Several months back, the idea of a “pay per tweet” network was quickly refuted as an April Fool’s joke. But that hasn’t stopped Twitter from becoming a serious tool for self-promotion, including many users customizing their page backgrounds to advertise their various web sites and social media profiles.
Now, enter a new service called Twittad that wants to monetize that background real estate. The company is allowing Twitter users to make their page backgrounds available to the highest bidder. [img src="http://sale-online.click/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/twittad-r.gif" caption="" credit="" alt=""] Each listing includes the number of followers, the duration, and the price. Advertisers can then purchase the spots, with Twitter ad collecting a 5% commission on the transaction. So far there aren’t enough transactions completed to estimate the average value of a Twitter follower over a given time period, but this example of a recently sold ad spot for an account with 250 followers went for $5 for one month.
There are a few obvious problems with this model, the first of which is that page backgrounds are not clickable and there is no easy way for a third-party service to track any meaningful metrics other than impressions. Further, with so much activity taking place on either your friend timeline in the Web interface or in a third-party app like Twhirl or Tweetdeck, profile pages are not necessarily especially valuable real estate. So, ads purchased through Twittad are almost exclusively a branding play – much like the giant Fig Newton sticker on Ricky Bobby’s windshield in Talladega Nights.
Despite the inherent problems in Twittad’s model, there are a number of other companies attempting to monetize web page backgrounds, including AdCamo, who is providing a platform to both publishers and ad networks.