Twitter's first Twitter account to promote deals from select advertisers, Earlybird, has launched with its first deal. According to the Twitter Blog, the site’s first exclusive offer comes from The Walt Disney Studios. "For a limited time, @earlybird followers in the U.S. can get a special deal on tickets for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," a new feature film from Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films that opens in theaters today."

Twitter's efforts to monetize its platform - Promoted Tweets, Trending Topics - have been met by mixed reviews. This idea, though, has all the earmarks of an immediate success. There is the obvious factor that most businesses use Twitter in exactly this way: to promote a coupon or special offering. Indeed as Twitter itself report, there is a lineup of deals in the offing. Several times a week "@earlybird will help consumers discover Twitter-exclusive deals in entertainment, fashion, technology, beauty, travel and more."

Other pluses to @early bird, writes PC Magazine: there will likely be more ad network accounts such as a "supersaver" account that offers really cheap deals or more narrow categories, such as @automotivedeals and @technologyoffers. Also, Twitter can help advertisers measure views based on followers and retweets. This is the first ad concept Twitter has introduced that has been well received by most in the ad industry. The Promoted Tweets concept, for example, had the potential of being pulled if the Tweets weren’t trending high enough - not something that advertisers were receptive to.

The problem with Promoted Tweets, eConsultancy says, is that its viability is largely be determined by the ability of marketers to achieve a greater level of scale and their ability to correlate Promoted Tweets with real ROI, "not other metrics like retweets, impressions and media value."