Twitter to intro self-serve ads

Twitter plans to debut a self-service advertising platform in 2011 which will include the ability to geo-target commercial messages, according to the company's COO, Dick Costolo, reports Clickz.

Speaking at the IAB Mixx conference in New York, Costolo said the company has focused on testing its commercial products with big brand advertisers, but plans to offer a solution to long-tail advertisers by next year.

"When we got started big brands were already using Twitter, so it was very easy for us to go to them and help enhance the conversations they were already having with customers," Costolo said, referring to ad product trials currently being conducted with around 40 brands, including Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets.

Telstra has unveiled a Web-based self-service platform for the development of wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) services, writes CFO World.

The Telstra Wireless M2M Control Centre will be available through Telstra Business and Telstra Enterprise and Government, the company says.

Telstra has entered into an exclusive, multi-year agreement with M2M technology provider Jasper Wireless for the offering.

Enservio, a provider of contents inventory creation, valuation and elective replacement services and software, has released MyPropertyLoss.com, a self-service portal for the insured to submit inventories of non-restorable contents online, states Sys-Con Media.

In the event of a contents loss, an insured company can immediately set up an account and begin creating an inventory of lost items. This allows it to initiate the contents claims process immediately and work on its claim at its own pace.

Submitting contents inventories on MyPropertyLoss.com is as simple as creating an account and inputting items in a preformatted list, says the company. MyPropertyLoss.com prompts the insured for key contents value drivers like model and age - distinctions that the company says can be very important in determining an accurate valuation.