Slashdot Mirror
Paid Shilling Comes to Twitter
An anonymous reader alerts us that an outfit called Magpie is paying Twitter users to tout advertisers' products. Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb has identified a number of household-name companies — among them Apple, Skype, Kodak, Cisco, Adobe, Roxio, PC Tools, and Box.net — whose products are hyped by identically worded, paid Magpie tweets. But comments to Kirkpatrick's post, including one from a Box.net spokesman, make it sound likely that these shills were paid for not by the companies themselves, but by affiliate marketers. That may not matter. In the same way that Belkin recently got burned paying consumers to write complimentary online reviews about the company's products, the makers of products and services touted through Magpie may find themselves tainted in the backlash from this new form of astroturfing. Kirkpatrick concludes his post: "So there's the Twitter-sphere for you! Bring on 'real time search,' bring on a globally connected community, bring on vapid, vile, stupid shilling. It all seems pretty sad to me."
It's already been here at slashdot for ages.
I wouldn't pay one shilling to use twitter.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Whenever a new medium forms it does not take long for it to be colonized by marketers. In fact, it is a sign of how successful Twitter has been that it is being used in this way.
There are already enough drooling brain dead fanboys for most of the companies going telling anyone willing to listen that their favourite product is the best ever. In fact if they want to compensate people for promotion, they'll probably do it for some cheap shitty little sticker of their favourite corporate logo.
a) mix it up. make the ratio one advert per 10 quality, humanistic, value-oriented tweets
b) be transparent. Some of those magpie ads in the article were a little misleading I thought.
b) be clever about it. I've never felt even remotely interested in any paid tweet because they're so crappy, or reduntant, or irrelevant.
I have personally used magpie for advertising, and with success. It's not as potent as pay-per-click (ala Adwords) because the intent to purchase typically isn't there. That's why marketing on Facebook is such a lame idea. Brands are only getting inbetween conversations with loved ones. Not cool.
Twitter has the advantage of having real-time search, so intent can be captured as it's happening.
You definitely can use contextual marketing on twitter and still look at yourself in the mirror each morning. You just gotta know how.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Start suing the ad sponsors. They are usually large companies.
Just include a clause in the account startup agreement. Then go after the $$$. Could be profitable.
It's full of twittering twits who will twit their twits off about twittering twit.
... should be disallowed.
As a Level 4 at Apple's forums, whenever we mentioned a third party product or service to solve a posters problem, we had to disclose a disclaimer that we were not rewarded by the third party for the plug.
As a moderator for another site, the site owner allowed post spamming and the result was a take over of the site by marketers and the normal posters soon vanished, the site later died.
Posters want honest opinions and judgements from fellow posters and users, not targeted spam from marketers.
Twitter was a stupid waste of time already so this changes nothing.
Following a path of links from the article gets to the original research behind this.
From the comments on there it seems that the advertising is coming from affiliates, not from the companies themselves. This still makes it a problem for those who use Twitter, but it's a case of "MS Software cheap" or "Get a free MacBook Air"-style spam rather than the major companies themselves making use of this. Well, for the moment at least anyway.
It's not the first time I've come across it - a recent Mac promo (MacHeist? Think so) offered a free copy of DevonTHINK to anyone would would put certain text in their feeds. I'm not a Twitter user myself and didn't want to sign up to do that, but it does represent the first time I saw a "please spam twitter" call going out.
Cheers,
Ian
Twitter's not just bad for this - oh my, a new form of spam, I never saw it coming - but for poor context community as well. I feed my Tweets to my blog in a widget (Geekiest phrase ever, I know) and, thus, am searchable. Now, I put up a "Legal" page about my site - claiming authorship and all - and immediately was added by nearly forty Law-oriented "Free Advice" Twits who likely had never read another of my posts. I changed the page's name from "Legal" to "Disclaimer" and the additions halted. Changing the page to "Copyright" had the same effect - media trolls, dozens of them, now on my block list. It's incredible.
Twitter's nice for micro-posting, but seriously. This shilling thing? Been going on for some time. It's nothing new.
Those things you're doing with that stuff you just bought? That's not what it's for! -
Apparently, you like 'b'?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Ew. Twitter is so dumb. Go facebook! Besides who uses twitter anyways. So this, not even a big deal.
Dying in a fire wouldn't be so bad, actually. Believe it or not, I've had worse things happen to me in my life.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Am I really one of a rare few who find Twitter completely useless? The 'connection' of Twatter to follower is one borne of impersonal salesmanship. The Twatter doesn't feel that strong, real interpersonal relationship is worth their time yet they still want would be the reciprocal feelings of such a relationship. The follower thrives on being an enabler of those types of people. The worst (and probably most prevalent users) are the psychophants who follow only so others will follow them.
The only problem I really see here is that since there seem to be an enormous amount of people who use this service now, internet advertisers are going to have a new round of completely bogus numbers to back up that 'advertising works on the internet'. "Look, potential client who has been terrified in to believing that the internet is a huge cash cow and you aren't milking that cow so hire me because I am an expert milker, our ad for ass ring fungal remover was a steath campaign on Senator Twatting Network it has a cumulative following of over a million followers so we potentially moved over a million units!"
This means that decent content on the web will continue to be infected with this bogus logic attaching these disease ridden ads to their art because the guy who sold ass ring fungal remover to over a million people said we had to do it.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Except for Twitter.
I'm sure Anonymous Coward's opinion carries tremendous weight at Slashdot.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
MacHeist just recently sold a bundle of cheap software, and if you twatted the bundle deal you got an additional two programs free. An interesting tactic, though I'll bet that annoyed a lot of people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And this is exactly why I recently switched to http://identi.ca/ which is a FOSS/public domain version of twitter that an increasing number of geeks are switching to. Twitter is *so* five minutes ago.
Dying in a fire...I've had worse things happen to me in my life.
I, for one, welcome our undead overlords.
Payola commentary has been around for a while. Why would Twitter be different from big shot pundits?
Twitter is a glamorized chat. I fail to understand why it's touted as something revolutionary.
Wait, I don't understand.
If I come to Twitter, they will pay me one Shilling?
I am shocked about this, I tell you, shocked. I was so upset I had to go sit in my La-z-boy recliner and drink a nice, refreshing glass of Lipton iced tea.
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
Twitter reminds me of hearing people shout to each other in a crowded place, making sure to make not-so-vague references to how cool they are.
@chad: My cell phone cam sux so u can't tell I'm wearing that $200 T-shirt
@all: Anybody know where I can pick up some gaiters? I'm doing Mt. McKinley this weekend
@cybercheese: I know what you mean. I use Gentoo too, and it totally rocks
(which are all lies, of course)
I see the typical "I'm too hip for Twitter" comments are out. The system makes more sense if you use a little moderation - a bit like Slashdot, when it comes to it:
- the home page only shows tweets from the people you're following. Messaged from Spammers don't appear unless you Followed them.
- So, you have control over what comes up and who you see. If you want to see interesting tweets, follow interesting people.
- if someone Follows you, you are under no obligation to Follow them in return. If they don't look interesting or relevant to you, don't Follow them.
- Ignore people who Follow you with the aim of building a Follower count. Not your problem.
- Be selfish. It's your time and attention, and no-one else has an automatic right to any of it.
One of my friends is about start on a motorbike trip around the world, and Twitter means he can post quick blog updates from Outer Mongolia or wherever he happens to have a few minutes to spare. For that application, it's like SMS texting to a group of people instead of one phone number. Nothing wrong with Twitter if you use it sensibly, as much as it suits you.
(this is not a
that when we get inundated with the same message again and again, it turns people Off on the product?
It alienates me at any rate, and particularly so if its endorsement type advertisement, since those usually have no actual information in them and usually feature actors hired to say their lines, ie they are lying.
I more or less ignore ads, I bypass them when I read them in the newspaper, or in a magazine. I speed past them with my PVR when I am watching TV, and I mute them if I can't bypass them. Oh I know the rule is to reach a consumer as many ways as possible and that in theory that is more likely to make them buy your product, but I think its backfiring these days because we see far too many ads.
Marketers: I am not interested in your product, whatever the fuck it is. If I want something I will go research it myself, read honest reviews (if I can find any, harder and harder these days), and then decide if I really need the product. If I do, I go buy it, if its crappy or I don't need it, I don't buy it. I buy virtually nothing based on seeing an advertisement as far as I can tell. I often specifically avoid products I can recall seeing Ads for because 99% of them are more irritating than informative, and they all seem to be based on outright lying about a product. For the most part if I can recall your ad, I won't buy your product, because if I can recall your ad, I have likely seen it so many times it makes me want to puke
I am exposed to so much media and have so many people trying to grab my attention that I more or less ignore them all
This onslaught of media screaming - Capitalist Propaganda if you wish - is tiring, and only pisses me off. I am sure I am not alone.
Now, products I do like I am more than willing to support in discussions with my friends and fellow workers, but I would never stoop so low as to become a shill for the company that made them.
One of the only upsides to Communism I can think of was there was almost no marketing and advertising. Shakespeare had it wrong, the firs thing we do is shoot all the marketers :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
An AC hath no name, and as such might just be the same asshole posting his opinion ten times. At least when some asshole like me posts his opinion ten times, it isn't counted ten times.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
This is the kind of thing every shady company says. My company uses the affiliate excuse all the time to cover their asses for all the shady marketing they do themselves. Our company directs users to our websites by spamming users' cell phones with text messages from fake "friends" who want the recipient to join the website.
Of course, this spamming/scamming is done in-house. But whenever someone comes complaining? "It's not us, it's probably one of our affiliates, whom we have no control over." I will never ever believe any company who tries to offload any amount of blame on their affiliates.
But are Erris, Mactrope, and the rest of the gang any less of a waste of time?
At least Twitter is so obvious that you know when they are around. Does anybody else use M$ any more apart from Twitter's sock puppets?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Some Slashdot users use M$ to save seven bytes vs. "Microsoft" in a comment's subject, which Slashdot limits to 50 bytes, but that's it.
Nah, it's for right-wing nuts. It's their ideal medium. You can make short declarations that nobody can challenge with a reply.
Whereas IRC and other types of chat imply a give and take where others can participate in the conversation.
A twitter group is a bunch of people talking to themselves in public. Noisy and not a lot of information.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's not always obvious when an account is a shill on twitter.
For instance, did you know that the twitter account memcached is a shill for a company named Gear6 rather than an official twitter by the memcached team or Danga Interactive's owner, Sixapart?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
How could a follower pitch to you? You'd have to be their follower for that to happen. That's why Twitter doesn't get any real spam... you have to ask for it, and marketers can't get over that hurdle.
I advertise on Facebook. CPC set at $0.60. CTR is miserable (WELL under 0.1%), but impressions is gigantic (200,000 per day average). Out of those who click through (let's say 140 per day average), I get at LEAST 5 orders. 3.6% conversion. Average order profit is over $100. So Facebook ads that cost me about $85 per day (on average) get me around $550 per day profit. For no additional marketing work on my part.
I can pick sex (male, for my product), age (21-45), and even pick specific groups they're members of or keywords in their profile.
I track my Facebook clicks and offer people a $20 credit if they fill out a 15 question multiple choice review. Most do, even if they didn't buy. Every single one of them said they prefered clicking my ad than accidentally clicking an ad at Google or on a blog -- they KNEW it was an ad, and my product interested them.
Also, the retention rate of clickers-but-not-buyers is relatively high. Almost 20% of people who clicked and didn't buy DO come back to buy. So that is additional return that isn't in the figure above.
Google AdWords cost me around $100 per customer to acquire, on orders I made $110 on (on average). Facebook, OTH, costs me $20 or less per customer acquired, and I make a decent profit. There is no going back to Google AdWords for me, ever, unless I can use their data mining to target my crowd better. I've NEVER clicked an Adwords ad, but I've clicked a few Facebook ads, and even made purchases myself.
By the way, I'm the same AC that posted "hath not an AC eyes", but a different one from the one David Gerard replied to. :-)
PROVE IT
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
You couldn't bribe me to use T(w)itter! Well, that's not entirely true... if the it was $n10^6 I suppose I might consider it....
Any sort of media will be appropriated by advertising for their paid shills.
Any medium will be used for advertising. It's pure naivety to believe that your precious Twitter will remain pure and unsullied.
Well, I *already* hate these companies exactly for these kinds of dirty tricks so its business as usual.
But... the future refused to change.
that this crappy behaviour probably works against them more than for them in terms of sales.
Twitter? I hardly know her!
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
At least Twitter is so obvious that you know when they are around. Does anybody else use M$ any more apart from Twitter's sock puppets?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020722h.gif
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
This is one of the many dutires I had before I was laid off. I also shilled on Facebook. Explaining the Fail Whale to my boss made it all worth it.
According to this article by Peter Cohen from Macworld, Macheist beat them to it. Macheist gave their members free Mac applications if they would tweet about the Macheist bundle.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
And nothing of value was lost?
I hope those ads don't overflow the 140 character memory space their poor little brains have.