It looks like Twitter has finally made up its mind regarding third party tweet ad services (like Be-A-Magpie, BeTweeted and the infamous Sponsored Tweets via IZEA) and the verdict is “no ads for you!”
For this reason, aside from Promoted Tweets, we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. We are updating our Terms of Service to articulate clearly what we mean by this statement, and we encourage you to read the updated API Terms of Service to be released shortly. (Official Twitter Blog)
This probably comes as a shock to many “tweet sense” companies, especially Be-A-Magpie which founder Biz Stone “apparently liked” (at least before promoted tweets was rolled out anyways.
While some users are railing against Twitter for cutting off another revenue stream, Twitter’s maneuver should help clean up the tweet stream by eliminating tweet spam in user’s timelines.
Despite the removal of third party tweet ads, Twitter is allowing companies to place ads next to the timeline, so mobile apps and web hacks should not be affected by the latest Terms of Service (at least for now).
