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."

Comments

Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[LostCluster]

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"?

Re:Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[martin-boundary]

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.

That actually makes slashdot one of the good guys. That trend is AWFUL, and there's no good reason for slashdot to follow it.

Twitter to go screw itself.

[jack2000]

And it can take facebook along with it. I DON'T CARE.

Re:Twitter to go screw itself.

[AHuxley]

Yes waiting for an open source option :)
So much tracking news, from Google, Apple ... Twitter.
Soon be linked in with unique ipod/ipad serial numbers ... someone is working very hard to link devices with ip's with ad tracking.

Re:Twitter to go screw itself.

[FuckingNickName]

This. The only time I thought "wow, maybe Twitter has a use" was during the American-sponsored protests of the election in Iran. But then I was reminded:

As is so often the case in the media world, Twitter's strengths are also its weaknesses. The vast body of information about current events in Iran that circulates on Twitter is chaotic, subjective and totally unverifiable. It's impossible to authenticate sources. It's also not clear who exactly is using Twitter within Iran, especially in English. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the bulk of tweets are coming from "hyphenated" Iranians not actually in the country who are getting the word out to Western observers, rather than from the protesters themselves, who favor other, less public media. This is, after all, a country where the government once debated the death penalty for dissident bloggers.

It generally wasn't people running around watching things and sending updates on their mobiles. 140 soon-forgotten characters on yet another lazy Internet user medium isn't worth risking your life for when you're protesting such a government. The useful information was exported and placed on traditional and independent news sites/blogs.

Re:Twitter to go screw itself.

[FuckingNickName]

Well sure, if you can't be bothered researching for yourself.

Yes, I'm better off finding more reliable, detailed information elsewhere. If I'm lazy when it comes to current political events, I'm not going to go beyond Twitter and I'm going to have a very distorted, shallow view; if I'm not lazy, I will do the research myself and not use Twitter in the first place.

Broadcast message services like twitter are about exchanging ideas, globally, quickly.

The whole Internet is about exchanging ideas, globally, quickly. Why do I need the restrictive environment of Twitter to do this? Better in the case of the Iranian protests was to read the blogs of people with a connection with Iran who were receiving information from those in Iran, being open about how they have received information and providing a degree of commentary.

I mean, really, do you ask your friends for authentication every time they tell you something?

Strawman. It is likely that you have a good idea as to the reliability and fields of expertise of your friends. They have the time and space to provide detail which you can analyse and discuss. These valuable aspects of knowledge dissemination are missing from Twitter as it was used during the protests.

For all you know I set up a troll account to randomly describe horrible things I "saw". Since it is so easy to make claims in 140 characters and, as you show, Twitter users have low standards for knowledge verification, readers would be sucked up into the mayhem and have another "source" showing how evil the Iranian government is. The regime genuinely being oppressive notwithstanding, such knee-jerk public furor would be quite valuable for anyone wanting to commence military action against Iran.

Ask for irrefutable evidence of veracity every time they mention something they think they heard on TV last year?

If Twitter is about "exchanging ideas globally, quickly" then something my friend thinks he heard on television last year is hopefully not illustrative. For anything nontrivial (e.g. the protests in Iran), I certainly would not take "I think I heard it on TV last year" as confirmation of anything. Would you?

Thank God...

[thesandbender]

If you insist on littering the internet with every minutiae of your life, you should have to pay a fine.