Say goodbye to the "verified" check-mark and say hello to the new way to tell if Twitter thinks your account is worth a damn. The social media giant, it seems, has stopped showing advertisements to users it considers to be important.
So reports Re/code, which yesterday noted that the company really wants the people driving the conversation (and engagement) on the platform to continue to do so — and probably bombarding them with ads in their Twitter feed reduces that likelihood.
"Sources say Twitter made the move in an attempt to get some of its VIP users to stay engaged with the service," notes the publication. "Twitter sources say the company doesn’t select the no-ad or low-ad group purely by star power, but by a variety of criteria, including the volume and reach of the tweets they generate."
So, it looks like even Twitter thinks its ads are annoying enough to drive away users.
When asked about this by Re/code, Twitter spokesperson Will Stickney wouldn't answer directly, and instead offered this platitude: “We’re constantly looking at constraints and adjustments to optimize which ads are shown and how often.”
The company has recently been playing around with variations on the standard Twitter experience we know and love — trying out non-chronological feeds and floating the idea of a 10,000 character limit — and this move to make some users' experience ad-free likely falls into the same category of attempts to squeeze a little more engagement/blood out of the Twitter stone.
As you likely heard, Twitter's stock has been hitting all-time lows and several top executives have just split. Did the company try not showing them any ads?
