Twitter crossed another threshold in its evolution as a major advertising platform on 4 October, with the ceding of the CEO reins by Evan Williams to COO Dick Costolo and the launch of Promoted Accounts.
Williams, who created Twitter along with Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey after selling his company Blogger to Google and leaving the search engine, said in a blog post he would focus on product strategy going forward.
Williams explained that after the successful redesign of Twitter he realised that he is “most satisfied with pushing product direction. Building things is my passion and I’ve never been more excited or optimistic about what we have to build.”
Under the direction of Costolo, Twitter launched its Promoted Tweets and Trends ad products, allowing advertisers such as Starbucks and Virgin to pay to have their tweets listed as the top result when a user searches Twitter.com.
Businesses with products and services to push pay $100,000 for these links. Williams acknowledged Costolo’s efforts for the Promoted Tweet suite, calling him “a critical leader in devising and executing our revenue efforts.”
Costolo, who like Williams joined Google after selling his company Feedburner to the search engine, has been a fixture on the keynote circuit since unveiling Promoted Tweets.
The new CEO said at Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mixx conference on 28 September that Twitter would soon suggest accounts that people don’t follow but may find of interest.
This product, dubbed Promoted Accounts, launched an hour before Costolo was officially given command of the company and builds on Promoted Tweets and Trends. The goal of Promoted Accounts, according to a blog post, is to introduce more accounts to people.
Promoted Accounts are suggested based on a user’s public list of whom they follow. When an advertiser pays to promote an account, Twitter’s algorithm looks at that account’s followers and determines other accounts that those users tend to follow.
If a user follows some of those accounts, but not the advertiser’s account, then Twitter may recommend the advertiser’s Promoted Account to that user.
Beginning this week, users who are logged in may see Promoted Accounts surface in the “Suggestions for You” section in the side panel on the right side of the Twitter.com homepage for logged-in users.
Twitter also said it is opening Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends to third-party partners, starting with HootSuite today and others in the future.
HootSuite will run Promoted Tweets in search and highlight Promoted Trends, taking an unspecified cut of Twitter’s revenue for these products.
X's global affairs head, Nick Pickles, confirms departure after a decade working at the platform…
British competition regulator closes investigation into Microsoft's hiring of Inflection AI staff, which it deems…
First public response made by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, after arrest in France over alleged…
US authorities probe fatal four-vehicle crash caused by Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle using BlueCruise…
Margrethe Vestager set to step down as EU competition commissioner after a decade in office…
EU regulators to seek views from industry players on Google's DMA compliance plans ahead of…