The Twitter Guys Gaze into the Future…

Twitter’s co-founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, kicked off this year’s D: All Things Digital conference, run by The Wall Street Journal.

Twitter founders said they did not want to sell the company and saw themselves running it five years from now. “We’re building Twitter and building an innovative company,” Mr. Stone said. “We are 100 percent into Twitter.” Mr. Williams, Twitter’s chief executive, said he was modeling the firm after Microsoft and Apple and was willing to navigate tough times to build a long-term business.

The pair endorsed a few options, like giving companies and heavy users enhanced features for a fee. This could include charging them to get introductions to new followers. The founders also suggested that for a fee they would embrace the challenge of trying to authenticate a company or person’s identity (…as in “is ‘Dunkin’ Donuts’ the Dunkin’ Donuts”?).