For Twitter, advertising is low-hanging fruit to generate revenue. But Twitter continue to insist it’s not something being actively considered. So while Twitter makes up its mind about whether or not to place ads into Twitter streams, there’s a growing number of companies doing just that.
A new player is Toronto-based Assetize, which emerged from Extreme Venture Partners‘ Extreme University, a 12-week program done last summer to nurture and incubate start-ups. Assetize bills itself as a smarter way for advertisers to tap into Twitter because its technology does a much better job of connecting ads to relevant content than players such as Magpie.
Assetize offers a self-service platform for advertisers and Twitter users looking to have ads within their Twitter stream. Using a pay-per-click model, advertising can configure the keywords they want to target and their budgets. For Twitter users, they get paid every time a link with an ad is clicked – much like AdSense on blogs.
Although the platform looks interesting, the biggest challenge facing Assetize is attracting enough advertisers and Twitter users to make it a vibrant platform. With advertising within Twitter still in its infancy, Assetize needs to aggressively move into sales, marketing and education mode to nurture the marketplace.
More: TechCrunch reports that Glam Media is going to be launch a Twitter ad network, while Ad.ly is is launching a Twitter-based ad network to connect high-end brand advertisers with celebrity and high-profile Twitter users.
2 Comments
There is nothing "interesting" about the platform, it is simply another spam injection system which hijacks another service's (Twitter) bandwidth in violation of Twitter's Terms of Service:
"Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be spamming are:
- If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account"
From: help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311
I do not know ANYONE who welcomes spam in their Twitter timeline. While I could live with advertisements if they come from Twitter to support the service, 3rd party spammers such as Magpie, TwittAd, and now Assetize only serve to devalue the platform and the users who unfortunately utilize them.
I tend to agree with Burnman. What surprises me is that the Social Media industry continuously claims that advertsing doesn't work. Yet, we keep trying to monetize ourselves through advertising system like Assetize and the venture community keeps biting. Where's the disconnect?
I personally think Twitter was smart not heading down the advertising path and try to find something better / different that will truly give it a unique value proposition. We already know it is a unique service, so there is a way.
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[...] (9/25): Mark Evans and Twitterrati also wrote about us, which you can read here. His coverage has been very helpful in getting the word out – the post has been retweeted [...]
[...] (9/25): Mark Evans and Twitterrati also wrote about us, which you can read here. His coverage has been very helpful in getting the word out – the post has been retweeted [...]
[...] (9/25): Mark Evans and Twitterrati also wrote about us, which you can read here. His coverage has been very helpful in getting the word out – the post has been retweeted [...]