Desperate For Ad Data, Twitter Offers Animated Balloons For Your Birthdate (TechCrunch)

Twitter’s ads would work a lot better if it knew how old you are. So in an obvious data grab, Twitter will show animated balloons on your profile when it’s your birthday if you’re willing to give it your birthdate. You can see what the balloons looks like on comedian Kevin Hart’s profile. Twitter’s minimalist sign-up flow seems to be coming back to bite it. All it asks is for a name, username, and email or phone number. That made it super quick to register an account, which is helpful on mobile. But without gender, age, and other demographic info, it’s difficult to accurately target its ads to the people businesses want to reach…