Speaking at a conference today, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told the audience not to expect to see ads anytime soon on the popular microblogging platform.
"There are a few reasons why we're not pursuing advertising--one is, it's just not quite as interesting to us." Stone said.
He went on to say that ads could annoy users, and that hiring an ad sales staff is both labor and capital intensive.
So what's Twitter's business model going to be?
Add-ons and tools for businesses and hard-core users. And given recent predictions that revenue from Facebook apps will soon overtake Facebook's own ad sales income, there may just be something to that strategy.
Reader comments (3)
7:01AM on 20th May 2009
I am glad they dont need to place ads a looks like they wont for a long time yet i not sure how they get ther funding to grow more but good luck to them it a intersting idea of theres
11:08AM on 20th May 2009
I'm glad that they're avoiding ads. It's an easy way to make money but long term, I suspect that it'd just annoy users. Having said that, there may be more subtle ways to do it but I doubt that they'd be very effective. Given that many people use 3rd party apps to use Twitter then then ads would have to be in the Twitterstream, which is a big no-no.
If they were to go with ads, then it'd beed to be on their search pages. And despite what Stone says, I could definitely see that happening.
Director at Bold Internet Ltd
11:42AM on 20th May 2009
Certainly good to hear this; it seems most web properties in the west that attract masses of people struggle to think beyond advertising when it comes to generating revenues.
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