Party's Over, Twitter VIPs: You're Getting Ads Again

Sorry, Twitter VIPs.

I think I blew it for you.

Last month I reported that Twitter had stopped showing ads to some Twitter VIPs, in an attempt to get some of its most engaging tweeters to tweet more.

This made a little bit of sense, if you sort of squinted at it. But it also seemed like an un-Twittery thing to do for a long period of time: Why promote the sense that some Twitter users (like me!) are better than others?

Also: Why promote the idea that ads are something you’d like to avoid, if you’re in the business of selling ads?

Anyway, that appears to be over now.

I still haven’t seen any ads in my feed. But if Marc “I Love Twitter So Much I Should Buy It” Andreessen started seeing ads in his feed today — a day before Twitter reports earnings — I think that’s a pretty good tell.

https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/697207432393543680

And he’s not the only one who’s noticed.

LinkedIn content boss (and Code Media speaker) Dan Roth:

https://twitter.com/danroth/status/697207288797491200

Business Insider editor Jay Yarow:

https://twitter.com/jyarow/status/697196702835601409

And my colleague Kurt “Scoop” Wagner:

I bet a bunch of you are also seeing them for the first time in a while, so go ahead and send me a Tweet or screenshot if you’d like. And again, I’m sorry that I screwed things up. If that’s what happened.

For the record, Twitter comms fellow Will Stickney offered up the same line he offered up last month: “We’re constantly looking at constraints and adjustments to optimize which ads are shown and how often.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQZ0qmf-mk

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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