12 April 2010 | Author: J. Morton News Editor
A pioneer of search advertising has announced a new foray into online promotions - namely TweetUp, a service that will allow users of the microblogging site to bid on key words in order to improve page rankings.
Bill Gross, along with his tech company Idealab, has courted big-name investors, garnering start-up funds in excess of $3.5 million (£2.27 million) from parties such as Index Ventures and Revolution, headed by Steve Case, formerly of AOL Time Warner, according to a New York Times article.
After reaching agreements with Twitter-based services such as Seesmic, Twidroid and TwitterFeed, as well as being featured on unrelated sites, such as Answers.com, TweetUp will aim to produce improved Tweet rankings for its customers.
Gross feels this will be helpful, as information is often difficult to find on the social networking site.
"We feel Twitter is unbelievably powerful, but finding the thoughtful tweets amid all the noise is unbelievably hard," he said. "What we're bringing is a new sort-order to tweets."
Twitter users will be able to bid on key words with the service to promote their tweet and profiles through the TweetUp system, Gross said. Bidding on search terms will begin at 1 cent, a fee applicable for each search result.
However, the results will not merely be determined by payments, as the system will calculate popularity by a Tweet's number of reposts and the general influence of the user who posted it. Gross claims the idea for the service came to him amidst the Twitter fervour over the Copenhagen climate talks. He said he was discouraged after he wrote a blog piece and posted it on Twitter.
"Then 20 seconds later as I gloated in my success," he said, "I typed in 'Copenhagen' and my tweet was bumped off the page by people saying, 'Where do I buy mittens in Copenhagen?'"
He then began courting investors, and has been set about bringing the idea to fruition since February
Online ad pioneer sets sights on Twitter searches
A pioneer of search advertising has announced a new foray into online promotions - namely TweetUp, a service that will allow users of the microblogging site to bid on key words in order to improve page rankings.Bill Gross, along with his tech company Idealab, has courted big-name investors, garnering start-up funds in excess of $3.5 million (£2.27 million) from parties such as Index Ventures and Revolution, headed by Steve Case, formerly of AOL Time Warner, according to a New York Times article.
After reaching agreements with Twitter-based services such as Seesmic, Twidroid and TwitterFeed, as well as being featured on unrelated sites, such as Answers.com, TweetUp will aim to produce improved Tweet rankings for its customers.
Gross feels this will be helpful, as information is often difficult to find on the social networking site.
"We feel Twitter is unbelievably powerful, but finding the thoughtful tweets amid all the noise is unbelievably hard," he said. "What we're bringing is a new sort-order to tweets."
Twitter users will be able to bid on key words with the service to promote their tweet and profiles through the TweetUp system, Gross said. Bidding on search terms will begin at 1 cent, a fee applicable for each search result.
However, the results will not merely be determined by payments, as the system will calculate popularity by a Tweet's number of reposts and the general influence of the user who posted it. Gross claims the idea for the service came to him amidst the Twitter fervour over the Copenhagen climate talks. He said he was discouraged after he wrote a blog piece and posted it on Twitter.
"Then 20 seconds later as I gloated in my success," he said, "I typed in 'Copenhagen' and my tweet was bumped off the page by people saying, 'Where do I buy mittens in Copenhagen?'"
He then began courting investors, and has been set about bringing the idea to fruition since February
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