In an interesting move yesterday, Twitter came out with a blogpost/statement, that outlined the future for Twitter. Contained inside this post was some pretty rash rules on how their Twitter API will be used, aka sites like Sponsored Tweets and Ad.ly, Were no longer allowed to use their API for tweeting out ads.My first thought in all of this, is that Twitter has gone absolutely bonkers. And a small part of me thinks that a slight hint of jealousy is involved here. With Twitter rolling out it’s own Promoted Tweets feature (Basically ads), I think they don’t want advertise going elsewhere, they want to keep ‘em for themselves.
The full blog post can be found here : http://blog.twitter.com/2010/05/twitter-platform.html
Makes for an interesting read. But I’ll add my two cents in here.
As our primary concern is the long-term health and value of the network, we have and will continue to forgo near-term revenue opportunities in the service of carefully metering the impact of Promoted Tweets on the user experience. It is critical that the core experience of real-time introductions and information is protected for the user and with an eye toward long-term success for all advertisers, users and the Twitter ecosystem. For this reason, aside from Promoted Tweets, we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. We are updating our Terms of Service to articulate clearly what we mean by this statement, and we encourage you to read the updated API Terms of Service to be released shortly.
I think the most important part of this paragraph. Is that they are disallowing it in the API. Does that mean using Twitter’s own interface is OK? I know they try and say it is about user satisfaction, and in a small way I agree with them. I think the reason they use the API wording, is because the API is the prime source of most of Twitter’s spam. Cutting out advertisers, and only allowing OAuth is a prime way to cut down on all the crap that floats around on Twitter.
Why are we prohibiting these kinds of ads? First, third party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created. They may optimize for either market share or short-term revenue at the expense of the long-term health of the Twitter platform. For example, a third party ad network may seek to maximize ad impressions and click through rates even if it leads to a net decrease in Twitter use due to user dissatisfaction.
Same as above really. They keep pointing out the user satisfaction, but I can’t see that being 100% of the reason.
Secondly, the basis for building a lasting advertising network that benefits users should be innovation, not near-term monetization. Twitter is uniquely dependent on and responsible for the long-term health and value of the platform. Accordingly, a necessary focus of Promoted Tweets is to explore ways to create value for our users. Third party ad networks may be optimized for near-term monetization at the expense of innovating or creating the best user experience. We believe it is our responsibility to encourage creative product development and to curb practices that compromise innovation.
Uh-Oh. Let me draw your attention to these words, “near-term monetization”. What Twitter is saying, is that everyone is making money off their platform, except for themselves. And ontop of that, they are the ones having to support the network, having to deal with all the spam complaints, whereas the third party ad networks avoid all those problems. I think it may also speak volumes for how Twitter has to price their own ads. They will have to, in a way, charge more per Tweet then other Third Party networks do, simply because of their overheads. By overheads I mean the entire Twitter network.
There has been a small reaction from Sponsored Tweets. They wrote a small blog post up here : http://sponsoredtweets.com/changes-coming-to-sponsored-tweets/
Something interesting, is that they have this line in there post. “You can still use your account to tweet out deals.” And yes, the link to the Dell Outlet Twitter is supposed to be there. And they make a good point, just with that single link. What constitutes an ad? Dell tweets out deals all the time, which are essentially ads for their service. Sure they aren’t buying other people’s streams, but they are ads none the less. And what if Dell uses TweetDeck or another Twitter app to manage their accounts. That runs through the API, what if they tweet the deal through there?
Very muddy waters indeed. Over the coming weeks I’m sure we will start to see some reactions from other players in the Twitter Ad’s world.
