SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter’s founders still haven’t decided how to cash in on their popular Internet messaging service — to the delight of a rapidly growing audience. But the deliberate approach may not prevent a gold rush among opportunistic outsiders.
Lolplaying, the maker of a new role-playing game on Twitter called 140 Mafia, is trying to explore Twitter’s moneymaking potential with Super Rewards, a “virtual currency” service that already has been reaping revenue from various forms of online recreation.
The alliance was announced Tuesday at a social-gaming conference in San Francisco.
Super Rewards gives players of online and mobile games ways to gain the upper hand against their opponents. The price: a fee, or a willingness to accept offers from advertisers.
It has proved to be a lucrative model at Facebook and My- Space, as well as on the iPhone. Now Super Rewards co-found- er Jason Bailey is confident it will pay off on Twitter as 140 Mafia attracts more players. He already is impressed with the results since Super Rewards quietly began selling extra points and additional powers to “tweeple” this month when 140 Mafia’s text-based take on organized crime made its Twitter debut.
