Sponsor My Twitter Profile/Feed! (Updated)

OK folks. Here's an experiment.

I'm auctioning off sponsorship of my Twitter profile and feed. No in-line ads like @scobleizer. This is full graphical integration.

Check out the ebay auction here.

Here's the text of the listing:

This is an auction for a one-month sponsorship of my Twitter feed and page that lives at http://www.twitter.com/ischafer. I've got hundreds followers, many of whom are amongst the interactive advertising industry elite, including numerous journalists.

This one-month sponsorship includes replacing of the existing background image with the image(s) of your choice, as well as replacement of my handsome photo with another image of your choice (ie. brand logo).

I average about 8-10 outbound 'tweets' a day, and your brand would be represented in each.

I'll be blogging this experience at http://www.ianschafer.com.

Lets experiment together.

Any questions? Ask in the comments below.

Someone's got to figure out some kind of business model with Twitter. And I'd rather be part of the solution.

**UPDATE: The amount paid by the winning bidder will go as a donation to The David Wright Foundation.

Comments

[sull]

good to see another experiment in twitter user initiated monetization. Andrew baron of rocketboom considered selling his twitter account not long ago -

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/12/twitter-account-followers-for-sale-on-ebay/

He then reconsidered and shut down the auction.
Still, it was good for conversation and get people thinking about these alternative ideas that introduce sponsors to lifestreams/datastreams.

"I average about 8-10 outbound ‘tweets’ a day, and your brand would be represented in each."

are you referring to the twitter user photo or will you be referencing the "brand" in each tweet or some sporadic tweets?

The page background image is a good idea but it is not as valuable simply because twitter traffic/eyeballs are not as heavy on the twitter website as it is via other tools such as twitter client apps and 3rd party services. Even when a tweet is seen via twitter.com, it does not mean the background image is seen, as that would require a user to click through to your profile or twet permalink. I assume many users just read their data streams as they flow. So it is definately good to include the background image as part of the package, but i'm just pointing out the conditions around usage.

their is no doubt that directly injecting sponsor tweets in your twitter stream would be the most effective approach, though we all know how that may be deemed disruptive to your followers. If done right and in moderation... using some relation to time, number of tweets between each sponsor tweet and some other factors... then if your followers truly appreciate the content you put out, then they should be ok with this. Especially as you are being transparent and if you use proper tweetiquette.

I have some other ideas in this area that I may write about soon.

Thanks for experimenting. I'll be watching.

Sull

[ian]

I'm referring to the photo only. I do not want to insert sponsor tweets. I'll let someone else do that :) Just haven't seen it done the way I'm proposing yet...

Thanks!