Yes, that's the point. As people spend more of their time and attention on social media relative to other media, where will those branding budgets go? Not to Google (well, actually, that's why they bought YouTube...but not to Google Search).

Twitter is one of the few outlets where brands can effectively communicate their message online. That's the theory, anyway. You can argue that Twitter is a bad medium for branding but arguing that it's a bad medium for direct response advertising is missing the point.

Watch out guys Twitter is doing something different.

On the web there is far more money in direct response right now because that's the easiest to measure and we have the platforms well ingrained in all our systems.

To say that brand based advertising isn't required or has no place is contrary to everything we know about advertising. You don't see the coke logo 50 times a day for nothing.