Twitter May Top $1 Billion Sales Revenue In 2014, Bloomberg Says

Bloomberg News is citing two sources “with knowledge of the matter” in a report that suggests Twitter could reach $1 billion in sales revenue by 2014.

If accurate, that would about double previous estimates of Twitter’s sales revenues. Earlier this year, eMarketer suggested that Twitter’s 2014 ad revenue would be about $540 million, up from an estimated $260 million this year.

Although Twitter launched in 2006, it didn’t begin to monetize the service until 2010. Critics questioned if the service would ever make money; comedians did, too, with Stephen Colbert famously telling co-founder Biz Stone, “I assume that ‘Biz’ in Biz Stone doesn’t stand for ‘business model.'”

Twitter’s Promoted Tweets debuted in April 2010 with a handful of advertisers like Starbucks, Best Buy, Sony Pictures and others. Since then, Twitter’s ad efforts have expanded slowly and now include a self-serve ad platform for small businesses and continued adoption by bigger brands — including a creative ad partnership with Pepsi just announced earlier this week.