As 2009 wraps up, Twitter is expressing its most serious and visible signs to date of how it plans to convert its massive popularity into a profitable enterprise.
The latest is leaked screenshots of a new "contributors" feature, which aims to give businesses that utilize Twitter for online marketing, PR, and customer service purposes more control over their accounts. Mashable's Ben Parr explains that "Contributors is a feature that focuses on creating more authentic engagement for business accounts. With Contributors, a business account with multiple contributors (say, for example, the @Twitter feed) can add the specific user that tweeted on behalf of the business to the byline."
And Mashable again has the scoop (Jennifer Van Grove this time) on leaked screenshots that show off the beta feature, via Starbucks social media employee Brad Nelson.
For example, companies that have multiple people tweet to the same account will be able to more easily manage access. Additionally, "enhanced access" and "partial access" will enable companies to give certain people "lower level" control over accounts so that they will be able to tweet, for example, but won't be able to grant access to additional employees.
What remains to be seen is how much Twitter will charge businesses for Contributors-level accounts. Twitter has also stated that Contributors is just one of several new features in development. We'll be watching!
(this post originally appeared on Technorati)