Back in March, this very blog suggested five ways in which Twitter might be able to make money.

Suggestion one was entitled “Companies must pay!” and highlighted how businesses were benefiting from free advertising via the microblogging site.

Today, it has emerged that computer giant Dell has made $3m from advertising its products via Twitter, with a third of this coming in the last six months – the period in which Twitter’s popularity has exploded.

This may seem small peanuts compared to the $12.3 billion of revenue Dell earned during the first quarter of this year, but $3million is still a whole lot of moolah. And it doesn’t really seem fair that Twitter won’t see a single penny of this.

The good news for Twitter is that Dell, who had previously dismissed the idea of ever paying Twitter for its service, may be coming round to the idea that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. They’ve admitted that Twitter offers a unique service that is incredibly useful in terms of marketing.

The web is full of affiliate links whereby commission is paid to sites linking to products – it’s what makes the free-content based system viable. It seems a bit silly that one of the web’s most popular systems isn’t involved in this system.

(via PC Pro)