Twitter has started to advertise a number of applications using the small box on profile pages that it first introduced earlier this month. Before today Twitter had reserved the space for links to its own services like Search, but now they are advertising a number of sites and apps, including Tweetie, a popular iPhone client.
Other links popping up include Twittervision and ExecTweets, which was first announced earlier today.
The ads are unobtrusive, and they’re promoting useful applications that are all Twitter-related so they blend nicely with the page. The question now is how much money is actually changing hands – John Battelle writes that Federated Media is sharing some of its revenues from ExecTweets, but also notes that Twitter has a history of promoting apps it finds interesting without getting paid for it.
Update: Tweetie developer Loren Brichter says that he actually isn’t paying Twitter a cent to get featured on the site. Twitter came to him, explaining that it wants to promote projects like Tweetie which promote “variety, relevance, and value” (apparently a number of Twitter employees use the app).
I guess you had to figure this was coming at some point. I still think the content that twitter has is huge and at some point they’ll be able to monetize the content. I guess it is important to try and come up with a business model early and up front.
Hopefully the ads don’t get too crazy though. Subtle ones like these ones are fine by me.
Yup I agree, keeping the ads subtle and integrated with the site isn’t bad at all. These look pretty good
I agree with you that small adds are nice, but lets face it, Twitter has to make money somehow. We can’t really get mad when the real adds start showing up.
The guys didn’t make twitter out of the kindness of their heart. They are running a business and they have to make money somehow. I can deal with adds if it gives me Twitter.
@Nathan – That’s definitely true; we can’t blame Twitter for any money making schemes in the future. What we can blame them for is if they screw up the user experience however.
Twitter’s interface is simply and speedy. If they start putting up graphic-heavy ads it’s going to screw up both of those traits.
I’m sure the guys at Twitter are smarter than that though.
Like bullshit will Twitter make enough money from these ads (or any) to cover their expenses.
Dream on, ‘tards.
Yeah because having each quarter in the red just to please people like you with ’subtle’ ads is a winning business plan. Go back to smoking weed and pretending you can live off the internet, kid.
Okay, maybe ’subtle’ was the wrong word. But, there doesn’t need to be ads like you see on MySpace with flashy graphics and annoying sound effects.
I’m sure Twitter can work out something where the ads are not dominating the interface but relevant and interesting enough to be profitable for themselves and the advertisers.
@David: You’re ’sure Twitter can…be profitable’ mostly because you’re a hick from down under with poor grasp of how advertising on the internet works. Pennies of revenue on their expense dollar. That’s not profit (try hard to remember 1st grade arithmetic).
On the contrary, I reckon there are a number of ways they can integrate ads that are neither non-obtrusive and profitable:
1. As suggested by many people, an Adwords-style system on the results pages for searches. Surely companies like Zappo’s would pay to be advertised whenever someone searches for “shoes”.
The ads themselves could link to a landing page as most PPC engines work, or Twitter could let users sponsor the search result page so a link to their Twitter profile is prominent (a way for them to get more followers).
2. Contextual ads in general on all pages would work fairly well. For example, if I tweet about a book I’ve just bought an ad for that book might appear in the sidebar of anyone who is following me and reading my tweet. These ads wouldn’t even have to be from advertisers themselves – Twitter could link to eBay listings, Amazon products etc. And I’m sure Twitter could negotiate better rates than the average affiliate.
The old fashioned CPM advertising model may not work too well with Twitter (unless they screw up the simplicity/speed of the interface) but you shouldn’t discount the various monetization possibilities available.
Heck, stepping away from traditional banner/block advertising Twitter could insert their affiliate link into every link that points towards Amazon, eBay etc. That would surely generate thousands of affiliate sales per day (I’ve bought quite a few things off of the recommendation of people I follow). There would obviously have to be disclosure when it came to that, and maybe it wouldn’t cover every expense, but it’s just another one of those many options.
@David: your Twat-like fanboiism is remarkable. Are you sure your testicles have descended?
I don’t consider it faboiism.
Yes, I am a fan of Twitter because it allows me to keep track of people whom I’m interested in, but all I’m doing is leaving comments in regards to the article which just so happens to relate to advertising on Twitter.
Readers of the article have responded to my comments so I’ve replied to them. It’s merely a discussion about potential monetization methods that Twitter could employ – something I feel is appropriate seeing this is the comments section.
Having an opinion != fanboiism.
True, but they’re doing the right thing in promoting their own apps. Spreading the use of twitter to other sources. I wonder what their next will be?
TechFilipino
It kind of makes you wonder what the investors get to see in closed room sessions when the Twitter product road map is on display. I bet whatever it is there is a nice set of behind the curtain switches to throw at any given time. I also bet it has more to do with drilling down in ways Summize doesn’t expose to the regular casual user.
We’ve already seen the Twitter “will charge for accounts” meme that most free perpetual beta services have. What’s next in the series of paranoid meme’s? These meme’s speak to the sizing maturity or expectations of a collection of users. Passionate eyeballs return for more.
Here’s to monetize strategies that doesn’t clobber the user experience… just ones that spook users out if it becomes a point of disclosure in a 10k filing one day.
I think they are just in testing mode to know like what reaction they get on that ‘Advertising’ thing. If it works good. Then probably they might start charging for ads.
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
I don’t get it : how will they monetize this sort of ads in the future if they promote Twitter clients ?
It’ has been a while since I haven’t visited the original Twitter page and i guess only half users are using the original web interface.
yeah we all seen it coming
It was pretty clear because all social networks have them, i mean just look at myspace or faceboook. They are full with irrelevant advertisements. They are still good because the ads are small and they don’t interrupt you because they are in text. I still like twitter.
Mohammad Afaq
Free Website Traffic
I like it. it exposes users to new twitter products without serving nonsensical ads about free iPods. Twitter does have to make money…. If this is ads on Twitter I applaud their ingenuity in the mater.
I agree, maybe we’ll learn about some cool twitter apps through the ads…
“Well, we knew it was coming.”
What did we know was coming? Ads?
I’d wager none of these devs have paid for this space and most likely it’s just being used to show all the different options available for the thousands of new users each day.
It is mind blowing that facebook (the post we all just read before this) and twitter can’t monetize their traffic better…That apparently will always be Google’s gem
Of course… They just have to tweak it again and again… Google’s traffic came for a purpose, to actually find information, be it in the search page or in the paid results…
Facebook and Twitter people come mostly to interact yes? But it’s said that the number of views from a social networker is tons higher than a searcher… So once they get it right, they’ll see the revenue shoot up… But from the way all of us see it now, there’s little ways of them doing so…
I just wanna chat with my friend…
Ad industry treats Internet like a retarded child, but I guess being inert is human trait. They all want to get paid for actual clicks but why should I as an ad space provider care if someone clicks on the ad especially boring or annoying flashy one? I just provide the page views!
I guess we all have to wait for regular TV to start loosing viewers to see even more money on Internet ads. Websites just have to hang in there up until then and provide interesting pass times for users.
I don’t use Twitter personally but I see it as a micro functionality. In order to make money they need to be incorporated in some social network or all of them or get eaten by Google or some other net money bag. For them to loose less money now micro ads are interesting way to go because in some time they can force all the 3rd party tool makers to share some of their ad revenues from their web pages. Sounds logical right?
But let’s face it… would you really be ready to pay for Twitter when you don’t have to pay for FB or Google search? I doubt it.
Big question is how much they’re getting paid (if at all) for these spots. Also, would non-Twitter related ads work for this audience? If they’re only sticking to advertisers that are somehow Twitter related, can’t really see them making a ton of money.
Please just don’t use animated ads. My computer is too slow, my attention span is too short, and my internet server can’t handle animation up here n Alaska!!!
They’re small, unobtrusive, and they don’t interfere with the stream. As long as they stay relevant and don’t offend me (like the massive number of weight loss ads I get on MySpace… come on, I know I’m fat and on a diet, quit reminding me…) I’m happy that Twitter can find an income stream. Because if I lost Twitter? I think I’d probably lose my mind, and if they don’t make money, they ain’t stickin’ around!!!
you need help.
LOL
Hey Jason…how many followers are you getting because of this screenshot
great publicity for ya.
ok I just checked and you were still at 829, but now 830 because I started following you
@skedet
I think we can tolerate a ‘little’ bit of Ads exposure, cool? At least Twitter hasn’t cut a deal with anybody just yet, with such achievement, I think it deserves a little commission of its own.
Just don’t over-doing it, hopefully.
There’s a 5×2 ad layout at the top of this article to the right. Anyone miss that? Yes advertising can suck, but it is a necessary evil. Fact.
I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. It’s surprising that Twitter hasn’t done this sooner.
I love what a twat you are, Jason.
What’s up with this “your mother” obsession? Is that some new Oedipus hiding in mom’s basement?
yeah just as long as they are integrated with the site it isn’t so bad. It is when they start hurting a users experience that they become a pain.
We knew this was coming.
I don’t know the whole story, but I like the idea. It really is an unobtrusive way of introducing advertising, and the ads would certainly be relevant. But I don’t think this can be “it” – there must be more coming. They could never monetize profitably from just those ads, if indeed they are ads.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch” it is an opportunity cost for Twitter. With the money they make it will become faster, better, and we will get more tweets. It’s the same as me saying please follow @FITnoke …see that wasn’t so bad
haha
How will Twitter serve and monetize ads to users of third party clients like Tweetdeck, Twhirl, etc? These clients already make up a significant percentage of overall Twitter usage and are used by Twitter’s power users. Ads on the main Twitter service may actually drive more users to third party Twitter clients and further weaken Twitter’s monetization strategy.
This is fine, but PLEASE, let’s not see any product placement. For example: http://bbltwt.com/hbna0
I agree, those kinda things are pretty annoying and wreck the user experience. I think people just get annoyed and end up leaving your site instead of clicking on the ad.
Pretty coming. I really like the rounded corners.
If it allows them to build a sustainable business model, then the small unobtrusive ads make sense. As for paying for memberships, the minute that happened, another micro-blogging site would eat their lunch.
As for 60 year old congressmen twittering, I like those too (you can follow them all here): http://www.cong...essional140.com
Nice. I saw Boilingpage ( http://www.boilingpage.com ) in my Twitter homepage which blends with it nicely .. and am sure it’s the best app I’ve ever used so far.
If it’s good and useful then bring it on, I say. I’m finding that more and more tweets feature links which are practically ads in any case
I think less is more on Twitter. Lack of clutter keeps it useful. I think they should just have a roundup of high-end sponsors and create an outline 5 pixel wrapper around the Twitter space with a small rectangle bug at one of the top corners. They can serve up based on tags or stream text. This is for branding with the hyperlink going to specialized Twitter-friendly content.
If I’m correct that little box has been there for quite a while already. Funny that techcrunch mentions it as an ad and there’s all this fuzz about it now
Yeah, it’s been there for a couple of weeks, but this is the first time they’re linking to a property outside of Twitter.
Twitter is gonna be the next Google in terms of having specific information… Let’s put Facebook aside, that’s just junk, not focused, and just too wild…
People will be tweeting about every single thing on Earth… And I won’t be surprised if Twitter starts charging companies to search on the Tweets regarding them… They will be able to index every single thing from every single location from every single point in time… That’s crazy…
About Twitter going mainstream? I have no freaking clue… How can a blog that contains pictures and lots of nice comments under the posts be fitted into a darn micro blogging scene…
Yes users may provide links in the Tweets but will Twitter be able to index that information outside its site and categorize it etc. That’s more powerful.
This is interesting and I bet that the ads produce a really good ROI (obviously the case while they are free I know) but even if Twitter does start charging this is prime real estate and for targeting it doesn’t get much better.
Promoting Exectweets. Come on @ev, I have eaten the stupid shit that comes out of Battelle’s ass before, but you should be smarter than me! FM offers NO value it is just a silly sales pitch. Dumb site and dumb idea. Good to see 50 million in funding put that site together….wow. Ride the internets latest trend…I hope it fails. But I love twitter, don’t get me wrong
another innovations from real live social networks site,it is Good for start ,Good to make relations bounds.and I think this start up is great idea to build “seed of publisher that soon can make twitter bigger and more better just like what symbiosis facebook with there application maker and Iphone with there iphone developer
Does anyone use the website? Surely most users, or at least the users that matter are using a Twitter app.
Recently, there is a lot of articles about Twitter
hmm…not the smartest way to do it imo…
I really like the dictionary definition format… a clear and clean metaphor that draws the eye and attention.
As a user, I’d like to think it doesn’t turn into a list of 10 ads, as in Ad Words right rail on Google SERP.
As a marketer, I’m dying to learn how we can buy this space, e.g. can we target by profile? by content of Tweet-stream? … I just got a shiver.
I read the update. good to know that they are not becoming facebook (advertising get-rich-quick schemes)
is that going to build successful business model ?
I think Twitter needs to start monetizing through its search.twitter.com site!
Advertising is a “paid mass-mediated attempt to persuade” .. this isn’t paid, this isn’t an ad — it just promotion for Twitter itself.
It promotes ways to use the Twitter service more frequently, more often in a variety of new ways.
God I hate to love TechCrunch. Such meaningless shit that I can’t stop reading; like driving by a bad accident. I feel so bad but am so intrigued.
I don’t know what dictionary you’re reading, but these little twitter definitions for all intents and purposes can be classified as advertisements.
Little something called business school 101 .. even Dictionary.com knows whats up. http://dictiona...wse/advertising
There is a HUGE distinction between advertising, marketing and promotion.
That and the class on the element on twitter.com markup is “promotion”. And there is no actual ad serving software behind the links.
Alongside a lot of challenges in terms of develloping relevant apps the “Real” adds will bring new life to twitter and they are THE sole element which will be able to stop the ongoing “Lots-of-followers-is-beautifull”.
Twitter as a social media is to good for that. But as things are now (Wihtout comercials or adds) the only thing really going on and the only people making money are the golddiggers with the “Ill show you how to get 10.000 followers in a week scams.
I really look forward to seeing ads on twitter. And lots of them and as cheap as on facebook. (I had a 2.4 mill pops of one of my ads on facebook for 231 US…That rocks)
Ads will also bring other languages into twitter than english / american. As things are now the lingual barriere is THE obstacle that holds back twitter fraom conquering the world.
Se ya.
http://twitter.com/Vedby
Twitter definitely knows what they are doing – test it out and get feedback from both sides without charging a fee! It spurs interest and they can then determine the value associated with the ad.
I personally find the ads unobtrusive when I view Twitter on my webtop. It’s certainly much smaller than most blog advertising.
And they’re dofollow links at that! Where are the google cops when you need them?
Jason:
Great article.
Hope you don’t mind, but I linked here and mentioned you & this post in my video blog post at Adrants (ad industry blog): http://www.adra...-not-making.php
I’m very interested to see how ad serving evolves. With such a rich data stream from users, and with all the recommendations and requests for product/service info that float around Twitter, and as EASY as it is to track conversations between users…
Why, the data’s so thick you could stand a spoon in it. And that’s what advertisers need, is it not?
I just released a Twitter app, can I expect Twitter to promote it through their site too?
I’d imagine their going to be integrating this type of advertising by syncing it with their new OAuth management center.