When it comes to making money, Twitter is all about keeping it simple. There are no banner ads, no dancing animations, no ads inserted between screens that you must click to get past, Vindu Goel reports.
Virtually all of Twitter’s revenue, which is projected to be nearly $600 million this year and $950 million next year, comes from three basic advertising formats that blend smoothly into its core microblogging service, whether users are accessing it from a mobile phone or a Web browser. But as Twitter prepares to sell stock to the public, the company is planning initiatives that will add complexity to its advertising business while also diversifying its revenue stream.
Last week, for example, it announced that it had agreed to acquire MoPub, a start-up that acts as a middleman in placing ads from marketers inside mobile applications. MoPub does something quite different from Twitter, auctioning off two billion ad slots a day in apps like Songza and OpenTable through dozens of ad networks and delivering the ads so quickly that a user firing up the app barely notices.
But Jim Payne, chief executive of MoPub, said the two companies shared a common DNA. Like MoPub, he said, Twitter “was designed to be mobile and it was designed to be real-time.†He said Twitter had promised to let MoPub continue expanding its business even as the two worked together to improve the ad offerings on Twitter itself.
Through its Amplify program, Twitter is also aggressively promoting joint ad sales with television channels. ESPN, for example, can show game clips on Twitter that are sponsored by an advertiser, with Twitter and the channel sharing revenue. Read more »
