We Waited All this Time for...uh...Promoted Tweets?

So...in-stream advertising. That is the answer on how Twitter will make money. I gotta admit that I am pretty underwhelmed with this idea. While the number 1 question about Twitter has long been "when will Twitter make money?"...the # 2 question has to have been "how will Twitter make money?" 

And now we know the answer. Basically, Twitter will partner with corporations to stick "promoted tweets" at the top of Twitter searches. In effect, this will mean that a search will be "user-generated" content, but instead, pre-determined, paid-for content provided by big corporations. Not exactly rocket science if you ask me.

So...will the model work? Well, if Twitter gets paid and corporations are happy...probably so. After all, Tweets are by-definition self-promotion anyway...so how different is corporate promotion? Maybe we don't like the idea, but it isn't like Twitter has been pure and clean. Heck, I myself wrote recently about the "sponsored tweets" business with recent posts on leading Twitter advertisers like Be-A-Magpie and Sponsored Tweets.

That being said, do I think twitter could have done better? Well, yea. It isn't like search advertising hasn't been perfected by the likes of Google already. As Newsweek stated earlier this week in their aptly titled post "Is Twitter Trying to Be Unimaginative at Making Money?", it is not like this hasn't been done before. To quote Newseek:

Yesterday Twitter unveiled its fascinating and nontraditional business plan, and it is … drumroll please … search advertising. Upon this announcement, a heavy sigh emanated from the Internet. In Silicon Valley, where tradition falls under the boot heels of revolutionaries every five years or so, it’s hard to think of something more traditional than search advertising, which Google perfected nearly a decade ago.

So what does this all mean for Twitter? Maybe nothing...maybe everything. While it is clear that Twitter needs to find a way to make money, it does strike me as uninspired that Twitter has gone down this path. After all, for a "revolutionary" system like Twitter it seems like a revolutionary model is needed. Do you agree?

D-Day Arrives. Will the iPad Win the Day or be Pushed Back into the Sea?

(Thanks to TechChunks for their great pic)
Amazing! Incredible! Laptop Killer! Absurd! A giant iPod Touch! A waste of money. Which of these terms defines the iPad to you? Or do you have a definition of your own?

One of the most amazing things about the arrival of the iPad's arrival is how *everyone* seems to have an opinion about it. Ever since it was first announced, the blogosphere has been a flutter about whether or not the iPad would be as "amazing" as Steve Jobs said it would be and create an entirely new market segment for consumer tech (see video at bottom). Or, would it fall short of its goals and become another interesting, albeit small part of the Apple product portfolio.

With the imminent arrival of the iPad to users around the US, David Pogue of the New York Times gets into the game by professing its well...its own indecision by writing not one, but two reviews of the iPad. The first, a "review for Techies" basically sums up the iPad as "basically a gigantic iPod Touch." While Mr. Pogue says a lot of positive things, he also makes clear his "techie" feelings in the following quote.

The bottom line is that you can get a laptop for much less money — with a full keyboard, DVD drive, U.S.B. jacks, camera-card slot, camera, the works. Besides: If you’ve already got a laptop and a smartphone, who’s going to carry around a third machine?

The second review "for everyone else" is far more kind. As Mr. Pogue also notes, in some cases, bigger really is better...especially when bigger means supporting maps, books and movies much, much better than any other Apple device to-date. Also, he gives fair credit to some of Apple's attempts at pricing and contracts for 3G wireless that are admirable. Equally important, Mr. Pogue notes that the "The iPad’s killer app, though, is killer apps." And on that, I don't think there is any doubt.

Still, put succinctly, the review can be summed up in one sentence. "The haters tend to be techies; the fans tend to be regular people." 

So what are you?

For me, well, I am firmly in the techie category. While I love the idea of the iPad, I hate what came out...at least in version 1.0. The device is unquestionably cool and useful for many things (e.g. music, movies, and Internet), but it is also unquestionably useless for many others (emails, multi-tasking, business applications). It is also very expensive, limited in capabilities, and has a number of feature deficiencies. Does that mean I won't buy one ever? Not at all, but until many of the gaps are fixed from my previous blog on this topic (The iPad Cameth. And...I Am Not Sure It Mattered), it won't be any time soon.

So what do you think? Anyone already have an iPad? And what do you think? Even if you are not sure where you stand, be sure to check-out Steve Colbert's iPad experience below.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Gets a Free iPad
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform