• Mashable, Friday, April 29, 2011 12:30 PM

Twitter has begun serving third-party text ads on its Webpage, in the right-hand column, below the "trends" section, reports Mashable. The microblogging platform previously used this space to display links to its own services, as well as Twitter-related third-party tools and services, but now it's showing ads that direct users to sites like ABC News and NFL.com.

"Interestingly enough ... Twitter does not use the 'nofollow' tag or disclose the fact that these are ads at all, except by defining them under the CSS class 'promo,' which is visible only if you look at the HTML code," Mashable notes. As has been widely reported, Twitter has been experimenting with various ad formats and potential revenue streams over the past year, while concerns mount that the social media star is losing its way.

One initiative, debuted in November, involved adding ads to individual user streams, while another let select customers advertise through Promoted Tweets, Trends or Products. Adds Mashable: "The text ads on the homepage probably aren't as important for Twitter as other ad formats, but the company is methodically trying every possible advertising avenue to figure out what works best."

Read the whole story at Mashable »