Twitter will mine people’s tweets to target ads

Twitter on Wednesday began to allow ads to be targeted at users based on the words written in ‘tweets’ and messages forwarded to followers at the popular social network. Previously, contents of Twitter messages relied on algorithms that pool the interests of users to send them potentially relevant ads in the form of tweets ‘promoted’ at the top of feeds. Twitter produce manager Nipoon Malhotra said the new feature would allow ‘advertisers to reach users based on the keywords in their recent tweets and the tweets with which users recently engaged.’ Malhotra gave the example of a concert venue being able to target local music lovers with tweets promoting upcoming shows by bands they have raved about in messages at Twitter. ‘Users won’t see any difference in their use of Twitter; we’re not showing ads more frequently in timelines, and users can still dismiss promoted tweets they don’t find relevant,’ Malhotra said in a blog post. Twitter is expected to earn $582.8 million globally in ad revenue this year and nearly $1 billion next year, according to industry tracker eMarketer.