Author(s):
Stowe Boyd
In 140 characters:
AD is a leading indicator, like RT, at the start of Tweets denoting that the Tweet has been sponsored: an 'ad'.
Description:
I was involved in a longish discussion today, started by Brian Solis and a number of ther folks interested in some microsyntax to denote sponsorship. I suggested that the hashtag approaches being discussed had problems (see Sponsored Posts Microsyntax: AD Better Than #ad), and that it might be better to use something like RT, which denotes the nature of the tweet, while hashtags indicate the nature of the commentary.
Details and Use Cases:
RT is used at the start of a Tweet, declaring that their is a sponsorship relationship between the author and some other person, organization or group, which could be financial, or involving the use of free goods.
Examples:
AD I always use MentalMint (r) toothpaste. It’s so Minty, it’s Mental! #toothpaste #toiletries
AD this Nokia n99 cell phone they loaned me is cool especially the lens mounting and lenses #n99
AD Dear @stoweboyd, you might want to Whizbang.com, its a Twitter killer!
Alternatives
I discovered today (@gregarious pointer) that @savvyauntie has started using '[sp]' at the end of her sponsored posts. This actually is two bits of microstructure, '[ ]' and 'sp'. I would suggest that we might want to use the box ('[ ]') for something else, and put something so important as the type of tweet, like SP or AD, at the start of the post in caps.
Comments (1)
Tarun Upadhyay said
at 2:56 pm on Feb 2, 2010
How do you propose we AD and RT at the same time?
e.g. RT @stoweboyd AD this Nokia n99 cellphone is cool especially the lens
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