Following leaked revelations Twitter will take in as much as $20 million or so per month by the fourth quarter of 2010, it appears the company is testing a new contextual advertising system that will target ads to people based upon the contents of their tweets.
Saul Hansell of the New York Times tweeted yesterday he's apparently in on the test and will have more to report at a later date.
Inline contextual advertising on Twitter might not be such a bad thing. If it's relevant. If it's not too frequent. And if it actually serves a person's needs. Time and testing will address that but one thing is clear. Either through fees, ad revenue or some other source, Twitter does need to start making money. Even the best services can't live on VC money indefinitely.
Twitter, of course, states all this leaked information is inaccurate and unofficial. But, there may be a reality TV show in the works called Final Tweet. Seriously. That has to be a joke.
OK. What do you really think was on the mind of the copywriter when he can up with the tag, "French Me" for the latest Hardee's outing which features a bunch of French maids posing and primping to, oh yea, sell us some French Dip Thickburgers?
Yea. Exactly.
- This is just too WTF weird not to share.
- For the first time in 25 years! Footage of Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire in the Pepsi commercial. Chilling.
- The old Mentos ads (the Freshmaker ones) were great. The new ones, not so much. But they are kind of funny.
- Want to know where the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile is? Just visit Brightkite which the company is using to let people know where to spot the 27 foot long hot dog.
- This is stupid.
- Check out ad:tech's new virtual conference series. The first one is August 4.
We love this new billboard campaign for Petersburg, Kentucky-based Creation Museum, a "70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life." This particular campaign appears to promote the museum's Dinosaur Den.
Interestingly, and unlike many other museums, the Creation Museum touts the idea of natural selection versus evolution and downplays the "molecules-to-man" line of Darwinian thinking. Or at least that's how we interpret it.
The billboard campaign itself is perfect. After all, what do you think a dinosaur would do if a billboard got in its way?
PETA grabbed Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole for their latest Go Veg effort. In celebration of National Veggie Dog Day (only PETA can come up with this stuff), Nicole, along with another lettuce-clad hottie, gave out free veggie dogs outside Capitol Hill yesterday.
Hmm. We've seen this lettuce bikini thing before. Wonder who created the idea first. Oh and before you all go slinging agency names around like a sandbox full of kids fighting over a plastic shovel and screaming, "mine! mine! mine!", we're quite sure old-school cavewomen - or maybe even Eve, herself - can lay claim to the invention before anyone had an inkling of the word "advertising".
Sadly, Obama Girl didn't make an appearance with the Giuliani Girls for an all out catfight.
Scarlett Johansson, whose chest Woody Allen simply cannot stop staring at, has landed a new spokesmodel gig for fashion label Mango. She follows Penelope Cruz and is featured in a new ad campaign.
Images from the campaign are here.
