The microblogging site Twitter was up and running long before it gained the attention of the masses. For several years the site ran while most people had never even heard of it. Then in 2008 the social site really gained some notoriety. Traffic and usage began to explode, and so did the third party apps.
Tools like Sponsored Tweets allowed people to generate revenue from tweeting about advertisers content. Autofollowing, and follower applications allowed people to amass thousands of targeted “friends” on the site. Before long it seemed like a majority of the sites traffic was really nothing more than spam.
So what does Twitter do next? How can they legitimize their business model now that it has been taken over by spammers and affiliate marketers? The most logical first step would be to add some sort of verification program to their interface. This way, real users could ask their followers to verify their human qualities through, say, entering a Captcha code. Once you know that Twitter is asking people to verify themselves, the system becomes much more legitimate. Twitter could then create a proprietary advertising platform to allow for some paid tweets. They could even charge advertisers a premium for utilizing Tweeters who are verifying their followers as humans.
Whatever they decide to do, there is no doubt that something must be done to alleviate the system of spammers. It is simply getting to bogged down.