Get Ready for Tweeted Ads

Do we call them "Twads"?

Let's say you're a hot website with hundreds of millions of users. You need to make revenue, fast. What do you do? Yes, you probably advertise.

Twitter, we're told, is this close to putting ads into your stream. Not sure whether we'll call these things "Twads," or maybe it's time to "Twadvertise." Nah, too much like a 1980's exercise craze.

Either way, it makes sense. Twitter is all sorts of things to all sorts of people, but it's not yet been a big revenue generator. Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others have all found ways to stick ads into your daily searches and messages, some smoothly, some not so much -- but they're all making money doing it.

It remains to be seen how smoothly Twitter will be able to do this. You might remember the recent "bar" Twitter inserted into your mobile tweet stream. Not very effective, and all sorts of annoying. After lots of 140-character-length complaints, Twitter removed the bar. A good move, showing that it listens to, and respects, its multitude of users.

Ads? Always tricky. We'll see if Twitter's much talked about revenue generators can earn their keep, bringing home the bacon, without alienating the flock.

Scott might have mixed his animal metaphors there.  He’s on Twitter, ad-free, at @scottbudman.

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