Comments on: Indecency in Common Areas (or how Twitter advertising schemes will get you canned)

By: Mike Templeton

Mike Templeton — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:43:38 +0000

I don’t think that allowing users to remove the #magpie hashtag was a smart idea, but I’m not entirely against their concept.

For me, it’s just the same as implementing ads in a blog or on a website. Some people make them very obnoxious, taking up a large amount of space inside the content area, or they use those pop-up windows on highlighted keywords, which are really annoying. That being said, if those ads become too annoying to bare, I’ll stop visiting and reading. The same can be said of Twitter users and #magpie. If your followers find it to be annoying, they’ll stop following what you’re saying (unless you are very valuable, which in that case maybe they’ll use a Grease Monkey script like Scarecrow).

As for #magpie sending tweets without you knowing what they are, I was impressed to see them roll out a pre-approval process for tweets. Now, before they send any tweet through your account, they will email it to you to get your approval. If you don’t approve, they won’t send it.

I think we’ve only just begun to see the impact of advertising and monetization strategies on Twitter, and there will be more to come over time.

By: Ginger Kenney

Ginger Kenney — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:26:36 +0000

I don’t mind hearing about services offered, when the tweets are from the person directly connected with the company or service; I have learned so much from some of those messages. If they get too intrusive because of frequency of pure advertising, I may unfollow though. There has to be a better way to make money than to allow someone to insert messages into your tweets, though, not anything I am interested in doing.

By: Rob Chant

Rob Chant — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:33:27 +0000

Interesting stuff… what I’m curious about is if/when/how Twitter themselves will start monetising the service. Is it a fair bet to assume it will be advertising based if or when they do?

By: Alden DoRosario

Alden DoRosario — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:48:24 +0000

This reminds me of the same sort of backlash that Google got when they starting putting ads on their search engine. People were like: “OMG, Google is evil now”

The fact of the matter is: Advertising is good — when done right. Is anybody complaining about ads on Google right now ?

From what I read in the comments, it looks like people are against the sleazy tactics adopted by the likes of magpie. I hope that is what you meant.

If you are against advertising in general on Twitter, please can you raise your hand ? (cause that really raises a bigger issue)

By: colleen

colleen — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:13:11 +0000

I will also unfollow anyone doing magpie, OMG not IDing it as an ad, that is totally sleazy. I will not pay a premium to keep crap out of my stream. That’s a poor business model. The good posters will leave, and only the spammers will haunt twitter to fire their crap at each other until it is useless. I used to frequent a forum that got taken over by spammers. That forum owner is deluding himself. The signal to noise ratio there is just unacceptable. If someone wants to put an ad on their profile, I’m OK with that.

By: Wayne Sutton

Wayne Sutton — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:08:16 +0000

Nice post about twitter advertising “schemes” and I’m sure by middle of 09 there will be a few dozen more as twitter becomes more main stream.

Personally I’ll be glad when twitter comes out with a plan to how they’re going to make money and possible shut down or prevent some of these other services such as magpie

By: John Tindale

John Tindale — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:54:19 +0000

Its a shame that everything cool and useful eventually has to become fat and bloated, but one of the things we all can do is exactly what you say, immediately quit following anyone using these tactics.

By: Jim Turner

Jim Turner — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:06:49 +0000

Like the PayPerPost craze, we will see some correction by users, by the company and yes perhaps Twitter itself. I wonder how we are going to see this evolve? I have a take on it on my own blog and tried to get the discussion going in my radio show last night. I think what you are going to see is the vultures, or in this case magpies, push twitter into a service where for a premium you can get a blockage of all advertising on Twitter. Then let the free users deal with the likes of those that want to pollute the Twitter stream. Twitter is probably licking their chops over it. Or as i indicate in my post, perhaps they let a magpie get people used to the idea of Twitter stream ads and then move forward with their own rollout not getting any of the bad press, but benefiting from all of this great feedback and R&D.

By: Alden DoRosario

Alden DoRosario — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:12:50 +0000

Aaron, that’s an excellent idea. I should have remembered Darren using the (aff).

By: Aaron Brazell

Aaron Brazell — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:05:53 +0000

Alden-

People know what’s going on with Scoble/Seagate. There’s an inherent disclosure there. Something like Chitika’s referral link does not indicate any kind of inherent disclosure. From my perspective, the ethical thing to do when promoting referral links is to note that it’s an affiiate link. I use (aff) after affiliate links here to note that and I learned that from Darren Rowse, one of your larger publishers for Chitika. It’s good form.

If people want to tweet a referral/affiliate link, that affiliate designation should, at best, be required and at worst be encouraged.