GigaOM Pro

Twitter is pitching its wares to big advertisers. It even took out a TV ad that is really aimed at them, rather than TV viewers. It wants to make hashtags into the equivalent of promoted keywords, and is making Twitter pages more brand-friendly. And promoted tweets show up in a user’s feed, if the brand is followed. This approach is somewhat similar to Facebook’s sponsored stories, and Facebook’s tactic of selling ads aimed at driving users to company pages. Neither company offers a lot of big, glossy inventory or enables advertisers to interrupt user experiences the way TV or online media does. It’s difficult to imagine Twitter getting to a billion dollars in ad sales without some more tricks. Is Twitter a competitor to mainstream (news) media? Not for advertising. Not yet.