Twitter Announces Ad Platform… Or Not

Posted in Technology, Web Services on Mar 15th, 2010 | View Comments

Today at SXSW, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams was rumored to finally be announcing an ad platform and/or future business model for Twitter.  Instead, he threw the audience for a loop and announced a new platform called @Anywhere.  @Anywhere will allow website administrators to add better Twitter integration into their sites.  Essentially, anywhere there is a Twitter username, if a user hovers his mouse over it, he’ll see a mini “hovercard” containing the user’s Twitter information, including the most recent tweet.  Publishers will be able to integrate their own Twitter profiles in a more effective manner, making it easier for their readers to follow them.  Implementation will only take a few lines of javascript, and on launch Twitter already has partners such as the Huffington Post, New York Times, Meebo, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Bing.

You can read more about it on the Twitter blog.

So when will Twitter be announcing a future business model and/or advertising platform?  For now, according to Mashable, “Williams says Twitter is still mainly focused on creating the best experience for users and businesses.”

  • Eh, I wouldn't pay for it. Especially when it sounds relatively easy to script. Or am I missing something?
  • As far as I know, this is free. The "...or not" was because this took the audience completely by surprise. Wasn't what was supposed to be announced. Twitter still has no way to make money. VCs keep dumping money into the company even though they have no real business plan. It's pretty insane.
  • Ah, ok. This makes a bit more sense. I was going to say, why would someone pay for something that could be easily re-created with some scripting knowledge and a wide-open API? Even still, I don't think VC's have anything to worry about, seeing as twitter is still rocking hard.
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