Costolo: Advertising Is Key, Promoted Tweets In Stream Coming Everywhere, Including Third-Parties

MG Siegler has been writing for TechCrunch since 2009. He covers the web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, essentially everything. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch, he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where... ? Learn More

Today at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, CEO Dick Costolo sat down with some members of the media to talk a bit about the state of the company. He rattled of plenty of stats, and also gave the all-important update on the state of the business.

Of note, Costolo confirmed that Twitter is in the process of rolling out Promoted Tweets in the stream to everyone — whether you’re following a particular advertiser or not. And that doesn’t just mean on Twitter.com (where this roll-out is starting), these Promoted Tweets will be going everywhere Tweets flow, Costolo said. Yes, that means not only Twitter’s own mobile apps, but third-party services as well.

This will allow Twitter to make money no matter where or how people are using the service. Costolo said this is important. “We would prefer you view the Tweets here instead of there because there’s more money over here — we don’t want to think of it that way,” he said.

It’s important to note that Twitter isn’t just blindly shoving these ads (which, let’s be clear, is exactly what they are) in everyones’ faces and hoping they stick. Twitter is still using signal analysis to determine which Tweets should be shown where. But it’s also important to reiterate that users will not have to be explicitly following these advertisers (as was the case previously) to see these Tweets.

This all plays into the broader message Costolo shared today: advertising is key. While he noted that Twitter has a few revenue sources, such as “fire hose” access, there is no plan to scale that business. “Our advertising method is the only one we need to be a big business,” he said.

In terms of the that platform, Costolo said that Twitter would begin testing a self-serve advertising service in the future. This will be white-labeled, open to trusted partners at first.

Costolo did leave a small window open, noting that the company will likely experiment here and there with other revenue-generating ideas. But again, it’s all about advertising. “We don’t think there’s anything more we need to do to make money,” he reiterated.

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to...

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One Year Later, Facebook Killing Off Places …To Put Location Everywhere

MG Siegler has been writing for TechCrunch since 2009. He covers the web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, essentially everything. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch, he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where... ? Learn More

It was almost exactly one year ago that Facebook launched Places, their location-based offering. Reading the press at the time, you would have thought it was going to be the Foursquare-killer, the Gowalla-strangler, the Loopt-beheader, etc. Nevermind that Facebook partnered with all of them for the launch — those guys were done.

Fast forward to today: Foursquare recently raised a large round of funding valuing them at $600 million. And Facebook is killing off Places.

To be clear, Facebook is not ducking out of the location game itself. In fact, you could say that they’re doubling-down on it. But they are moving away from the game that the “check-in” services have been playing. And a result of that is Places being killed off and being replaced by new “Nearby” area, as Jason outlined along with the bigger privacy changes today.

Reading over Facebook’s own post on the location changes, it wasn’t entirely clear what these changes meant for the concept of the check-in itself. But this page appears to make it a little more clear. As I read it, check-ins will remain as a part of the product, but they’ll no longer be emphasized. It seems that the hope is that people will move away from thinking of location in terms of “checking in” and instead think about it in terms of tagging your location to what ever it is you’re doing — sharing a thought, posting a picture, etc.

As the new location page makes clear, Facebook now views location usage in three main ways:

Share where you’ve beenShare where you are nowShare where you’re going

Past. Present. Future.

This is smart, as it’s something none of the other location services have really nailed yet. And now that location is being emphasized on every Facebook action (though it can easily be turned off) — and not just on mobile — a lot of people are going to use it. Location as a layer of context is about to get a big upgrade.

All of this is also smart from a location-based advertising strategy. It’s more data and more strong signals. What I’m not yet clear on is what this means for Facebook’s location-based deals service. Launched alongside Places last year, it would seem that this never really took off. And Facebook doesn’t mention it today. I’ve reached out to them to clarify.

The video on the location info page details how location tagging will work. The default on facebook.com appears to be city-level, and there’s a secondary location button to add an actual venue (which is then inserted into your status message). You can also add location to photos you’ve already posted.

The video also points out that on mobile devices there will still be a check-in button, but the functionality will be different. It apparently will only exist as a part of a status update and there will be no more big blue “Check In” button that inserts your check-in into a stream of other check-ins (and again, no more Places area itself). Instead, once you select a place, it will simply be tacked on to the end of your status message.

Location sharing will also be tied to the more direct and simplified privacy changes Facebook outlined today.

Update: Here’s what Facebook has to say on the check-in deals:

Once someone tags where they are on Facebook, they will be directed to the News Feed. If the Place is offering a Check-in Deal, the title of the deal will appear below the News Feed story. You’ll then be able to click on the deal title and will then be taken to the claim flow.

Below, find the flow diagram of how it will now work.

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It...

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