Twitter Reveals Business Model
At long last, Twitter has announced its business model. The company has grown explosively since its launch in 2007 and there has been intense speculation about how it could make its popular service profitable. The plan is to use an advertising model that it calls “Promoted Tweets.”
In the first phase of the plan, Promoted Tweets will appear at the top of Twitter search results. They’ll be just like regular tweets, meaning that users can reply, retweet them, or favorite them. But they will be clearly labeled as advertising.
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote in a blog post that these aren’t just a repeat of Google’s sponsored search results:
There is one big difference between a Promoted Tweet and a regular Tweet. Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar–they must resonate with users. That means if users don’t interact with a Promoted Tweet to allow us to know that the Promoted Tweet is resonating with them, such as replying to it, favoriting it, or Retweeting it, the Promoted Tweet will disappear.
In the future, Twitter plans to expand Promoted Tweets so that they will appear in users’ timelines, “in a way that is useful to you.” Before launching this phase of its business plan, Stone says, the company wants to have a better understanding of how users react to Promoted Tweets and their value for advertisers.
Advertisers who will be involved with Promoted Tweets at launch include Red Bull, Starbucks, Best Buy, and Virgin America.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora
The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.
Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.
Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.
How one mine could unlock billions in EV subsidies
The Inflation Reduction Act is starting to transform the US economy. To understand how, we tallied up the potential tax credits available as the nickel from a single mine flows through the supply chain.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.