When the “new Twitter” was unveiled last week I noted that it certainly seemed like Twitter’s redesign had ads in mind in that conspicuously large right hand space.

I wasn’t alone in that observation – eMarketer noted in a good article last Friday summing up Twitter’s ad-relate moves that the right-hand column looks ripe for ad placement. They also noted that if Twitter algorithms are already recommending “who to follow” … it’s a short step to matching an ad with a topic of interest (theoretically, yeah, I agree). Also, the eMarketer piece notes that real-time advertising is likely — meaning Twitter is moving to pairing real-time activity with ads.

Frankly that’s the holy grail for Twitter, and why oh why they have not figured out how to monetize matching ads to trending topics (or any topic) is beyond me. Sure, until now their structure has limited ad space — but those structural issues (the size of ad space boxes) should be gone now.

But here’s what really puzzles me. Why doesn’t Twitter consider Facebook-like ads? Most people are not aware how much money Facebook rakes in from their tiny little ad space on their right-hand column. It’s around $1.5 billion annually. Why? Because they are so easy to create. Facebook’s ads are actually modeled on Google AdWords — you can self-create your own ads with headline, text and link (and image). Users can post and measure results by themselves. Simple, efficient, and for some, effective.

Why, oh, why, is there no buzz about Twitter trying THIS ad model which makes a huge amount of money for Facebook and Google?

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