IT contractors have been warned about the importance of monetising their products early.

Jason Falls, social media consultant and blogger at socialmediaexplorer.com, claimed that services like Twitter have waited too long to successfully generate revenue.

He said that this company will face difficulties finding ways to drive this without alienating the user community it has already attracted.

"There are derivatives they can grab onto. Having an app store and making developers pay for access to the application programming interface might be one idea," he explained..

Mr Falls claimed that the key is to ensure that IT contractors do not wait too long before planning these features.

Earlier this month, Twitter announced that it was looking for new staff to help it monetise its micro-blogging websites.

Mr Falls claimed that the fact so many apps have been developed without money exchanging hands means that it has allowed these to gain access to user bases that it cannot reach itself.