It seems as though Twitter launches a new ad product to try and monetize more efficiently and pervasively the user base that isn’t growing. Not only is the company trying to increase revenue to appease shareholders but it’s trying to adjust to the media world around it. 

What puzzles me, though, is how Tweetdeck, the preferred tool of a substantial set of Twitter’s power user base, remains unmonetized. When I log in to Hootsuite I occasionally see promoted posts or some other ad display. And certainly when I got to either Twitter.com or to the native mobile app I see plenty of ads. But Tweetdeck, along with Twitter’s native desktop app, still don’t have any ads being displayed.

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Years ago Twitter went through a big rough patch where it distanced many members of the developer community that had popped up around the network, using the API it offered to create custom tools and apps that provided people with a variety of options when it came to how to use Twitter. Tweetdeck was one of those tools until it was bought by Twitter. And one of the main stated reasons for the API crackdown was to control the ad experience, making sure ads were displaying in a uniform manner across apps, thereby monetizing as much of the userbase as possible.

So why, then, aren’t Promoted Tweets or other ads part of the Tweetdeck experience?

Perhaps this is part of a mindset that is so focused on mobile it can’t devote resources the desktop experience. After all the native Twitter app is also lacking Moments, Quote RT and many new features, only adopting GIF support at the end of last year in an update that reportedly wasn’t even developed in-house at Twitter.

Look, I don’t necessarily *want* ads polluting my Tweetdeck feed. Though my use of Lists means an impact there would likely be minimally felt. It’s just odd that for as much as Twitter seems trying to push people into Moments or flood the native app’s feed with ads that it hasn’t extended their reach to officially-provided desktop apps. As the company continues to have trouble attracting new users it’s going to have to more effectively reach the installed and active group with the ads it keeps introducing and apparently selling. But by leaving the desktop users out of that loop it’s missing not only a significant chunk of the audience but one that’s highly active and engaged.

1 Comment

  1. I’d be curious to see what is the percentage of Twitter usage with the desktop Tweetdeck. It’s probably a very very small number. Although, Twitter shouldn’t underestimate that small number, because the people who use Tweetdeck are power users.

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