Twitter developing geo-targetted ads for brands and stores: Report

Twitter may be planning to let brands geo-target ads to users when they’re around their stores. The feature could be coming to the micro-blogging site as soon as the end of this year.

According to a report by Ad Age, it looks like Twitter will enable ads to be pointed to users who are near specific outlets and stores to inform them about specials and offers in it. So if you’re around, say, a Nike store in a mall, when you fire up your Twitter, you will be able to see tweets informing you about deals and sales currently going on in the store.

Twitter might ad location based tweets for stores

The report says that the feature could be ready by the fourth quarter, just in time to bring you tweets from the holiday sale stores will be undertaking. Twitter seems to have taken a leaf out of Facebook’s business model and may be introducing zip code targeting. Currently Twitter mainly allows ads to be targeted to certain cities, this feature might let it break down areas to zip codes in order to target better.

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This rumour could well be stemming from the fact that Twitter purchased local discovery app Spindle this week. The three-year old start-up had a mobile-search app that brought localised information about businesses and organisations around you to your phones. The app has been pulled off the App Store since the acquisition, fuelling rumours that Twitter could be putting the team to work on creating a bigger base for this new feature.

Twitter, of course, has refused to comment on the product or the timing of its release, leaving us to do the guesswork.