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Micro-blogging service Twitter - which enjoyed incredible user growth over the past few months - will continue to steer clear of advertising as a source of revenue, according to founder Biz Stone.

Earlier this year, bloggers speculated that Twitter may begin to monetize the site by inserting advertisments directly into users' conversation streams - a rumor Stone quickly denied. In vague terms, Stone suggested Twitter may at some point charge for premium services, but reiterated that the service's existing features would always remain "free to use by everyone."

In a blog post yesterday, Stone asserted that Twitter has plenty of cash and is in no rush to develop a business model — which will not include advertising.

So how will Twitter make money?

Stone added that the service's value should be judged, not by its traffic - which grew 131% in March to 9.3 million visitors - but as a tool to "facilitate connections between businesses and individuals."

Last summer Twitter CEO Evan Williams stated that the service's strongest revenue potential would come from charging for commercial use by brands.

To analyze how to develop these paid services, the company hired a full-time product manager, Stone said. Early ideas for non-ad-driven monetization include account authentication, management tools, and discovery mechanisms.

Stone was careful to note that Twitter does not "hate" advertising and is not philosophically opposed to it. "It's a huge industry filled with creativity and inspiration," he wrote diplomatically, leaving unspoken the sentiment that it's simply not the right direction for his company.

Executive hems and haws aside, Twitter will likely experiment with different advertising strategies to find the model that's the best fit, observes TechCrunch (via the Washington Post). Tested strategies shall reportedly include home page text ads, direct insertion in the stream and text footer ads.