Twitter.org? Facebook.org?

Twitter should be a non-profit, says Bo Peabody of Village Ventures -- never mind the last $100 million in venture capital and the $1 billion valuation from Twitter's investors. "A visit from the pope may attract a large audience, but it's not a great place to make money," he wrote last month in an op-ed in the Washington Post. "Likewise, social networks can successfully bring people together, but don't expect them to turn a profit." Peabody should know, as he goes on to explain. In 1995, he founded one of the Internet's first social networks -- Tripod -- which by 1998 had become the eighth largest site on the Web. But even though users flocked to Tripod, advertisers failed to follow.

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