Show me the money! After staying away from a monetary system, social giant Twitter finally gave into the almighty dollar. Recently, Twitter revealed its ad model for “Promoted Tweets.” This marks the first phase of Twitter’s paid-advertising initiative with select businesses, such as Best Buy, Red Bull, Sony Pictures and Starbucks, already on board. Paid advertisements will appear at the top of the search results when a Twitter user searches for a keyword that an advertiser bought.

There are pros and cons of Twitter’s new revenue model. On the upside, most of the advertisements will be special offers and coupons. Considering the economic situation of many consumers today, saving money always helps, so if you can get a free cup of coffee for your morning commute, why not? Also, if you are a follower of these businesses, the ads will be sent right to you.

The downside comes in phase two of Twitter’s “Promoted Tweets.” In this phase, advertisements will appear in a user’s Twitter stream, regardless if the person performed a search or is a follower of the advertiser(s). Twitter is aware of the risk that unsolicited ads could be seen as invasive. It is proceeding with caution, knowing that ads must be relevant and help the user experience be successful.

Regardless of how you view “Promoted Tweets,” it is a step into uncharted territory for Twitter. These changes follow the direction for the rest of the Internet. Search engines, Internet Yellow Pages and Facebook all contain paid advertisements. We have come accustomed to these ads, which appear at the top, bottom and sides of the results pages. If “Promoted Tweets” initiative proves to be relevant to Twitter users, there will be success tied to this ad model.