Twitter has been Japanized - with ads!

Twitter has been localized into Japanese just now (about 10:30 am JST). Surprisingly, the Japanized twitter page has ads like this:

On the top right of the screen, you can see a square banner, which has been delivered by CGM Marketing, subsidiary of Digital Garage. You can change the language on the "Settings" menu, and when you choose "English", the banner disappears. I'm not sure this is just temporary, or in the near future ads will be displayed no matter which language you choose.

As far as I know, the Japanese twitter users I follow seems to accept Twitter's decision to display ads. I saw a few comments which clearly criticize this change, but most of them were about funny translation, not ads. Since some blogs already reported that Twitter had been testing advertising, "ad-supported twitter" could be no surprise to them. Or, the Japanese are nice to Twitter and think it should get some money?

……っつーことで、Twitter 日本語版が開始されました。驚いたことに、広告が表示されてます。僕が follow している方々の意見を見る限りでは、「少しぐらいの広告は仕方ない」「クライアントからアクセスしてるから関係ない」というコメントが多く、あまり気にしてなさそうという感じでしょうか。ただ海外のブログでは、「Twitter に広告出すのは反対！」という意見を目にしますから、これが英語版にも拡大されたらどんな反応が起きるのでしょうね。

【関連記事】

■ 【速報】Twitter日本語版サービスが開始 （BB Watch）