Twitter recently announced that they will no longer allow in-stream third party ads to show up in any app or service utilizing the Twitter API. With Twitter announcing their own Ad service this move is not unexpected and frankly I’m surprised it took them this long to announce it. I questioned whether Twitter would kill Ad.ly and other in-stream ad networks recently and I believe this recent announcement is the initial blow. Right now Twitter Promoted Tweets are only appearing in Twitter search but they will eventually move in-stream and they are not going to allow direct competition. Twitter owns the stream and they can’t allow any third party ad networks to take a portion of their market away. Just like Google does not allow ads to be plastered all over their SERPs, Twitter can’t allow third part ads to clog up the Twitter stream.
The Ad Networks Have a Choice
It’s simple. Ad.ly and other ad networks can either continue their current business model and either hope to be acquired by Twitter or eventually be crushed. There is no way Twitter is going to continue to allow third party ad networks to operate in the open for much longer. Of course they have the option to move underground and sell ads with no disclosure. How much would a seemingly unsolicited promotion from a Twitter celebrity be worth? I’m sure the current Ad.ly ads get a lot of exposure but I imagine that if that same celebrity seemed to be promoting a brand/product/service without any compensation it would appear to be even more compelling. Of course, this probably runs afoul of recent FCC regulations but that’s a different issue. The fact is that a number of opportunistic individuals made a ton of money by selling and brokering paid links for the express purpose of improving organic search results in Google. This has been going on for years and while the market has moved more underground it still exists and will exist as long as Google and other search engines use links are part of their ranking algorithms. It seems to me that outside of being acquired by Twitter the only long term opportunity for Ad.ly and other Twitter ad networks is to go stealth and follow the path blazed by link brokers. Otherwise I have a feeling their success is going to be short lived.
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