The cyber grapevine has gone crazy with speculation that micro-blogging platform Twitter is about to embark on an advertising strategy and is testing a formal advertising platform.
Social media messaging platform Twitter, which is valued in excess of US$1 billion, has so far not divulged a concrete revenue creation strategy beyond search deals with Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!
The rumour mill was ignited in recent days by comments made by Twitter’s head of product management Anamitra Banerji at an Interactive Advertising Bureau event.
Declining to confirm exactly when Twitter would release the platform, Banejeri reportedly told online media daily MediaPost following the panel that “we are working on an ad platform, but it’s only in the test phase.”
Banerji said when Twitter launches an ad platform, the company will make it “explicitly clear that a sponsor” paid for the ad, and make it “relevant and useful, so the user doesn’t think of it as an ad.”
By John Kennedy