Twitter, a micro-blogging service that gives users an opportunity to express their thoughts in 140-character “tweets” has put social media on the map with investors this week by raising 100 million on an apparent valuation of 1 billion.This is remarkable considering that Twitter has no discernable revenue to date.

It appears the phenominal visitor growth (Nielsen; July 2000%), along with the desirability Twitter has had to the Internet giants, Facebook, Google and Microsolft has elevated the company value.

Twitter offers many benefits to consumers and advertisers. It is an efficent way to get information out and to connect and have dialogue with people you haven’t met. Micro-communication is used by businesses to enhance brand awareness, brand knowledge, and customer relationships. As an overall communications strategey Twitter has helped enhance employee engagement, improve customer service and reputation, and boost web traffic.

However despite Twitter’s success there are a group of naysayers saying Twitter’s days are numbered. Hitwise, a web analytics firm reported visits to Twitter have declined since midsummer. And, according to the BBC only 8.7% of tweets can be classified as having value.

So is it time to write an Epitaph for Twitter? Obviously the investment community doesn’t think so. They are seeing Twitter as being the next innovation on the Internet. “This investment is happening because it represents a shift” Mr Borthwick, CEO of Betaworks and an investor, stated in the New York Times. He likens the investment strategy similar to those made in Google and Facebook.

Twitter has not yet commented on how it plans to use the cash or how it will develop its business revenue model. But, it is very true that social media sites like Twitter provide a compelling attraction because they provide real-time collaborative search results. Innovation in this space is in its infancy.

You will soon be able to tap into Twitterers in your city through a new API making location-based information available. Also, Livestream’s streaming video app allows a user to loggin into their Twitter account and access Twitcam. Twitcam automatically detects whether a camera is plugged in, then creates a page and live video player for a broadcast. This can be a useful service for podcasts, live demos, reviews and web seminars.

The largest opportunity for Twitter is in the area of crowd sourcing though. There is a great story about Best Buy posting a job on Twitter for an Emerging Media Manager. They listed qualifications being, one year blogging, graduate degree, 250+ followers on Twitter. This posting raised a lot of attention amongst Twitterers and the conversation that enchewed resulted in the crowd revamping the job description. Twitter could charge brands for access to its community for a variety of needs.

Marketing VOX indicated in its study that 69% of consumers don’t know enough about Twitter so whether adoption as a marketing tool is successful depends on consumer education.