Last week, AT&T and Federated Media debuted “March Tweetness,” a Twitter-endorsed page geared around the March Madness college basketball tournament. It was Twitter’s second attempt at what amounted to an advertising play, and I thought it looked modestly promising. And now it’s gone. At least temporarily. The problem? No one checked with the NCAA, which keeps a tight grip on any and all college sports trademarks.
Earlier this week, Twitter started rolling out its first ad experiment–an “ExecTweet” page, sponsored by Microsoft. Here’s the next one–a “March Tweetness” page, sponsored by AT&T.
Finally. Here comes Twitter’s first real foray into advertising, courtesy of Microsoft’s marketing budget. And don’t worry, Twitter users: You won’t be getting come-ons for Vista in your Twitterstream. Not yet, at least. The program that Twitter has rolled out today–something called ExecTweets–is a fairly cautious step into marketing, and that is certainly by design. But it does give a you a good sense of what Twitter thinks it can do with its buzzy, fast-growing and almost revenue-free product.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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