People’s genuine posts are being ‘crowded-out’ by the commercial use of Twitter.  Twitter has long been a marketing tool for companies to grow followings and promote featured deals, new products, etc…  It is a delicate balancing act for brands because you can’t simply bombard people with corporate tweets – they will tune you out / unfollow you.

Services like Ad.ly, SponsoredTweets, Magpie and Mylikes (just to name a few) exist to pay individuals who have cultivated large followings (the ‘influentials’) to post content that looks like their own but is in fact an ad.  This grass-roots marketing tool is effective because people seldom notice the disclosure that the FTC requires and are duped into landing on a 1-800 flowers ad that they never would have clicked on otherwise.

Now, with Twitter announcing its ad platform, corporate tweets that are clicked on by influential people are bubbled-up to the top of search results because they are deemed interesting and useful.  I’ve promised to withhold judgment until I can fully interact with the ads, but on the surface it seems like a very fine line between what someone else deems to be useful and interesting, 999 times out of 1,000 I will deem to be spam.

Corporate messages are so pervasive on the web that each time I read a tweet or post from an influential person, I’m now wondering “is Influential Person XYZ being paid, where’s the disclosure, does she actually like this product or service, what’s the angle?”  This has been a nuisance to me for some time, and now with Twitter’s ad platform launched, my fear is it will only get worse.

My question to everyone is “why hasn’t the display ad gone social?”  The trusty display ad is about an $8.5-9.0 BN market in the US each year, but we haven’t seen marketers and ad tech companies develop innovative display ad units that align with the way people use the web – socially.  Is it because Google struck gold with text ads and everyone wants to follow suit?  Is it because display ads get low click-thru rates, probably because there is no innovation?

Shortbord is pioneering a new type of display ad that is simple in nature, effective at generating clicks,  and most importantly, empowering to all online advertising participants: brands, people and websites.

Websites pick where each users’ shortbord is placed and earn a percentage of each endorsement.  We call it a grass-roots revenue model for social apps. A shortbord is like a brand badge, and each person’s badge can be displayed wherever a website owner wants to put it. Through crowd-sourced advertising, websites earn money from amassing… crowds.  Social apps finally have a revenue model that is supported by their active community.

People have total control over what brands they want to endorse, and instead of being forced to spam followers with paid messages, can actually use shortbord to build awareness for things that are personally meaningful.  A picture is worth a thousand words and individuals can finally earn value for all of the value they create. Once a blog or website is implemented, your current shortbord endorsement will be displayed automatically.

Brands have a way to get into the conversation without changing the conversation and annoying people.  Brands can finally use social media to build awareness and drive sales by targeting the types of people that are most appropriate to want to carry their brand badge, or shortbord.

Display ads can be effective if they are personally relevant and in prime social real estate.  They aren’t a nuisance because they don’t get in the way of genuine content.  No disclosure is required because they are fully authentic and transparent.  People click shortbords because brands put great deals up for grabs behind them.  Much like a badge on Foursquare, a Shortbord brand icon says a lot about a person without actually saying a word.

To implement Shortbord code in your blog or website  and begin growing the network, visit www.shortbord.com

…instead of posting an ad that looks like its my real content but is actually something that I’m being paid to represent as my own, I get to write about whatever I want to write about and still earn value.  We think the FTC will welcome this type of endorsement because we’re not trying to trick our readers into clicks – Shortbord is very transparent.  I earn value based on the exposure I provide for my endorsements. Shortbord is visual word-of-mouth endorsement without being misleading.  Brands win. People win. Websites win.

If you want to try Shortbord and implement your blog, email beta@shortbord.com and let us know.