Twitter Sells "Trending Topics" To Advertisers 67
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.'"
SHHLLLRRRRUPPPPPP (Score:1, Troll)
(insert giant sucking sound here)
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I take a different approach - I find it trivially easy to not read it.
Ruining what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
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That might be nice, but unlikely. I prefer to simply regard Twitter as irrelevant. I never, ever go there, and I ignore any exhortations from others to do so. If they started hosting any worthwhile content, I could be pursuaded to change my position, but the whole process of digesting all content into a 140-byte premasticated turd does not bespeak a site worthy of attention.
Well duh...sooner or later (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Did what gradually? One day there were no ads and the next day ads.
Re:Well duh...sooner or later (Score:5, 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.
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Did what gradually? One day there were no ads and the next day ads.
At "internet speed" a change that takes place over a day is gradual.
* Term: "Again?" - sometimes it shows up, sometimes not; vendor has no idea what's happening or why
* Term: "WTF?" : - hey, something changed and it wasn't there last time I refreshed
* Term: "Instant" : - announced by the vendor at the moment it is dumped upon the users
* Term: "Fast" : - it took minutes before it was too late to hit the Internet's "undo" button
* Term: "Slow" : - an hour after a program, product or site was written,
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One billion users? There aren't even 2 billion people [internetworldstats.com] with internet access at all.
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I think by "users" they mean "active accounts". I have five different accounts between my personal account and several projects, and I'm certainly not alone.
Re:Well duh...sooner or later (Score:4, 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/ [identi.ca] and http://status.net/ [status.net]
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Imagine Twitter with Free code and a non-profit, donations based model. -> I'd pay some :s, just as soon as I can muster any income and a bank account.
Yeah.
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I'm surprised there's not been considerably much more outrage at Youtube actually. I find the Youtube site to be no longer usable. (In fact, it is actually completely impossible to use it with adblock and firefox -- does this mean I whitelist it? No, it means I use another video site.) While I understand that Google needs to raise revenue from youtube, the
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twitter (Score:3, Informative)
Okay poop is coming out now
Re:twitter (Score:5, 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.
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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.
AC's can't be bothered to register an account, or even log in if they do, so don't get your hopes up that they'll actually link to a reference (no matter how obscure).
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Okay poop is coming out now
I'm amazed a reference to this got modded troll here. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/ [penny-arcade.com]
That's okay, it's back up to 0, Informative.
news sites already sell trending news (Score:1, Insightful)
This already has been happening in other areas. Many news sites sell information on trending stories.
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I really hope ... (Score:5, Funny)
Ruining the site? (Score:2)
They also risk ruining the site if they go out of business because they couldn't find a way to make money.
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So? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Exactly. Twitter is not there for people to read something they are actually interested in. It is a soapbox for people to stand on while they yell "I JUST DROPPED AN ENORMOUS CRAP" (31 characters). Nobody actually reads this rubbish, twits are just twittering into a void. But if it keeps them away from sites that I do visit, then Twitter does at least have one useful purpose.
Re:Can twitter be decentralized? (Score:4, Informative)
I believe Sir is speaking of StatusNet [status.net] and identi.ca [identi.ca].
Too bad they can't do... (Score:2)
what Wikipedia does.
Twitter 'risks ruining the site' (Score:2)
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.'
Twitter risks running out of money if it lets the organic nature of the social network interfere with the pursuit of profit. Then how will you tell your friends what color your last bowel movement was? You're Facebook friends with Grandma now, do you think she wants to read that? Wait, old people do talk about that stuff. Carry on.
Internet's achillies heel is the it's free myth (Score:3, Interesting)
Who cares (Score:3, Insightful)
than the user contributions.
How about..? (Score:1)
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using the internet to sell products is soooooooooooooooooo web 1.0! it's all about b.s. "services" that don't really create added value now. This is why I ditched my twitter account a couple of days ago after they updated the api use agreement for third-party clients to force urls through their own filters for statistic gathering. I'm quickly losing any reason to care about FB, too. It's been going down hill a lot faster lately. It was pretty useful when it was still colleges-only though.
I mean, Jesus. wtf. (Score:5, 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.
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If they're going to sell ads, why not sell ads that look like ads? ... Put an ad in the corner. I promise not to run away.
Because of Ad Block, GreaseMonkey, and the great work the brain does in training itself not to look at ads when they become prevalent on the page. So by sneaking them into shit like trending topics or making random tweets actually ads, it's harder to train your mind or software to ignore them.
Personally I don't use twitter.com for anything and I have clicked a trending topic once or twic
I don't have a Tweeter account, so (Score:2)
Here's my first one: "Um. Well. I don't really know what to say, here. Ah, just, ah. I guess that's it."
I hope I didn't go over the limit. Did everyone read that? Check back soon for more.
Also, check out my cool pages on MyFace and SpaceBook.
Steve Gibson calls it again (Score:3, Insightful)
As the following blog post http://steve.grc.com/2010/05/24/facebook-and-the-ford-pinto/ [grc.com] points out:
Ditto for Twitter.
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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.
I disagree completely, Twitter is more akin to SMS and Google search services.
People don't generally share personal info info on twitter (some may), but they communicate THROUGH Twitter. Twitter is just group SMS, where interested parties can listen and share.
One of the biggest strengths of it is the ability to search these real time communications. (For example, you search it before you drive to find out the condition of traffic on your route, you automatically receive alerts of where s
They've been doing it (Score:5, Interesting)
Who cares about the trending topics? (Score:2)
I mean, among those who do care for Twitter.
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They can bring a bit of entertainment if youre utterly bored, however most of my twitter use tends to be though the htcpeep client on my HD2. thus i can see the need to insert the ads as random tweets in your feed, because how else are they going to get them to all the users that use apps on their phones to upload and view tweets?
I just hope these randomly inserted ad tweets and trending topics are clearly marked as such.
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Who uses the web site? (Score:2)
As I understand it, it the ads will only be on the web site or on certain subscription only channels.
Who on earth uses Twitter's web site to use Twitter's data? It's quite possibly the worst interface to the service that exists. Maybe 10% of the users I follow ever post from web.
And if you want to subscribe to the all ad channel, then .. well, you're using Twitter in the way that all the microblogging haters love to make fun of, and frankly, you're doing it wrong.
Currently trending (Score:1)
Excellent! My plan is working perfectly (Score:1)
As your monopoly service provider with very low data limit caps, I plan on profiting very handsomely, by making you pay to receive lots and lots of ads..
And (Score:1)
Sell Twitter to Google. They'll know how to generate revenue.
No it does not! (Score:2)
Twitter's 'Promoted Tweets' platform already allows advertisers to insert ads directly into its users' Twitter feeds.
No it does not.
As detailed here, promoted tweets [twitter.com] are NOT displayed in user's feeds at all, but only in search results currently.
They do go on to explain they will review feedback, and potentially expand them, keeping the option open to include them in users' feeds, specifically if there's value in doing so.
I search and use the service daily, and have yet to receive a single ad.
Great news. (Score:1)