Social networking site Twitter is reportedly developing plans to set up a premium account structure for businesses.

While specific plans for the accounts have yet to be solidified, Marketing Vox predicts that analytics will be among the features on offer for paying users.

Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, said the San Francisco-based site - which allows users to post messages up to 140 characters long in real time for free - has recently set the wheels in motion to develop commercial accounts by hiring a product manager.

However, he clarified the site would remain free to public users, with for-profit services developed as extras.

Twitter has a number of high-profile users. US president Barack Obama is among those who have set up an account with the social networking site, while Madonna, Lily Allen and American musician John Mayer also send out updates - known as 'tweets' - using the site.