What's missing from the Twitter funding announcement: Revenue

There was something missing in the news of Twitter's latest funding round, and the blog post by co-founder Biz Stone welcoming Jeff Bezos and the other new investors. It was in the following section:

"Twitter will become a sustainable business supported by a revenue model. However, our biggest opportunities will be worth pursuing only when we achieve our vision of Twitter as a global communication utility."

Did anyone else scratch their heads after reading that? I mean, doesn't it seem strange to be throwing lots of money behind a revenue-starved communication network based on casual, fleeting text exchanges between a tiny population of heavy Web users?

Doesn't anyone remember the bad 'ol days of the late 1990s, when the mantra at many Web startups was to build out the product and userbase, and figure out a sustainable revenue model at some undertermined point in the future? We profiled some of these companies in our "Where Are They Now" special, yet now we're seeing the same thing happen again with Twitter. I know Google likes to build or buy things first and figure out how to monetize them later, but at least they have hundreds of millions of search users and billions of dollars flowing into their bank accounts thanks to Adsense and Adwords. Twitter has nothing -- except for a relatively small group of fanatical users, and a group of deep-pocketed investors who have faith that the buzz will eventually turn into bucks.

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

• Prediction: Twitter starts serving ads stateside
• Analysis: Is Twitter worth $75 million? $150 million? How about none of the above?
• Analysis: Just 200,000 active Twitter users?
• Analysis: Twitter: Fanatical users help build the brand, but not revenue
• Special Feature: Where are they now? The Industry Standard tracks down 10 dot-coms from the Web bubble of the late 1990s