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Twitter Sells "Trending Topics" To Advertisers

Posted by timothy on from the this-just-in dept.

destinyland writes "Twitter's 'Promoted Tweets' platform already allows advertisers to insert ads directly into its users' Twitter feeds. But advertisers will soon also be able to purchase spaces in the 'Trending Topics' area of Twitter. The space reserved for tracking topics seeing the most discussion will be sold for 'thousands of dollars a day,' according to advertisers who've been approached by Twitter, and while it could be a real cash cow for the service, some users argue that Twitter 'risks ruining the site if it lets the pursuit of profit interfere with the organic nature of the social network.'"

17 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Ruining what? by honestmonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would think that Twitter going away because they can't pay their bills anymore and the VC funds drying up might ruin the site a bit more. Nothing stays free forever.

    --
    Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
    1. Re:Ruining what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I would think that Twitter going away because they can't pay their bills anymore and the VC funds drying up might ruin the site a bit more.

      I would think that that would improve it massively.

  2. Well duh...sooner or later by Izabael_DaJinn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They have to turn a profit. Look at how over-run youtube has become. It's pretty annoying, but they did it gradually which helped silent the complaints.

    Twitter will do the same. Slowly but surely making it lamer than it already is. Look at its profit forecasts (from wikipedia):

    "Some of Twitter's documents covering revenue and user growth were published on TechCrunch after they were retrieved by the hacker, Croll Hacker. These contained internal projections that in 2009 they would have revenues of $400,000 in the third quarter (Q3) and $4 million in the fourth quarter (Q4) along with 25 million users at the end of the year. The projections for the end of 2013 were $1.54 billion in revenue, $111 million in net earnings, and 1 billion users.[1] No information about how Twitter plans to achieve those numbers has been published. Biz Stone published a blog post suggesting legal action for revealing the details was a possibility.[28]"\


    I don't see how they can ever reach such high estimates no matter what they do. But they will certainly try.

    --
    Careful What You Wish For....
    1. Re:Well duh...sooner or later by eihab · · Score: 4, Informative

      Did what gradually? One day there were no ads and the next day ads.

      I think the parent was referring to the obnoxiousness of the ads, not their existence.

      If I remember correctly:

      - One day there were no ads
      - Next they started adding small graphic/text banners on the top right corner and shared revenue with top uploaders (?)
      - Later they added a tiny text-ad bar above the movie player controls
      - Then they increased the bar size to cover a quarter of the screen and made it stick around for longer
      - And now they have full 15-30 second videos before popular videos begin to play

      Not that I care, but they certainly did this gradually.

      --
      If you can't mod them join them.
    2. Re:Well duh...sooner or later by Peach+Rings · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One billion users? There aren't even 2 billion people with internet access at all.

    3. Re:Well duh...sooner or later by migla · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don' use twitter in any way, but I think I saw it's usefulness during the protests in Iran.

      Imagine Twitter with Free code and a non-profit, donations based model. Surely humankind could set that up, everyone paying what they can. It should work, IMO. I'd pay some :s, just as soon as I can muster any income and a bank account. I expect the finances being open and any monetary need (for hosting or whatever) addressed swiftly by the haves of the community.

      Incidentally, half the work has all ready been done: http://identi.ca/ and http://status.net/

      --
      Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  3. twitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Okay poop is coming out now

    1. Re:twitter by eihab · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm amazed a reference to this got modded troll here.http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

      Well, I for one didn't know the reference (thanks for the link), and would have considered the parent another annoying troll.

      That's why I usually link to even semi-obscure references because I do not always assume that everyone reads/watches the same things as me.

      --
      If you can't mod them join them.
  4. I really hope ... by internetcommie · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... that the advertisements also are limited to 140 signs!

  5. So? by CasualFriday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing is going to happen. People are going to happily continue tweeting. They might notice the ads, say "Oh, look at that", and continue on their merry way. If facebook's privacy problems don't discourage users, this definitely won't.

    --
    Raters gon' rate.
  6. Re:news sites already sell trending news by somaTh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I believe the difference here is that, instead of a site monitoring which pages people are visiting, Twitter would be monitoring the user comments. While it's ridiculous to assume privacy through Twitter (since it's designed specifically to spread information), it still FEELS wrong.

    --
    Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
  7. Internet's achillies heel is the it's free myth by thesandbender · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Internet has always had the reputation of being "free", when it never has been. In the past it was supported by academic and government (military) sources whose realized value in the either the free flow of information and/or an uninterpretable flow of information. It has since moved on to be maintained by businesses that what want to generate revenue from supporting it. There's nothing inherently evil in this, they provide a service and you pay for it one way or another. It used to be in taxes, tuition, etc... now it's in subscriptions, advertising hits, etc. The problem is the myth that the internet is "free" is still very much ingrained and people will use all sorts of sites and provide a ridiculous amount of information without ever stopping to thing that these sites are (generally) not run out of charity and will extract their pound of flesh in some manner.

  8. Who cares by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This may be a first in that ads may carry more 'content'
    than the user contributions.

  9. I mean, Jesus. wtf. by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they're going to sell ads, why not sell ads that look like ads? Why do they have to mess around with insinuating them into the service?

    I mean, I pay nothing to post on Twitter. Put an ad in the corner. I promise not to run away.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  10. Re:Can twitter be decentralized? by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe Sir is speaking of StatusNet and identi.ca.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  11. Steve Gibson calls it again by sehlat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As the following blog post http://steve.grc.com/2010/05/24/facebook-and-the-ford-pinto/ points out:

    Unfortunately, the only "asset" Facebook has to monetize is the wealth of personal information that has been poured into the system by every one of those 400 million users. Facebook has understood this from day one, its user community has not.

    Ditto for Twitter.

  12. They've been doing it by Statecraftsman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Twitter has been manipulating their trending topics for a while now. In the past they've added big live events like sports contests to their trending topics when, in my analysis, those topics simply weren't trending. How do I know? I spent some time trying to build a long-term trending topics list using the public_timeline feeds. There were obvious items there that were underrepresented in the actual tweets. They should label these "sponsored topics" as such.