Would You Pay Twitter To Keep Your Stream Ad Free?

Earlier today Mashable linked to a story upon GigaOM announcing that Twitter–a social network loved by numerous bloggers, is about to embrace tweet advertising.

(GigaOM) According to one source in the media industry, Twitter may launch its new advertising platform at the South by Southwest conference, which starts March 12. The social network is apparently working with several major partners for the launch, including “new and traditional media,” the source said.

Although I do recognize that Twitter can not keep providing a free service and keep the lights on indefinitely, there are probably many bloggers (like me) who have no desire to pollute our tweet streams with random ads sponsoring everything from socks to music.

In order to avoid the masses leaving Twitter for Facebook (or even Google Buzz), they may have to provide a premium option disabling ads altogether–a move which may not please users (especially those already short on cash due to the recession).

Twitter could make premium accounts inexpensive (say between $1-$3 per month) which would be a fair trade off for keeping our streams ad free.

However if they decide to charge more (say between $5-$10 per month) users may end up abandoning Twitter for Facebook, or demanding more features (i.e. verified accounts, higher API limits, etc.) from the popular startup.

While this author is not too pleased with the idea of ads inserted within streams, hopefully Twitter will provide an inexpensive way to opt out of ads as not everyone wants to put their entire life on Google and Facebook’s servers.

Author: Darnell Clayton

Darnell Clayton is a geek who discovered blogging long before he heard of the word “blog” (he called them “web journals” then). When he is not tweeting, Facebooking, or blogging about space and his beloved iPhone, he enjoys running, reading and describing himself in third person.