Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year, you have heard about Twitter, the 140-character microblogging platform that exploded onto the social networking scene. Twitter's popularity is partly a result of the implicit endorsement of every single celebrity out there. I have found that basically everyone has an account, from Olympians Michael Phelps and Shaun White to writers Chuck Palahniuk and Margaret Atwood, Britney Spears to ... President Obama?
In an announcement that surprised no one, Twitter recently said it will begin to sell advertisements. Now, corporations may buy "Promoted Tweets," which will appear at the top of the Twitter feed. Users may favorite, retweet or reply to said Promoted Tweets like any other normal tweet. Unlike normal tweets, however, the Promo-tweets will disappear after a while if no one responds to them, a promise that will provide feedback to corporations about the effectiveness of their 140-line ads.
I am struck by the ways that the addition of Promo-tweets to Twitter is representative of the burgeoning profitability of social media platforms. Of course, this is most widely represented by the ubiquitous college student staple: Facebook.
I have long since learned to ignore the Facebook ads urging me to play Sorority Life or to lose 10 pounds with an a
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