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Twitter will Introduce an Advertising Model and it may Look Like this

20 November 2009

14 Comments

Last week I speculated that the new Twitter's native Retweet feature was about search, but it looks like maybe I was wrong; it a may be all about advertising, with search playing a supporting role. Robert Scoble says that at today's TechCrunch Real Time Crunchup, Dick Costolo - Twitter’s COO, said that Twitter will introduce an advertising model. Scoble speculates that this will be done through metadata. He believes the metadata would be revealed when you mouse over a given tweet. I think that the metadata will be used to instantly generate an advertisement and it will be the ad that is revealed when you mouse over the tweet not the metadata.

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Was the Twitter Retweet Feature Designed to Bring Value to Google and Bing Search

12 November 2009

17 Comments

I would like to speculate a bit about why Twitter has chosen to architect the new “Retweet feature” without the ability to edit, and why they chose to call it Retweet even though it does not serve the same function as the cultural convention that we currently call Retweet. Retweet as a Cultural Convention Retweet, as  a [...]

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Twitter Lists Break Down Barriers to Adoption and Gives More Power to the Influential

1 November 2009

4 Comments

The act of creating lists may result in a dual class of Twitizen - Those who are on lists of influential people and those who are not. To some extent lists may freeze the status quo of power structures within Twitter as they exist today, Give those with influence even more, and may make it much harder for new users to be discovered which may hinder engagement by the long tale of users

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How Sponsored Tweets will affect Twitter, Advertisers, Spokespeople, and You

11 August 2009

28 Comments

Sponsored tweets have arrived in earnest and are creating quite a controversy. People are very passionate about this topic and view it as either a great thing or something that will send Twitter to the grave. Ultimately the effect will probably not be so extreme but sponsored tweets will likely have repercussions of varied strength across the entire Twitter ecosystem. Stakeholders include: advertisers, spokespeople, users, and the platform itself - the question is how will this play out and how will these stakeholders be affected. This type of sponsorship done with integrity is perfectly legitimate and ethical but its ultimate effect is a far cry from unpaid evangelism that charismatic brands organically generate. The very fact that someone gets paid to take an action, alters the actions that they will take. The very fact that they are earning money by promoting a brand affects their opinion of the brand. It is how the subconscious mind works and part of human nature (we have good feelings for things that benefit us). Integrity in respect to sponsored tweets may be more difficult to maintain than many realize.

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