See that image to the right? That is my trending bar from Twitter. If you don't use Twitter, trending topics are items that are getting a lot of play during the day. You may wonder why mine is for São Paulo. Well, as far as I know, you cannot remove trending from your screen, so by choosing São Paulo I am free to ignore topics, as I don't know what most of them are (obvious exceptions with the World Cup going on). See, the Brazilians are not yet big Justin Beiber fans, and since he owns Twitter I had to pick a place he was not yet destroying.Today I see Toy Story 3 in my São Paulo trending. "Wow," I thought, "it is big there too?" I am sure it is, but then I notice the little "Promoted" button. When I mouse-over it, it says "Promoted by Disney/Pixar."
First, I understand that Twitter needs money to operate. I don't know who is funding it in general, but they do not have banner ads and are providing a free service. Good for them getting Disney to shell out some bucks. Also, good for them in making it clear that Toy Story 3 is not actually trending in São Paulo, but rather Disney paid for it to be trending there. I have no fault with Twitter on this account.
Now, I am also not going to disrespect Disney here either. I am sure they bought up key search terms at Google, and banner space all over the internet. I do think this is a weird thing though. Trending topics are what people on Twitter are talking about, and if Toy Story 3 has the caveat "promoted" next to it, then it is inferred that people are not talking about it. It makes Toy Story 3 look like the unpopular kid who gets invited to the party because he promised to bring beer. It just seems like an odd move to me. The only time I see people mentioning trending topics is when they complain one thing is trending, or another thing is not. I mean, the movie did huge bucks at the theater, but now it has this image of, well, punk ass me trying to promote my blog.
I'm no expert, but I think this is a bad move. I wonder what it cost, and if it will become a normal thing?
2 comments:
If they need a Promoted Topic to generate revenue, sure, whatever, but listing it with Trending Topics damages the credibility of "trending."
I'll buy that. I guess they want to keep away from banners, plus I guess APIs would eliminate the banner but do have trending. Gotta have money to keep the whale at bay ;-)
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