The technology behind what has been called the "twitter revolution" in Iran is still looking for a business model. Could it be not-for-profit?

Imagine a triangle.

In one corner you have a company, twitter, with a great technology for nurturing global conversations, but which has yet to identify a business model commensurate with its technology's reach.

In another corner you have the problem of the "digital divide" or "digital exclusion" whereby the benefits of computer technology and particularly the Internet are out of the reach of the majority of the world's population.

In the third corner you have the right to free speech, and the example of Iran as a situation where free speech is both the end and the means of a people seeking to set the terms of their own political future.

Have the current events in Iran - whatever their outcome - shed light on the convergence of these three concerns?

At the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003, delegates declared:

"We reaffirm, as an essential foundation of the Information Society, and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers."

The role being played by twitter in events underway in Iran underscores the relevance of this paragraph from the 2003 declaration. In a world where we have the technology to enable human beings everywhere to add their voice to a global digitally-enabled conversation, should not every human being have the right to be heard in that conversation?

What the people at twitter have created here has the potential both to support the fulfillment of a human right, and simultaneously to extend our conception of that right.

The company's team have every right to capitalize on their innovation in any way they see fit. I wonder though, whether they could consider another possibility befitting something of such potential value to the planet's voiceless: to develop twitter as a social enterprise or foundation.

As a foundation, the purpose of using twitter to help make the right of access to digital communications a reality could take priority over profit. It is a purpose that the world's major development agencies and foundations should be willing to fund.

Base of the Pyramid (BoP) business models notwithstanding, the pursuit of profit will not lead twitter to the people whose rights stand to gain the greatest ground by being brought into this conversation.