Ad.ly...anyone try it yet?

No spammy bs intended here, but did anyone try ad.ly yet? They have a contest for referrals right now...so if you want to help me out, use my link:
http://ad.ly/refer/379232331

Otherwise, here is the quick run down...
Ad.ly, is a brand new advertising network only very recently launched that inserts ads once a day on your twitter account. The ad network seeks your approval first so you would basically be “indirectly” tweeting the ad. Its almost as if you’d be “endorsing by approving” their ad. Interesting…
This sort of control is great to have on advertising right? As the publisher so you’re technically deciding very directly what your followers see. This is great in comparison to something like Adsense where the ads are more based on bids than on the content and much less approved by you (what control you do have is choosing who you DON’T want to advertise!).

This could be counted as a win-win for both the advertisers and the users on twitter. On the one hand, ad.ly “enables advertisers to reach the highly sought after Twitter audience by connecting brands with the most influential people in the community”. And on the other hand, the publisher gets to choose which ads they think their followers might actually benefit from! It’s like an affiliate marketing and advertising hybrid!

When you sign up as a publisher you can actually set your required weekly price from the advertiser, which is another great level of control. That being said I would probably go with the recommended amount or a little less, to get maximum benefit from it. It’d be a shame to lose out on advertisers because you set your price too high right!?

On a side note, you can actually donate a part or all of your earnings to a charity of your choice. Excellent! I hope that someone like Bono will use their sea of followers to feed the hungry instead of simply adding to their millions…

Over all ad.ly seems like an excellent addition to the world of Twitter. Who wants to start a bet that Google will buy it!?
By the way, ad.ly is currently holding a competition for who can get the most users to sign up using a custom referral link. The winner gets a Macbook Pro!