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By on February 24, 2010

Will Twitter Ads Be 140 Characters or Less?

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Well folks it looks like the days of advertising free tweeting may finally be coming to an end. The rumors are flying around regarding the ad platform that Twitter has in the works and is testing. Everyone is “atwitter” with this change and for good reason. Of course, until there is more than what has already been released by Twitter itself any ideas / thoughts about what Twitter ads might look like are for the imagination.

MediaPost reports on how this whole thing really started to bubble to the surface.

Twitter plans to launch an advertising platform in about a month, according to Seth Goldstein. The chief executive officer and co-founder of socialmedia.com led a panel Monday focused on the next wave of interactive advertising at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting 2010 in Carlsbad, Calif., that shed light on Twitter’s strategy.

Declining to confirm exactly when Twitter would release the platform, Anamitra Banerji, head of product management and monetization at Twitter, told MediaPost following the panel that “we are working on an ad platform, but it’s only in the test phase.”

So while Seth Goldstein picked up some pub for being the “unofficial” press release of sorts for this next phase of Twitter it is probably too early to speculate on when this will be less talk and more reality. In the meantime let’s see what people are or have been putting out there. The Washington Post reminded us of Robert Scoble’s idea of the SuperTweet he introduced back in November

Robert Scoble, for instance, suggests the idea of a SuperTweet with all sorts of metadata that pops up when part of the message is rolled over with your mouse. This data could include things such as the location of the Tweet and how many times it’s been retweeted, but it could also trigger a contextual ad triggered by certain keywords.

Other questions that need to be considered on how will these ads be paid for. Will there be an AdSense type platform for Twitter users to share in the wealth? Where will the ads appear if they are not in the stream? The list goes on and on.

What are your thoughts on Twitter ads? Are you looking forward to seeing them? Will they impact your Twitter experience? Do you have a particular format that might or might not work for you? Why not join in on the speculation and guessing. Your guess is as valid as the next guy’s right now.


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6 comments on “Will Twitter Ads Be 140 Characters or Less?”

  1. Ed Says:

    February 24th, 2010 at 8:53 am

    I think the people who are already whining
    “If Twitter has any ads, I’m leaving”, are obnoxious.
    They’ve provided this [obviously] important free platform for 1,000 days
    at great expense.

  2. Dean Says:

    February 24th, 2010 at 9:39 am

    I am interested to see how this will integrate onto mobile devices. Social Media usage is so heavily driven by mobile that it will need to become part of the ad equation. The next question of course is whether mobile users will tolerate ads on the small screens.

  3. Jaan Kanellis Says:

    February 24th, 2010 at 9:51 am

    its all about the conversion right? How well can you guess Twitter traffic will convert? I am thinking not very well, but if they can target the right users and content for each advertiser then they might have something.
    .-= Jaan Kanellis´s last blog ..Google’s Algorithm History by Wired.com =-.

  4. Mark Aaron Murnahan Says:

    February 25th, 2010 at 2:07 am

    @ Ed: I agree! In this case, I will not even feel bad if Twitter takes a hard line approach like Facebook has in a couple instances. Sure, social media has a lot to do with listening to the users, but at the same time, it does not mean a free meal. They need a well-considered monetization platform and they know that. It is why they have put it off for a long time. The sky does not fall just because they intend to have help paying for all of the service. I do not mind ads on Twitter, or ads here on this blog. People who complain about marketing are often the same people who are upset because they are doing it poorly.

    @ Dean: There are a lot of considerations to be made for that. It will be interesting to see what happens with the mobile aspects of their marketing.

    @ Jaan: I think the conversion will be small, but perhaps higher than that of a lot of the people using Twitter. :-D
    .-= Mark Aaron Murnahan´s last blog ..11 Common SEO Questions Answered by SEO =-.

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