As much as I think it would be a mistake for Microsoft to acquire Yahoo, it would have been a great deal for Yahoo's shareholders, and Yang was silly to reject the proffer on those grounds. Now we see that Evan Williams is bringing the same kind of management to Twitter:

Serious talks between the Facebook social network and the Twitter microblogging service started soon after Mr. Williams took over as chief executive on Oct. 16. Twitter reportedly rejected Faceboo's $500 million, mostly stock offer several weeks ago.

There's no sign of a revenue model for Twitter, and - despite the fantasy theories of advertising cheerleaders - an ad model simply isn't the answer (how many people follow tweets on the website anyway?). Unless he has a subscription scheme up his sleeve, I can't see how he plans to make money. This idea:

Mr. Williams said that Twitter gets daily calls from companies who want to pay for sponsorships, but it plans to avoid making money from ads. Instead, it will figure out a way to charge businesses who use Twitter to talk with customers or sell products. Companies like JetBlue Airways, Dell and Whole Foods Market have used Twitter in these ways.

Just makes no sense to me. Hey, Earth to Evan: Many of already use Twitter that way, and we don't pay for it. Why would I sign a contract to pay for something I get free? How would you differentiate one class of user from another? The only way that would work is if Twitter charged some kind of subscription fee for all users. However, I think I see the basic problem:

So far, though, "we haven't studied the business cases much," he said. "We literally have no business people in the company, so this isn't an area we're really focused on."

So that leaves two basic questions: First, what kind of idiot venture capitalist gives money to people who have no business plan? Probably the same kind who would offer a sub-prime mortgage to someone who can't possibly pay it back. Second, what kind of idiot starts a business with absolutely no idea how to make money? Offering a free service with no usage restrictions makes it easy to get users, but it's hardly the stuff of genius.