Two in the Bush

Elon Musk hopes to turn the fortunes of Twitter around (dare I say he wants to flip the bird?). Already he complains of losing advertisers, so it's a good guess his best hope is to fire more staff. Which could lead to a further loss of advertisers, and so it goes. But why would anyone advertise on Twitter?

I enjoy Twitter. I use it for entertainment, for leads to good articles, for bookmarking those articles, and for informative threads by people who are pretty smart. But the smart ones aren't advertising.

If I'm like most people, ads on Facebook and Instagram are mostly annoying. I scroll past them and gain a negative view of the companies trying to interrupt me. But Twitter posts are small, and scrolling past ads is easier and less annoying. I don't remember any of them.

On the one hand, I appreciate companies willing to subsidize my source of information. On the other hand, I wonder what compels them to do it. Social media depends on advertising, but it has a poor track record of delivering results. Advertisers would do well to verify a return, if any, on their investment, and to consider the ethics of condoning Musk's irresponsible management.

One day, there will be an online forum that excels at advertising. It will be entirely devoted to advertising, helping people find what they want and need by letting them compare items to all similar products. This idea made Sweet's Catalogue of yesteryear wildly successful. It can be done digitally (Sweet's hasn't yet mastered the transition from print) and for a host of product types.

Perhaps this future forum will subsidize an editorial branch, like an old-fashioned newspaper. If that branch were Twitter, responsibly monitored, and the only ads were to remind me that a helpful advertising site makes this possible, I would be happy. I'd consider those sponsors smart.