According to The New York Times, Twitter will today announce its first serious attempt at a revenue earning model. Through an advertising program known as Promoted Tweets, companies will be able to purchase the rights to keywords and have their ads strategically placed into related user search results. Not without transparency, Promoted Tweets will labelled as such. According to Twitter, the key benefit of the program is companies will be able to spread their message without fear of it being overlooked. How much companies will pay to participate in the program is unclear, but at the moment Twitter will be charging per 1,000 unique views (CPM) until it has a clear understanding of how the public will react. Users of third-party applications are safe from Promoted Tweets for the time being, but Twitter is presently working on a method to track the number of ad views in applications so it can create a revenue sharing deal with developers. So far Best Buy, Bravo, Starbucks and Virgin America have signed up for the program, but more are sure to come along. In the future, the program will be expanded into one’s timeline.
