I'm amazed they arent more profitable, given that Twitter has become Ground Zero for the daily (hourly? minutely?) news cycle.

Are stock exchanges highly profitable? Twitter has become the global exchange for real-time information. I suppose Twitter cant really charge a 'brokerage' fee for tweeting. That is not in their interest.

Please excuse my ignorance of Twitter's commercial offerings, but is access to the Firehose expensive? Or real-time summary of Firehose statistics relevant to your keywords? That just seems so valuable and such a singular offering....its not like there is a competing service.

I know I've misued the word minutely. But there needs to be a better word for 'minute-by-minute'.