Slashdot Mirror
Twitter To Start Selling Followers
Ellie K writes "While not quite as bad as it sounds, Twitter will soon be identifying followers with certain interests based on the content of their Twitter usage, and then providing this info to advertisers. Twitter is already selling sponsored Tweets for $100K or more. These reader comments captured the disquieting feeling I have: 'Twitter selling followers? Will that be the same as Google selling top position in SERP?' and 'I wonder when Facebook will start to sell friends.' Advertisers will be allowed to purchase placement in lists of 'who to follow' recommendations targeted to users with particular interests on Twitter."
Okay, this is a trend that Slashdot has been a little slow to adopt so it's understandable the editors don't understand it fully.
Application Programmer Interfaces or APIs for short is a concept on the web that means sites with large databases make most of their data available to programmers in machine-friendly requests and answers. Facebook and Myspace do this, so does Google and Yahoo!. There's several huge directories of all the APIs that are out there, and even companies such as The Mashery that help companies make their data available via APIs.
There's presently no Slashdot API but there really should be. Slashdot supports OpenID logins, but not the outbound usage of Slashdot user accounts on other sites. Really not keeping up with the times.
So, now that I've explained that concept, here's the question: How is Twitter going to sell follower info when it's easy enough to create free API requests that will return any recent tweet that mentioned whatever the programmer is interested in finding out about, complete with the username so the program can DM, @reply or retweet right away or forward the tweet to a human for review.
Companies that actively use Twitter the right way don't have to pay a cent to Twitter, the API is free. Only if you're clueless or not interesting enough do you have to pay for your promoted topic... just like those who do the web right get free search traffic from Google without needing AdWords. More or less, this new service translates to "We'll write your API app to find users likely to be interested in hearing from you so you don't have to." Uhm, isn't that also a fancy way of saying "your followers list"?
Google has been clear they've never sold search position, PageRank is their secret sauce for making search as good as it is, and they don't corrupt it with ads. They do, however, allow content-targeted ads to appear next to the search results but have always been clear to label what's an ad and what's content on the page.
Twitter's the same way. Every type of paid ad they've allowed gets marked as "promoted" which is their word for "sponsored" or "They paid to be next to the free content we just gave you."
U cnt hv my frst brn f off twtr
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
How about paying Google to allow spam through their filters?
I told you this would happen.
Aside the fictional Squirtler, does Twitter have any competition?
I'm not so sure Google has real competition.
And it can take facebook along with it. I DON'T CARE.
That would be home made Kombucha, There is a large group of 'followers' already in place. FREE, as in you make it (pay) yourself.
Just offer free iPads for people who follow and retweet your tweets. Then set up sock puppet accounts to say, "Thanks for the iPad! It's awesome!"
I've stopped following dozens of people who fall for that sort of crap. I don't want you to retweet that sh*t in my stream.
Follow me if you think I'm funny or insightful, or if you hate me. I don't care. Same ID.
The CB App. What's your 20?
The main competition to Twitter consists of the OStatus standard, and its primary demo site identi.ca . Unfortunately it doesn't have much non-geek traction, mostly because it doesn't have much non-geek traction; no critical mass.
We'll see how long that lasts, as soon as advertisers complain about their click-through rate vs. expenditure, or when twitter clients gain an "Ignore promotions" button.
If you insist on littering the internet with every minutiae of your life, you should have to pay a fine.
How long before you can compose a quick tweet to your friends that you're hungry for pizza and before you can finish hitting the submit button, your doorbell rings and it's the Domino's guy standing there holding a large pepperoni and a two liter coke? Right now I'm thinking about bacon......... Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
I think the only reason google has no real competition is that the name google itself is synonymous with searching the internet. No one says 'hey im gonna yahoo this' or 'i'll bing it and see'
*DrugCheese rants*
Oh, Followers. Free service sells user info? Move along, nothing new here..
29 mpg. YMMV.
Normally, I'd be pretty upset unless you could easily distinguish the ads. It's really deceptive to your users to try and make an advertisement look like legitimate content, yet everybody does it anyway.
Anyhow, this is Twitter, and I don't care. Twitter being deceptive? Quick, call a scientist because I've discovered that water is wet and the Earth is round!
No ads, a slightly longer character limit...
Boom you win.
Yes.
It's called "Sanity".
As soon as "Sanity" starts becoming popular, twitter will be gone.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I wonder when Facebook will start to sell friends.
Isn't that what Facebooks business model is all about?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_40/b4197064860826.htm
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/02/facebook-bigger-google/
0x or or snor perron?!
Mom already thought of this. Works fine (in fact, it works better than infosquitos) until... "power up the twit"-worm!
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Hallo.
You've hit on a topic I've pondered for a long time now.
Following the version concept, I think we're well past 2.0 now, right? Wouldn't "2.0" be "Look, it's free! * "
Your choice if we're at 2.2, or 2.6, or something, but now "free * " is now clearly known as "but we'll do stuff with your data". People still like Facebook, but I'm pretty sure most of the users now have a vague inkling that they're being marketed to, even if they can't figure all of it out.
(Facebook, the movie!? http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2021322,00.html?xid=rss-topstories )
I like to think Web 3.0 might be a pro-privacy backlash, however long it takes to get here, and however short lived.
(Thank you for just now making me wonder what Web 4.0 is!? )
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
No ads, Boom you lose millions of dollars.
I was unaware that Google had said this. In fact if they have they lie or at least stretch the truth. They allow sponsored results all the time. They mark them as such and they limit their numbers but this is in fact paying for ranking.
Sigh. *Never* have mod points when I want 'em. #firstworldproblems & all that
you had me at #!
They are never present in the main search results. They are above or to the right of the results.
kc8apf
Then why craft the title to sound as bad as it does?
Ugh, next thing you know Google is going to allow companies to pay to get their site linked when people search things! Seriously. You can already grab a list of who someone follows using the public free API, and it looks like paid content is going to be clearly demarcated, just like with sponsored tweets.
Please make a habit of saying, "Perform a Google search" or "Perform a Yahoo! search". Just avoid using any such as a verb. Although, I do remember Yahoo! commercials on TV asking us something like, "Do you Yahoo!?"
heard a good quote about these business models somewhere...
"If you are not paying for a service then you are the product"