So says Twitter, which is publicly calling out a MediaPost report published yesterday in which writer Laurie Sullivan said she had gotten a look at a test version of the platform, via Clix Marketing, an online ad buying shop.

Twitter says what Sullivan actually saw was the dashboard tool that Twitter provides all of its advertisers to give them an update on how their ads are performing and allow them to make tweaks to their campaigns. But Twitter ad buyers still have to work with humans, for now, either directly at Twitter or via intermediaries that do so, like Clix.

Here’s the official statement from spokesman Matt Graves: “Reports that Twitter is testing a self-serve ad platform are inaccurate. Our self-serve ad product will launch later this year.”

I’ve reached out to MediaPost for comment.

UPDATE: MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan argues with Twitter over the definition of “self-serve.”

Earlier:

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Twitter wants to replicate Google’s and Facebook’s advertising success, and in order to do that it will have to have a self-service ad platform, just like the big guys. It’s now testing out the service, which it wants to launch later this year, and MediaPost has a lengthy preview. Takeaways: The platform is designed to sell Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts; buyers can use both search keywords and users’ interests to target the ads.

Like earlier this month, when Denton settled a libel suit filed by motorcycle-maker Confederate Motors. His blog network’s only comment about the case is an oblique “correction” on his Jalopnik car blog, noting that Confederate does not appear to be “unable to do business” in New York.

MediaPost and media law blogger Ben Sheffner seem to be the only two outlets keeping tabs on the case, and you can get the full download at their sites.

But the very short story is that Confederate sued Gawker over an April 9, 2009, post (now deleted, though Google shows traces) about some of its vehicles.

Things Confederate (Really! I know!) didn’t like included an assertion that its bikes are “so unreliable you’ll have to push them” and that “we heard the Alabama-based company was being sued so heavily in state courts by disgruntled owners that they were unable to do business here.”

The Jalopnik post seems to be the sum total of Gawker’s concessions to Confederate. Gawker COO Gaby Darbyshire tells MediaPost her company didn’t pay Confederate a penny and that it settled only “because it was too trivial an issue to take to court….One must pick one’s battles.”

Sounds reasonable! Especially when there are much bigger battles looming on the horizon.

Apple is likely to introduce its mobile ad platform Thursday at its iPhone developer event, say sources familiar with the company’s plans. Expect to hear a loud cheer from Google, Apple’s former ally and current competitor.

Why would Google applaud the entrance of a new advertising rival? Because Google is trying to convince federal regulators that it has advertising rivals so that it can proceed with its $750 million purchase of AdMob. That deal is being held up for review by the Federal Trade Commission, and there have been consistent murmurs from Washington that the purchase could be in jeopardy.

Apple’s plan to get into mobile advertising has been apparent since early January when the company purchased Quattro Wireless for $275 million. Like AdMob, Quattro specializes in ads that run within apps. That’s a tiny market now, but it’s expected to grow along with the booming app economy, pushed by the mobile platforms Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) are promoting.

Sources say Apple will discuss its plans to create an ad network for its developers at its Thursday event. I assume, but don’t know, that the company also plans to make its network available to developers on rival platforms, like Google’s Android. I also assume that if Google gets its AdMob deal approved, it will open that network to Apple’s developers–even if either side wanted to make its ad play an exclusive one, shutting out rivals would be a red flag for regulators.

In the meantime, Google has been going out of its way to highlight Apple’s mobile ad moves. Two days after the Quattro news broke, Google wrote a blog post applauding the move.

Last month, when MediaPost wrote a story speculating about Apple’s mobile ad plans–the publication dubbed the platform “iAd,” but I’m not sure that Apple intends to go with that name–Google sent reporters an email link to the story. “If true, it would be more evidence of how competitive and quickly-evolving the mobile ad space is,” wrote Adam Kovacevich, a manager at the company’s public affairs group.

One problem for Google is that you can argue that the company already has a dominant position in the existing mobile ads business–the one that isn’t dependent on smartphone apps. That’s largely because mobile is now a default option when advertisers buy keywords on the search giant’s AdWords system. One industry observer I talked to guesstimates that those ads alone will generate $300 million for Google this year.

I followed up with Kovacevich today and asked him how Apple’s move would affect the chances of the AdMob deal. Give him credit for consistency–here’s his response:

“While we’re continuing to work with the FTC, there is overwhelming evidence that mobile advertising will remain competitive after this deal closes. Mobile app advertising is less than two years old, there are more than a dozen mobile ad networks, app developers and advertisers routinely use multiple networks, and the leading mobile app platform, Apple, is now entering the mobile ad space as well.”

The summary, via MediaPost:

The optimism of ad executives to boost their advertising budgets has risen to its highest point in two years, and is now at pre-recessionary levels, according to the most recent in a series of periodic surveys gauging the long-term confidence of advertisers and agency media-buying executives. The study, which is based on an index of executives who plan to boost their ad spending over the next 12-months vs. those who plan to decrease it, currently stands at a positive difference of four percentage points, the highest level since the fall of 2007, when the index stood at positive eight percentage points.

And a chart! (Click to enlarge.)

That data point comes from Advertiser Perceptions Inc., which periodically polls ad buyers about their moods–and more practically, whether they intend to spend more or less in the future.

This tracks with the last report we saw from the firm back in May. And more generally, with anecdotal stuff publishers and ad types tell us.

The usual caveats: Things are getting better, but that doesn’t mean they’re good. And online growth is good, but it’s best if you’re Google (GOOG); everyone else is going to see much smaller gains. Or, at least as likely, smaller declines.

Call me Professor Positive if you must, but I don’t think that’s terrible: It means that 60 percent of phone users are okay with ads. And I suspect the number will be higher once the ads move from the theoretical/novelty realm into something you see whenever you use your phone or in exchange for getting something of value.

(And yes, I understand that a vocal minority absolutely hates advertising of all sorts and is reading this story on a computer that runs ad-blocking software. Good for you! Please let me know how you’d like to pay for this stuff and everything else you consume on the Web).

Here’s the research from Parks Associates, via Mediapost (click to enlarge):

Remember that even if mobile ads do take off as expected, it’s still going to be a relatively small business for some time. Bernstein Research figures mobile ads may generate $2.2 billion by 2013, which is nothing to sneeze at, but still a small fraction of the $32 billion Web ad market. Most of the mobile ad dollars, of course, are expected to flow to Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).

Publicis, the giant French ad holding company, has been warning Web publishers to be “hyper-vigilant” about other bogus ads like the ones the Times mistakenly sold, which were purportedly for Vonage (VG) but were actually designed to distribute malware. Publicis, whose units includes Starcom, Digitas, Optimedia, MediaVest, Zenith, and Spark, has been sending out letters warning publishers to be wary of the rogue ads, which it describes as an “industry issue.”

The catch: It appears that the only way to combat the attacks, at least in the near-term, is to do something that runs counter to industry trends: Throw bodies at the problem. Publicis wants publishers to individually verify the ad orders they receive, which would be a nonissue for traditional media but is a problem for Web publishing, which increasingly relies on automation. Mediapost:

The incidents have exposed potential vulnerabilities in on online publishing security, and are causing advertisers, agencies and publishers alike to reassess the processes they use to conduct business, especially as they interact with an increasing array of third-party intermediaries–advertising networks, exchanges, etc.–many of which place insertion orders automatically and without human intervention. The solution, as the Times’ and Publicis’ new policies suggest, is to reinsert human interaction into the process–at least for the time being.

Whoops. That whole thrust of Web publishing is get humans as far away as possible from buying and selling decisions: The ad exchange that Google (GOOG) launched last month, for instance, is designed to handle those tasks in milliseconds. Now think about how long it takes to pick up the phone to actually confirm that ad buyers are who they say they are [shudder].

It’s possible that this is simply butt-covering on the part of Publicis (these attacks have been out there for quite some time) and that this will blow over soon. But I don’t think so. Which means the ascent of Web ads may slow down, just a bit, as the industry figures out just how many humans it will take to fight the problem.

Helpful, right? Check out this MediaPost piece if you want more on the survey, conducted by media-buying shop Round2 Communications.

The bigger picture: This week, as you’ll hear over and over again, is the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse. The BBC has both a radio drama and a made-for-TV movie commemorating/dramatizing the event.

Which means it’s the one-year anniversary of the economy’s collapse from recession to (short-lived) catastrophe. Which means this is the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the advertising business. Which means that any year-over-year results you see now had best show an increase because they’re going up against positively brutal comparisons from 12 months ago.

Remember: This ad drop was so bad that even Google (GOOG) flatlined for a bit.

So if and when you do see signs of a rebound, make sure you’re looking at them with some perspective: There’s just about nowhere to go but up. Right?

So says Viacom’s MTV, which reached that conclusion after testing various ad units in more than 50 million video clips it ran across its various sites. Viacom (VIA) says the intro-and-overlay package works best for advertisers’ “brand lift,” which it defines via metrics like unaided awareness, aided awareness and purchase intent.

And, it insists, customers like it, too! You can see an example at the bottom of this post, as well as a schematic that shows the order and timing of the ads.

This isn’t necessarily groundbreaking stuff: Overlays combined with another ad message have been popular with advertisers for some time. And when a company that makes its money selling ads boasts about how great its ads are, it’s best to accept those claims with just a pinch of reserved skepticism.

But these kinds of studies and promotions are taken seriously within the ad business, and Web publishers of all sorts are eager to find new ad formats (see–or try to ignore–the new ginormous ads rolling out this summer).

Meanwhile, as MediaPost notes, Publicis’s VivaKi is working with video providers, including Hulu, CBS (CBS), Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO), to produce its own “killer ad unit,” which is expected to debut next year. And Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, which once avoided ads like the plague, is now trying every possible combination it can find.

And I think that gap is going to trip up a lot of big players in the years to come.

For a reminder, head on over to NebuAd’s Web site, which no longer works. That’s because the targeting firm, which once employed 60 people, closed up shop on Friday, according to MediaPost.

NebuAd was supposed to work with various Internet service providers and track Web surfing behavior of the ISPs’ customers, then sell that data back to the ISPs. That plan blew up last summer when the company became the subject of congressional hearings, and by last fall just about all of its former clients had run screaming from the company.

The standard response here from ad folks is that NebuAd was a bad apple that practiced a particularly noxious version of targeting. And that the press, lawmakers and the general public don’t really understand how targeting works.

And all of that may be true! But even if it is just a perception problem and the online ad business has only the best intentions when it comes to collecting and using personal Web data, it’s a perception problem that the industry has done a lousy job of fighting.

So said my lunch date today, who’s a veteran of several big online publishing companies, and who tells me that the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the industry’s trade group, is petrified of more NebuAds because they will likely lead to regulation.

Recall that Rick Boucher, a conservative Democratic congressman from Virginia, has already promised to regulate behavioral targeting at the likes of Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL. If the thought of that sort of thing is so distasteful to the ad guys, they’re going to have to start selling much more persuasively than they’re doing right now.

Granted, “not horrible” doesn’t equal “good times are here again.” But I keep hearing that the sickening decline in advertising spending has stopped, at least, and that some marketers are actually spending money again.

Here are a couple more bits of anecdotal evidence:

The newest Advertiser Optimism Reports conducted by Advertiser Perceptions Inc., show that ad buyers are slightly more optimistic than they were a few months ago. MediaPost:

“The most recent survey suggests that the degree of ad budget pessimism may have bottomed out, or at the very least, is leveling off. The average for all media shows that 29% or ad executives expect to increase and 29% expect to decrease their ad spending over the next six months. That’s a marginal improvement from two months ago, when only 26% planned to boost their budgets, while 30% planned to cut them.”

And from Wall Street, a little more cautious optimism: Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente has upgraded his outlook and/or his price targets on a swath of entertainment stocks–Time Warner (TWX), News Corp. (NWS), Scripps Network Interactive (SNI), Viacom (VIA) and CBS (CBS).

That’s in part because DiClemente also thinks advertising–or at least TV advertising–has bottomed out. He now thinks broadcast TV ad dollars will increase by four percent in 2010, up from a previous estimate of minus-one percent, and that cable TV will increase 5.5 percent, up from two percent.

It’s easy enough to be skeptical of this stuff, especially any happy talk about TV, given that we’re now in the “upfront” season when network executives do their best to convince buyers that sales are hotter than ever. But wouldn’t it be nice if they were right?

[Image credit: Iragerich]

But if you really want to know why things are really grim in the magazine world, don’t just pay attention to the right side of the graph, where ad pages plummet like Wile E. Coyote off a cliff. Look over at the left side, which shows that even before the econalypse hit, magazines were essentially flat.

That is, magazines aren’t just getting hurt by the economy–they’re getting pummeled by a fundamental shift of ad dollars away from print and to the Web.

So: Anyone who wants to stay in the magazine world needs to contemplate a career on the Web, right? Right. Except it’s unclear how many jobs the Web is going to offer, since digital content is worth so much less than its analog counterpart, at least in the eyes of advertisers. More on that later. No need to pile on the grimness on a Monday morning.

But while there are plenty of people–from Google (GOOG) on down–waiting for marketers to start shoveling money into phone advertising, it has yet to happen. And it’s certainly not going to happen in the next few years, as advertisers stick to markets they understand already. MediaPost:

Quentin George, president, global digital strategy and marketing innovation at Universal-McCann, agreed that marketers are likely to be less adventurous in exploring newer platforms in the midst of a severe downturn. Even if funding for more experimental campaigns doesn’t completely dry up, projects will take longer to complete. ‘A cool idea that might have taken two months to complete might now take six or nine months,’ he said.

The grim outlook for ad spending into next year is bad news for much-hyped categories such as mobile and digital out-of-home advertising. ‘With the economy the way it is, (mobile) is one of the least areas clients are going to be looking at because it’s more of a test-and-learn situation,’ Speciale said.

Bob Thacker, senior vice president of advertising and marketing for OfficeMax, compared mobile to soccer: ‘It’s popular in the rest of the world, but we haven’t learned how to play it yet.’ From a media-buying perspective, Matt Spiegel, CEO of Digital Omnicom Media Group Digital, added that mobile is ‘just complex to buy at scale.’ Couple that complexity with more austere budgets and mobile becomes even less desirable as an ad option.”

[Image Credit: aussiegall]