“Why are we prohibiting these kinds of ads? First, third party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created. They may optimize for either market share or short-term revenue at the expense of the long-term health of the Twitter platform. For example, a third party ad network may seek to maximize ad impressions and click through rates even if it leads to a net decrease in Twitter use due to user dissatisfaction.

I think it is safe to say this is a pretty good business decision on the part of Twitter if they want any control over the quality of the ads being served on their service.

Social media may or may not be advertising, according to some people on Madison Avenue, but according to the average consumer, it has emerged as a top form of media entertainment. That’s the conclusion of new research being released today by PR industry giant Edelman, which surveyed 1,000 adults in the U.S. and the U.K., an found that social media now is deemed a “higher value experience compared with other forms of entertainment.”

“In the U.S., the rise of the Internet as a frequent source of entertainment is most dramatic in the 18-34 group, rising from 27% in 2009 to 42% in 2010,” the firm disclosed. “In the U.S., 32% of 18-54 year olds look most frequently to the Web for entertainment (compared with 58% watching TV). The Internet also ranked second in the U.K., with 30% turning to the Web most frequently, compared with 57% watching TV.”

In fact, Edelman suggests that social media has spawned a new category dubbed “social entertainment,” blurring the definition of social media even further from its roots as so-called “word-of-mouth,” communications, and community.

The service, called Blackbird Pie, lets you create an embeddable tweet by first entering the URL for the chosen message in the form that Twitter has created (that URL can be found using the timestamp on a tweet – i.e.—where it says “3 hours ago”).

From there, click the “Bake It” button, and Blackbird will generate the code needed to embed the tweet on your site. It should be interested to see how this service will be used. I am betting initally it will be used mainly by media and/or news sites, but expect it will quickly expand well beyond that as people find new and innovative uses.