twitter going after small business advertisers

Over the recent holiday weekend, Twitter offered $1m in free ads for small businesses.  Specifically, 10,000 small businesses will get $100 in free ad credits from Twitter.  The recipients of these credits may apply them towards promoted tweets or promoting their own twitter accounts.  I thought that it was interesting that Twitter is trying to expand its presence in this sector of the market, which must be enormous.  I also thought that it was interesting that such a modern tech company is using a variation of such a traditional selling technique, ie giving out free samples.   

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/20/twitter-shop-small-free-advertising/