Technology, Advertising | featured news

Twitter is now selling its "Promoted Tweets" for $100,000, according to an article in this morning's Wall St. Journal. "Promoted Tweets," which allow companies to buy the top spot on Twitter's Search results page, is just one of the microblogging network's new advertising initiatives as of late. The idea behind these digital ads is that the service allows companies to associate themselves with a certain trend or keyword.

AOL is preparing to introduce a larger, splashier ad format that it hopes will attract more ad dollars from big brands and help revitalize its business.

Advertising billboards similar to those seen in the film Minority Report, which can recognise passers-by, target them with customised adverts and even use their names, are being developed by computer engineers.

Yahoo (YHOO) and Gannett (GCI) announced today that they have formed a local advertising partnership.

The social-networking site is aggressively pitching to big advertisers like Ford Motor Co. and PepsiCo Inc. the latest in a series of ad formats that tell users which of their Facebook friends have expressed interest in the brand or product featured in the ad.

Twitter this week began testing a new type of advertising: “Promoted Trends.” Under the new system, brands can pay to appear below the “Trending Topics,” the most talked-about terms on Twitter at any given moment.

Last week, media consultant Frederic Filloux argued in his Monday Note and, through syndication, in the Washington Post that the digital ad industry is like an early-stage cancer patient -- already dying but still in denial. And, as the Post called them in its headline, smug.

Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $5.9 billion for Q1 2010, representing a 7.5 percent increase over the same period in 2009, according to numbers released moments ago by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in tandem with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Setting a high bar for its debut in the advertising business, Apple aims to charge close to $1 million for ads on its mobile devices this year.

Some of Apple's iPhones and its new iPad devices will soon be able to run more than one program at a time, something that phones from Apple's rivals already offer and that iPhone owners have long sought.