We have been waiting and waiting for the pronouncements from Twitter about its next stage, the one in which the fun and frolick of freely publishing 140 characters and sharing content would reveal like magic something approaching a business model.

The idea isn't just that Twitter will identify how it will generate profit but that countless businesses and individuals will draft in behind it and reap the benefits.

Looming is a mid-April conference held by Twitter, Chirp, at which the industry largely expects (it has been wrong before) Twitter to roll out something more definitive than its vaguely worded notions for premium accounts.

The paidContent folks believe there could be announcements in five categories: advertising, e-commerce, premium accounts, mobile and search. It writes that deals have been done or are pending in many of these areas (although it notes almost nothing has been done to create an advertising model and truly nothing done on e-commerce).

Whatever the plans, they appear imminent.