Group items tagged

Unlike a traditional ad network, this one starts with a viral network at its very core. An @earlybird tweet seen by one million followers could be retweeted by just one percent and be seen by an additional 10,000 Twitter users. That's assuming a 1X pass along. Surely, some really good deals will be retweeted 20, 30, or many more times. In other words, @earlybird is, potentially, a very powerful idea.

Now, as Twitter recognized with its first ad-based tweets attempt, this program will only be as successful as the quality of the tweets, and by that I mean the advertising and deals. I assume Twitter has a team working with partners to create incredibly engaging, pithy, powerful, and ultra-attractive 140-character ads—at least I hope it does.

If Twitter's successful, the next phase is obvious: More ad network accounts. Some will be broad like this one. There'll likely be a "supersaver" account that offers really cheap deals. Then Twitter will move to more narrow categories, such as @automotivedeals and @technologyoffers. With each new, successful slice, Twitter ad accounts will get narrower and narrower until Twitter can charge extremely high prices for ultra-vertical ad accounts. Of course, Twitter has to build or acquire the right Twitter account names. Few as good as @earlybird are probably still available.

Google will capture the chatter about it in real-time from sources such as Twitter, Yahoo Answers, news media and Facebook. The inclusion of Facebook () in this list of real-time sources is one of the most important aspects of today’s announcements, and it is something that could have major implications for Twitter and its ambitions to become the world’s water cooler. In fact, Facebook held back the opportunity to deal a heavy hit to its microblogging rival. But why?

There are so many issues in the social realm that this list could be endless, but I chose the 12 most important items to work on in social media in 2010. As you may know, there is no right answer in social media; each company is different, but each of these points can be adjusted for any company.