As you check out your messages on Twitter and some other social networks you might notice something new these days. Commercials. Advertisements and commercial messages are slowly becoming more common, and some of the ads appear to come with the endorsement of your friends and trusted partners.

With the great popularity of social networking has come some deep thinkers who want to link friendship and chat with making money. There have been stories in the media about the relative commercial value of various internet media. Google is obviously a huge commercial powerhouse; it makes billions of dollars for its shareholders, as exemplified by the healthy and climbing stock price (GOOG). Some of the other media, like Twitter, have millions of subscribers but have trouble ‘monetizing’ or making money for its owners. Now comes word that some of the participants in Twitter and such are trying to cash in on their participation.

There are several advertising agencies and other companies which are trying to recruit people to send commercials and other, similar advertisements over their social media accounts. Receivers might get a message from a bicycle enthusiast, for example, who extolls a particular brand of bicycle helmet. To her readers, this might appear as a helpful personal observation and recommendation. But behind the scenes there might be a commercial link between writer and bicycle helmet company (or their advertising agency), so that if and when a reader clicks on a link to find out more about the helmet the bicycle enthusiast gets a few cents or dollars.

If you are familiar with AdSense, which is a safe assumption for readers of this website, the method is similar to the AdSense model. Put out a message and get paid when someone, anyone clicks on your message.

But in this case, the enticing message does not appear on a blog or website, it is encased within a Twitter tweet or Twitter message.

Up to now the openness to this kind of commercialization is limited to some services, not to others. As the examples above exemplify, Twitter does it. Up to now, Facebook does not permit this technique.

Whether people cotton to this form of commercialization is an open question. Some people resent the intrusion of commercialization into an area which is supposed to be personal and sincere. Other people take it as an inevitability, sort of like commercials when watching a sporting event on television — tune in or not to the message, it’s up to you.

We have yet to see whether this form of commercialization floats or causes social networking as a media to sink. There have been some examples of variations of this technique being used in the past. These examples did not work. But there’s always hope, and new shades of techniques to try. While people still have a little money in their pockets, we shall see which way the commercial winds blow.

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Tags: commercial powerhouse, commercial value, commercial winds, social networks, Twitter message, Twitter tweet