Can Twitter offer ads without driving away customers?

Twitter could be getting ready to launch an ad platform in two to three weeks, according to reports. It will need to strike a delicate balance, delivering users' attention to advertisers without driving the users away.

Anamitra Banerji, head of product management and monetization at Twitter, told the blog MediaPost that "we are working on an ad platform, but it's only in the test phase," according to a report published earlier this week.("Twitter Ad Platform 'Imminent'")

"People are constantly talking and engaging with brands, sharing their feedback," Banerji said during a panel discussion at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, MediaPost reported. "What if brands start to participate?"

Seth Goldstein, CEO and co-founder of socialmedia.com, who led the panel, asked whether Twitter was "likely in the next month or so [to] offer Twitter owned and operated ads, perhaps?" Banerji said, "That's right."

Twitter may launch its ad platform at the South by Southwest conference which starts March 12, according to GigaOm. ("Twitter to Launch Ad Platform Soon")

Goldstein later downplayed the exchange on his own blog. He branded the MediaPost article as "speculation."

It doesn't look like speculation to me, it looks pretty straightforward reporting of what was said. Although I wasn't there, and can't attest to its accuracy.

Goldstein also quoted from a November exchange with Dick Costolo, who said Twitter is working on an advertising strategy, which will be "fascinating, non-traditional, and people will love it."

TechCrunch speculates on what the ads might look like, and possible business models.

Twitter might offer contextual ads relating to in specific tweets, or shown only to people known to be interested in specific topics. Twitter could analyze people's tweets and figure out the topics they talk about or the topics the people they follow talk about, and then display semantically targeted ads.

If Twitter inserts ads into people's tweet-streams, would Twitter users get a cut of revenues, TechCrunch asks? If Twitter inserts ads into your tweet-stream, and your followers see them, shouldn't you get a cut? After all, the followers are there because of your tweets.

And will Twitter clients be required to serve ads, TechCrunch wonders?

Several companies are already putting ads in Twitter streams, including IZEA, formerly known as PayPerPost, and Ad.ly, which allegedly pays celebrities like Kim Kardashian to tweet ads, GigaOm says.

I'm curious to see how this comes out. How can Twitter offer ads that benefit customers without driving away users? We've all grown adept at ignoring ads, which means advertisers have to shout pretty loudly to get our attention. But if they shout too loudly at us on Twitter, we'll simply go spend our time on some other Internet community.

Social media have short, bright lives, more intense and ephemeral than boy bands; Friendster and MySpace both enjoyed brief popularity and were then usurped. Social media popularity is extremely fragile, and Twitter could lose its appeal in moments if it missteps.

On the other hand, if Twitter is too deferential, and its ads are too subtle, then they won't deliver value for advertisers, and the money will go away.

It'll be a tough balance.

If the reports are right, we'll find out how this comes out in a few weeks.