Does Twitter Translate Into Japanese?

Twitter Inc. will reportedly try premium accounts in Japan through its subsidiary there, according to reports from Asia on Friday.

Media Asia reported that an official from DG Mobile, a subsidiary of Twitter's Japanese partner Digital Garage, talked about the plans at the Mobidec2009 conference.

The site said the premium accounts will show some text on tweets but charge to unlock full access to some images, external URLs and full text.

A variety of payment options are reportedly being discussed, including monthly subscriptions and pay-per-tweet.

The groups of Twitter users seen benefiting most from the plan are those who deliver real-time information, such as news organizations that provide photos, video and audio that people might pay extra for.

San Francisco-based Twitter has raised about $155 million in venture capital, including money from New York-based Insight Venture Partners and and Menlo Park-based Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.

Twitter to date has about $4 million in annual revenue from data-sharing agreements with Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., according to a recent statement by Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo.

He also said Twitter might roll out an advertising platform next year.