It's official: Twitter's adveritising platform is launching today. The Twitter business model that has been in the pipeline for what seems like forever is finally materializing.

The new Twitter advertising platform will begin appearing in search results in the afternoon, and ads on third-party apps and Twitter.com are sure to follow.

The new ad platform launching is known as Promoted Tweets. Promoted Tweets isn't a surprise launch, it's been announced and has been known for quite some time. Like any other company Twitter has to find a way to monetize its millions of users, or it will eventually run out of capital, and we wouldn't want that would we?

Now that they are unveiling the much-anticipated new ad platform the big multi-billion dollar question is: Will users respond? Afterall social media is about users responding, and this new ad platform looks very intriguing and only time will tell if it will be worth it to advertisers.

It's safe to say that Twitter's new ad platform could even change the fate and direction of social media in general.

Twitter Resonance: Digg Ads Reborn?

Promoted Tweets will begin by charging per thousand impressions, and gradually switch over to a system its calling 'resonance.' The gist of resonance is a sponsored tweet will gain points based on a variety of factors, including: Number of retweets; How many times the ad has been favorited; Impressions the ad has received; and how many clicks out the ad has received.

Resonance score is in many ways similar to Adword's quality score for adwords advertisers. The overall resonance score will affect the longevity of the ad, and the price. The system also has many similarities to Digg's advertising model.

Digg Ads only appear on Digg's homepage stream, and are basically sponsored Digg submissions. Based on the number of Diggs, buries, and clicks an ad receives that ad will stay on the homepage and decrease in price, or it will get kicked off the homepage, and the ad will be charged more. Essentially high performing ads will cost less than poor performing ads.

Of course there are many differences between Digg Ads and Promoted Tweets, the major philosophy is about gaining user opinion and delivering ads that the users want to see over ads that would otherwise just be wasting space.

What do you think? Could this be a new shift in the way online advertising is handled? Stay tuned for updates as we will be following Promoted Tweets like a fine-toothed comb.

Will Twitter Users Respond(IE Click)?

The biggest factor to a successful ad platform is if users respond to the ad. Action is what advertisers are looking for, whether its a visit to their store, a click on their link, a retweet, or a new follower.

The question remains to be seen: Will Twitterers embrace in-stream ads? Will twitter users click the ads and give Twitter the revenue boost it needs to become fully profitable on its own merit?

Predicting click-through rates is a science and industry of its own. Twitter is banking that combining relevancy with its in-house resonance score will make its platform more viable. If Digg Ads are an indicator, Twitter shouldn't find relevancy much of an issue.

Another factors in the success of Promoted Tweets is the presentation. To this issue Twitter is trying to balance the need to integrate ads seemlessly within the stream, with its need to also identify promoted tweets. Promoted Tweets look almost identical to regular tweets -- with the only noticable difference being the "Promoted By X" line at the bottom of every Promoted Tweet.  Most regular users may gloss over this small signal that its an ad, though I'm wondering if the fact that the majority of twitter users are tech-geeks will make them more aware of the 'fine' print in the ads so-to-speak.

If twitter's new ad platform cannot maintain some form of sincerity that underlies the social media industry, it could be a big fail. Promoted Tweets also need to be compelling, conversations, and less promotional. If Twitter ads become spammy, then they are doomed to failure.

I'm excited to see how the Twitter Resonance score fine-tunes its advertising so that the ads without value get deleted from the system quickly. I guess the verdict will ultimately not be out until the resonance part of the platform is launched sometime later this year. What matters most of all is if Twitter's "resonance" can cause twitterers to click. The money is in the clicks.

[Promoted Tweets IMG Credit: AdAge]

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