As we’re all well aware, with the recent launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is about to enter into yet another major war with Google, this time in the mobile space (or at least, they hope it will be a war). So perhaps it shouldn’t be too surprising today that when one of them bought an ad on Twitter, the other followed suit. Yes, both Microsoft and Google are running Promoted ads right next to each other today.
Now, this obviously could be a coincidence. But it seems like it could be calculated as well. After all, they’re both specifically targeting the mobile crowd with these ads. Microsoft is running a Promoted Trend for Windows Phone, while Google is running a Promoted Account for Google Mobile.
One thing to note is that while Promoted Trends show up across all of Twitter no matter what, Promoted Accounts are supposed to vary on a user-by-user basis. That said, I’ve asked a number of people and all of them seem to see the same GoogleMobile account as being promoted.
Might we start to see more rivals doing this? On Google, rivals advertising on queries for their competitors is one of the oldest tricks in the book. On Twitter, those doing the advertising will have to be a little more clever, but perhaps we’re starting to see that.
[via Steve Olechowski]