Earlier this week, we asked whether Twitter could build a large-scale ad platform. The company’s now talked about as worth $10 billion, despite only taking in $45 million in revenue last year. Some point to the lightening-fast success of Charlie Sheen on Twitter as justification for the high hopes pinned on Twitter. Still, Twitter has been cautious in introducing advertising — for good reason. A small tweak to its iPhone app over the weekend added what Twitter dubs the “Quick Bar.” It flashes hot trending topics from time to time, including ad messages. The move provoked howls from bloggers, some of which quickly dubbed the new feature the “Dick Bar.” Twitter clearly has a tough balancing act in monetizing the service and not alienate a fickle user base. We asked a variety of industry leaders for their thoughts on the question: “Can Twitter build a large-scale ad platform?” Excerpts of their responses are below.
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