Twitter to become monetized with adverts – or maybe not…

Twitter, the up to now free micro-blogging/social network service which has built a cult status amongst Web users, could be about to become monetized, with advertising in conversations streams. But then again, maybe not…

This article started as a basic report in to the experimentation reportedly taking place on Twitter last with adverts in conversation streams, but has now become something slightly more complicated and confusing. Duncan Rily at TechCrunch reported the new strategy occurring during last night’s downtime, after some users reported seeing adverts on the site.

However, there’s now some doubt as to the accuracy of the reports, with The Last Podcast claiming that the reports are erroneous and purely based on the spotting of a user’s background image which was featured on the site during the downtime.

The user in question commented on the TechCrunch article claiming that this is a misunderstanding, and provided a link to the image in question, which you can see here.

To his credit, Riley has replied to the comment, but is standing by his story due to the second of his sources not having seen that image. Which must mean the first one did, and we are assuming advertising is coming to Twitter purely on the reports of one person.

However, the bigger debate is still whether Twitter should now be monetized. It certainly has a big enough following to warrant it, and has spent enough time building that audience before even considering adding advertising.

I’m a Twitter user, and it wouldn’t personally bother me to see advertising get placed on the site, as long as it was tastefully done, and not wedged between every element of the site. Certainly I can’t begrudge Twitter the chance to make some money, as its a great service, and the downtime, though still present, has improved considerably over the last six months.

Riley ended his further comment by saying “Either way, ads are coming, just a matter of when.” I think that’s fair, and even though the timing of the story may be off, it’ll likely prove true within months.

Update: Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter has responded to the claims by saying: “No, we’re not putting ads on Twitter.com. From what I gather, someone mistook a background image for advertising.”

Thanks to Frederic at The Last Podcast and Peter at AlleyInsider for the heads up.

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