WSJ (via SmartBrief on Social media) and Mashable are talking about Twitter. Twitter is talking about making money-

Since launching its advertising offerings in April, Twitter has signed on more than 30 big-name brands, including Coca-Cola Co. and Verizon Wireless, to test them. Early initiatives exceeded expectations. On average 5% of Twitter users who saw an ad on the service interacted with it, a rate that is “an order of magnitude greater” than most online ad campaigns.

Twitter offers “Promoted Tweets,” where marketers pay to have their messages listed as the first result when a user conducts a search on Twitter.com. Twitter plans to experiment with ads that target users based on the content in their tweets, or messages. (WSJ article: Twitter Switches Chief Executive)

Alix Co. thought: Google is doing something similar in concept with Priority Inbox. That is, ‘listening’ to emails and making connections based on words/themes/buckets. Value to consumer = time. Value to Google = (?).

Twitter launches Promoted Accounts (Mashable)
“Twitter has officially launched Promoted Accounts, a new advertising format that helps brands gain more followers by being displayed in Twitter’s “Suggestions for You” feature. Just as important though, the company has begun testing syndication of Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends to third-party apps.”
source: http://mashable.com/2010/09/27/promoted-accounts/

Alix Co. thought: this involves selling (products/services) and connecting (people/privacy). The question is, will Twitter’s connections sell? Again, the value of Twitter is real-time news and information. It all goes back to positioning- specifically, Twitter is about the latest… Also, something about ‘Promoted Accounts’ seems off strategy for Twitter. Why not go bigger or ‘newer’ anyway. Real-time x,y,z— real-time connections for purchases, passes, and sewing classes… or, the latest and greatest from x,y,z brand delivered in a social way.