Feb

Twitter's Ad Network

Ryan

Ad Network, Facebook, Google Buzz, Twitter

In a day that I thought would never come, Twitter has officially announced that they will be unveiling their upcoming ad network in the nearby future… possibly SXSW. I know we all knew it was coming, but I think the actual news of it all is shocking to say the least.

So what does this mean for Twitter as a whole? Who knows, but I can give you my two cents.. if you already haven’t figured it out by now.

Although I don’t think Twitter is losing its popularity.. too much, the idea of Twitter as the service is kind of dwindling. Sure, it made popular the actual act of Tweeting, but that act is now so widespread through other avenues (Facebook, Buzz), Twitter, as in Twitter.com is kind of seeing a loss, or at least a temporary plateau.

Is this information surprising? Yeah, I think so! Although you could say this does not take into account everyone on their phones or other local applications. Which brings me to my next point… everyone is on phones and local applications!

If Twitter plans on creating an ad network for their service, sure we can expect to see ads on the side of our tweets just like in search or whatever else, but what about people who only access Twitter from Hootsuite, or TwitterBerry, or TweetDeck, or whatever else? Do these companies need to reconfigure their applications to support Twitter’s ads.. or should we expect to see ads coming in the way of the tweets themselves? You get what I’m saying here? If we begin to see ads in the tweets themselves, I am guessing you will also see people abandon the service for Facebook or even Google Buzz!.. I know that is kind of ridiculous sounding, but as Twitter user myself, I really can’t imagine Paid Advertisements.. (from Twitter) in my streams. That’s like having Google place their Paid Search ads in and amongst your organic search results. Because interactivity is such a vital player in both search and tweeting… I feel this plays a much larger burden on people then say sponsor commercials in Hulu or YouTube videos.

Although I use Twitter, I know my tweets to my followers mean very little to them if they really don’t know who I am in the first place, or haven’t become a Twitter celebrity. Although brands have an edge in this arena, the bulk idea of having followers is proving more and more like last year’s popularity contest… which is having less and less relevance to this year’s popularity icons. In Facebook, I know I will be able to get more discussion and more interactive interest, so why shouldn’t I focus my efforts there?

It’ll be interesting to see what Twitter does with their ads, and for their own sake.. I hope it will not be as invasive as I think it could be.

Peace