Of course, Twitter is free, and recently valued at $1bn. So far, Twitter closely follows the Google and Facebook playbook: bring the users and the data, and figure out revenues later. Skeptics believe revenues may never happen.
Felix Salmon reports they may start selling their data, with access costing several million dollars. Also, like other systems (e.g, Nasdaq, high-frequency trading), perhaps the fastest access will be provided at much higher prices.
Twitter could easily sell its data. It's not clear the super-fast data would be that much more valuable. I also question whether selling its raw data would be more valuable than selling analyzed data. Maybe they can do both; Google could use the raw data, but Sears and Southwest Airlines would want summary capsules.
Another option that occurs to me is they could tier their data. The most popular topics at any given moment would be available for only much higher prices. Breaking tweets about Obama's Nobel prize would be delayed or available only after the hysteria died down and turned into stale news.
Twitter clearly has some options. We'll have to wait and find out whether that adds up to a $1bn company.
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