Programming Blog

Twitter is booming, and Google would be “very happy to pursue” an advertising partnership with the microblogging service, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Thursday.

There have been signs Google is vying with Microsoft for the privilege of supplying ads to Twitter. Although Schmidt didn’t mention any specifics about such talks during a conference call to report Google’s first-quarter profits, he lavished praise on Twitter and expressed enthusiasm for an ad partnership with it or its competitors:

Twitter proves innovation is alive and well in Silicon Valley. It’s really come on board very strong in the last year. It provides (an) incredibly useful thing: what am I doing right now?

The question is how could you make some money on that? Without comment specifically about Twitter, because there are a number of real-time update companies like Twitter, you can
imagine that to the degree they become successful, and obviously Twitter is already doing so, it could be a channel for product information, marketing information, real-time information, for which you can hang advertising products, whether it’s a text ads or video ads.

I don’t know personally their strategy, but it strikes me that’s a logical strategy to pursue. It’s something we’d be very happy to pursue with them and all the other players in that space.

The great thing about Twitter is it shows people really want to communicate, and that communication can occur in many, many different forms.