I think it probably would have. Twitter was originally started as a side incubator project within Odeo.com (it became obvious corp). Three guys, @noah, @jack, and @csshsh (florian) were working on it day and night. They basically lived at the office, focused on getting something working quickly, had a good set of ideas and some examples of how it could work. From initial idea to working prototype was just a few days. They even had a business model, which was thrown out, to make money via sms from the carriers. Later as it grew, not having a business model and focusing on the platform, tools, scaling, and community made more sense.
On the one hand, the idea is an intriguing one (especially if the demo was already up and running), and the founder of Twitter had a stellar background considering Blogger. On the other hand: revenue plan?<p>But the guys who made Twitter weren't planning to make it into a business. It was just a cool idea that they had and expanded on.