Twitter Says “Millions” of Ad Dollars Showing Up “In the Very, Very Near Term”

Twitter spent last spring and summer setting up its ad business. Now it’s about to get serious, says Dick Costolo: He says the company is about to start booking “millions” in ad revenue, “right around the corner.”

Indulge yourself in a tiny bit of time travel here and check out this video, a condensed version of Costolo’s interview with Ad Age editor Abbey Klaassen from last week. This was when Costolo was still technically COO, and not CEO, but that’s not relevant here. The clip is well worth watching if you want to get a good sense of where Twitter thinks it’s at when it comes to ads.

And it gives you a good sense of where Twitter think it’s going, period. Check out the comps that Costolo throws out when he talks about his company: YouTube, Google (GOOG), Facebook. That makes plenty of sense–that’s why investors have put a $1 billion value on the company–but it also shows you how far the company has to go.