Twitter has yet to pull the trigger on their purported advertising initiatives (though they are profitable), and today OneRiot is beating them to the punch and releasing RiotWise Trending Ads as part of their API and Mobile Ad Unit.

RiotWise Trending Ads is essentially a real-time stream of ads — associated with trending topics on Twitter — that application developers can toss into the Twitter mix to monetize their desktop, web, iPhone, or other mobile Twitter apps.

Launch partner Digsby, a popular IM and Twitter client, is about to flip the switch on the new ads, integrating the trending ads right into users’ News Feeds.

The service, which is an extension of OneRiot’s RiotWise initiative, touts ads that are highly relevant to trending topics, with an advertiser’s message appearing before you only after it passes a match check against currently trending topics. Whether their algorithm works as promised remains to be seen, but since Digsby is a launch partner, users of that service should notice the new real-time ads integrated into the News Feed in January. You can see an early mockup of the new look below.

Obviously, contextual ads integrated into Twitter streams fill a much needed void for application developers who want quick revenue returns. As it stands, some Twitter application developers have already figured out how to monetize their apps — most of whom charge nominal fees or include ads in mobile apps — but a large majority of web and desktop applications have avoided advertisements for fear of alienating Twitter users.

With the release of Trending Ads comes the promise of Twitter application monetization, which means you’re bound to see the real-time ads in some of your favorite Twitter clients soon enough. In some cases this could be a win-win situation for developers and users, especially if your Twitter app already includes less contextual advertisements. Of course, there is the flip side, where Twitter users could easily be turned off by in-stream advertisements.

How would you feel about Trending Ads as a part of your favorite Twitter app? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: digsby, OneRiot, social media, twitter

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