Today, social networking company Twitter announced two upcoming features being added to their platform: promoted content and Google TV compatibility. First, promoted content. Twitter has been dabbling in promoting individual tweets since back in April. “Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users,” explains the company. Initially, Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America tested out the service (see below).
Twitter has now taken this model to its next logical step, and introduced promoted accounts for its corporate users. As the company explains:
Promoted Accounts are suggested based on a user’s public list of whom they follow. When an advertiser promotes an account, Twitter’s algorithm looks at that account’s followers and determines other accounts that those users tend to follow.
The addition of promoted accounts is another example of how Twitter is trying to monetize itself without the use of standard image/text based adverts.
On the heels of that announcement, Twitter also announced that it would make its service available to future purchasers of the yet-to-be-released Google TV. The company’s Google TV offering will allow users to browse their timeline, view @mentions and favorites, as well as reply, retweet, favorite, and share content found on the social networking site. Twitter quips, “Tweets aren’t just about TV shows; they are part of them. […] This is just the beginning of what could be possible at the intersection of Twitter and television. We’re excited to see what’s next.”
Read [Promoted Accounts] Read [Google TV]
