Todd Chaffee, a board investor for Twitter and general partner at Institutional Venture Partners, has suggested to The New York Times that the site may incorporate a means for advertisers to target customers by their desires in real-time — then send direct messages proffering discounts and special offers.

Conceptually, the microblogging service would wed e-commerce to the generous product advice that already comes from users. Mobile phone shopping may also be a development area.

For example, a user who uses Twitter to arbitrarily express his desire for a burger may be sent a message featuring a personal offer from a burger franchise, says TwitteRadar.

Numerous companies are already on Twitter to monitor customer buzz, make their online ads more engaging and manually offer discounts, promotions and tech support to followers. Users also trust Twitter friends as sources for product recommendations and movie reviews. In his view, Twitter’s evolution as a one-step shopping resource is imminent.

More than eight in 10 Twitter users, most of whom represent small businesses, expect their company’s use of the popular microblogging tool to increase in the next six months, according to a survey from MarketingProfs.