Twitter is many things: a micro-blogging network, a social network, a fast-growing Web site, a company which is worth a fortune without making any revenue. And it’s also a wine producer and seller. No, seriously. But Twitter isn’t a company that is looking to be acquired. Although, I’m pretty sure everything has its price.

Twitter is an intriguing commodity because it’s a very popular site that isn’t actually making any money. Other people are making money from Twitter, including well-known companies which use it to promote products and offer discounts, but Twitter itself doesn’t make a bean. But that fact hasn’t stopped the company being valued at $1 billion.

It also hasn’t stopped companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook making overtures towards Twitter with an eye to an acquisition or partnership. Basically, if something is hot, everyone wants a piece of it. And Twitter is hot right now.

Rather than working out how to make money from Twitter, it seems co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams have been focusing on other things, namely making wine. According to SF Weekly, Twitter now has its own wine label in partnership with San Francisco winery Crushpad. Fledgling Wine will be selling two types of wine, both for $20 a bottle, with all profits ($5 from every bottle) going to Room to Read.

As a company that’s only 1 percent into its journey, we’re always thinking about our long term impact on the world. The Fledgling Initiative embodies two things that are at the core of Twitter’s mission: providing access to information and highlighting the power of open communication to bring about positive change.

For each bottle you buy, $5 will be donated to Room to Read, a transformational non-profit that brings books, libraries and ultimately literacy to people in the poorest areas around the world. The efforts of Room to Read will benefit literacy, and in doing so they’ll allow Twitter to grow. Because if you can’t read you can’t Tweet!

One word of warning though, don’t Tweet after drinking a bottle of Twitter wine, because like drunk texting and drunk emailing, the results can be catastrophic, especially when an ex-girlfriend is involved.

At the same time Twitter started selling wine, Stone was telling a Tokyo audience of Twitter fans that the company isn’t looking to be acquired. According to IDG, he said:

Twitter is not interested in being acquired by a bigger company. We want to build an impressive company on our own and we believe that we can.

So Twitter seems more interested in producing a good vintage, both in terms of wine and company, than it does in selling out to a bigger fish. Which is, I guess, admirable. Now if it could just start making a little bit of revenue then everyone would be happy.

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Entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 2:36 am under Amusing, Internet, Opinion, Technology.

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