That would be really annoying if my friend and I weren't talking about Coke. But if we are talking about Coke, then I don't mind a stranger chiming in with "Hey, since you're talking about Coke, here's something you might like", as long as the stranger's message is highly relevant.
Twitter has got to find some way to monetize or they will die. Simple. I wouldn't mind a few highly relevant ads in my timeline if it means keeping the service free. They already know what I'm interested in. Or, others might value the service enough to pay a small fee to not be served ads. Either way, right now we're all getting something pretty great for free and it's not sustainable. I would rather get served a few ads for products that really interest me than see the service go away altogether.
That would be really annoying if my friend and I weren't talking about Coke. But if we are talking about Coke, then I don't mind a stranger chiming in with "Hey, since you're talking about Coke, here's something you might like", as long as the stranger's message is highly relevant.
Do you really believe this? Is the literal experience described, of a stranger injecting semi-relevant commercial comments into a conversation you were actually having, really something you, yourself, would find pleasant??
I feel as though there's a huge population of marketers who don't put themselves enough into the shoes of consumers to realize that this kind of things feels invasive, not helpful.
It's like marketers start with general point that relevant display ads work better than irrelevant display ads and assume that maximum customization of an makes it maximally appealing to the average person.
You don't realize that a person doesn't actually want any feedback from a company at random and that "personalizing" brand advertising just makes it creepy (as oppose to personalizing informational advertising, which makes it more useful).
I don't want my favorite company in the world injecting even relevant comment into my ordinary conversation. If I wanted to hear from them, I'd ask them. (and Facebook's right column just gets creepier).
No, it's not always pleasant. I admit that. But you know what's less pleasant? Twitter shutting down because they can't pay the server bills. The relevant economic concept here is opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of Twitter not showing ads is charging for their service. The next greatest opportunity cost is them not existing. So many people think the internet operates independently of the principles of economics. Well, it doesn't.
And I also don't feel the analogy is apt. To use the well-worn metaphor of Twitter as cocktail party, it's like having a conversation with your friend about, say, Arduino's, and having the host, whom you don't know, walk by and say "Oh yeah website X is having a great sale on those", and then they're off again to serve Jell-O shots. I chose to go to Twitter's party, so at least I'll nod politely to the host because they're the ones providing the free booze.
No, it's not always pleasant. I admit that. But you know what's less pleasant? Twitter shutting down because they can't pay the server bills.
Hey, I'm not against them monetizing.
But to monetize, they have to find an ad-format that works. And to find an ad format that works, they can't pretend targeting by itself will do what they need.
Realistically, for example, I think people would prefer a party where host have big "Bud" posters up to a party where the host interrupts individual conversations semi-relevant ads.
Twitter can monetize with plain, ordinary advertising.
The problem is this be admitting that Twitter's segment of the Internet is basically the relatively low-value part of the Internet and that Google's part is the higher-value part. That wouldn't make Twitter impossible, it would just take away from the huge valuation it has. And that could be a problem for a lot of people.
Twitter has got to find some way to monetize or they will die. Simple. I wouldn't mind a few highly relevant ads in my timeline if it means keeping the service free. They already know what I'm interested in. Or, others might value the service enough to pay a small fee to not be served ads. Either way, right now we're all getting something pretty great for free and it's not sustainable. I would rather get served a few ads for products that really interest me than see the service go away altogether.