May 26, 2010

Twitter to charge publishers

Telegraph.co.uk

The microblogging site will also ban sponsored tweets, as it seeks to define the core 'Twitter experience' on its own terms


Best social networking and communicating websites: Twitter.com


Twitter said that it would ban 'promoted tweets' from third parties and look to charge publishers for some Twitter content

Twitter has announced that it will no longer allow third parties to pollute the Twitter stream with messages advertising products and services. Dick Costolo, the company's chief operating officer, published a blog post to outline Twitter's commitment to the "user experience".

"It is critical that the core experience of real-time introductions and information is protected for the user and with an eye toward long-term success for all advertisers, users and the Twitter ecosystem," he wrote.

For this reason, aside from Promoted Tweets, we will not allow any third-party to inject paid tweets in to a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API."

Costolo also said that Twitter would start charging companies that sell advertising around Twitter content, "where that Twitter content is the basis (in whole or in part) for the advertising sale". It means that companies such as Ad.ly, a US firm that sells ads in to Twitter streams, and Tweetup may have to look elsewhere for this revenue. Costolo said such companies could continue to sell analytics and other services based around Twitter.

Twitter said it would be issuing a revised terms of service to outline more clearly what will and will not be allowed under this rule change.