Twitter plans to sell ads, will now make money off non-users

At CES 2015, Twitter made a few headlines too. The company is reportedly planning out a new advertising strategy by which it will make profits out of the millions of people who just see tweets but don’t use Twitter.

Wall Street Journal reported that the social media company is planning to sell ads within streams of tweets on other publishers’ apps and websites, people familiar with the matter said. Twitter laid out its initiative to media buyers in a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the people said.

Though none of the publishers have been finalized, references to ESPN’s SportsCenter app and Flipboard were made. The report further stated that the company wants to be able to eventually make the claim that it delivers the ’largest daily audience online'.

As there is a huge audience for Twitter, investors want to see if the company can make money of them. This is where the new ad sales initiative will step in. If successful, the revenue will mostly be split between Twitter and those publishers promoting the Twitter ads.

At CES, the company also shared their future video plans. Earlier reports suggested that Twitter is working on a native video player. This could be a challenge to YouTube. The company has revealed more features about its native video service as part of its bigger strategy to position itself as a media platform.

While the Twitter Video Player may be used by advertisers or other commercial partners, for example, the micro-blogging platform will not allow third parties to sell access to the Video Player, or to embed other advertisements, sponsorships, or promotions on it. Users will have some control over how the video is presented to users in timelines by way of a customised thumbnail.