiliate marketing, most of us started out publishing a pretty cool blog or website, and then later on tried to monetize it with AdSense or affiliate links, only to discover that we're not getting rich. When all along, you should have started the other way around, identifying a really good advertiser or affiliate program, and then designing a blog or website around that.

I hope Twitter succeeds. I'd hate to think that Facebook could wind up being all there is online. At least Twitter isn't trying to hog up the Internet for itself.  ✓