One of the most common approaches to building an application in recent times is a combination of Agile Design and Extreme Programming. The basic premise is this:

- get a prototype out as soon as possible

- iterate constantly to keep up with changes in design

In other words, get a product out, worry about other stuff later. Twitter was developed like this – it started out as a side project, but then became a big deal. Because of this, the amount of time the Twitter team spends on stuff other than iterating through designs of Twitter is almost nil. This is the kind of time that could be spent putting together a business model. When you look at it like this, Twitter’s approach to development (with respect to a business model) is reminiscent of Bill O’Reilly:

F**k it! We’ll do it live!

People are criticising Twitter for not having a business model, but I think it’s fine. Biz Stone said something in his Stephen Colbert interview last week that I thought was really telling of how Twitter works on the inside at the moment:

We’re recognising a difference right now… between profit and value, and we’re building on value right now.

This totally connects with me and with how I feel about designing and developing applications – worry about having a good product, and the rest will (hopefully) take care of itself. After all, isn’t it better to have a popular application that doesn’t currently have a way of making money than an unpopular application that you’re sure you can monetise if you just get a big-enough user base? It is, because you have control over how you can monetise something – you have no control over whether or not your audience thinks your application is cool. I’d rather take the popular application, because it’s probably easier to make money from something than make that same thing popular.

Of course, then the question becomes one of how you stay afloat while developing the product and not making any money – well, that’s outside the area of my expertise, but I know it’s probably a little bit easier when you’ve got $15M up your sleeve, a group of patient investors and a gargantuan user base.