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.

[Cidolfas]

Companies are already doing the kind of marketing you're talking about. I had the twitter account for the Sci-Fi B movie 'Sharktopus' place me in it's 'Midnight Snack' list after I tweeted about how terrible it looked. (aside - saying that last sentence out loud makes the whole thing sound far more stupid than the process actually is)

As a result, they show up in the 'recent lists you've been put in' in the new twitter interface. Pretty sharp on their part. That being said, I think that doing business with twitter lets you get additional info and, most importantly, more screen space on your target audience's screens than following them. If Best Buy's logo appears on my screen every time I log in, that's a service they couldn't get otherwise.

For that matter, if they didn't make it obtrusive, I wouldn't mind if they put in cheaper, market-targeted promoted tweet into my feed from time to time if it makes the service profitable so they don't have to shut it down when/if venture runs out. I'm sure as hell not likely to pay per month for the service, it's nifty but not life-changing for me.

Re:Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[broken_chaos]

Might want to at least finish reading the summary next time, as you've missed the point entirely.

Advertisers will be allowed to purchase placement in lists of 'who to follow' recommendations targeted to users with particular interests on Twitter.

This is fairly literal version of Twitter "selling followers" (not just information about users) -- it's companies being able to 'buy' followers (with the caveat that they're not 'auto-followed', just show up as a 'recommended to follow' for the user). The emphasis on providing the usage information to advertisers seems like it's just a sloppy summary write-up, as it's only important in the context of 'planning' a purchase for these companies.

Re:Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[arivanov]

More likely Slashdot does not undersand Web2.0.

Slashdot is a good old Web 1.0 site where users were not considered a monetiseable item. 10 years ago selling the personal information of your userbase was an anathema. Today selling your user information and extracting maximum value from them is the main and often only business goal of any site. A lot of web 2.0 outfits have no other function and no other business plan but to collect personal preferences (the more intimate the better) and sell them.

The Web 2.0 Marketing has won and the idealism of 1.0 has lost.

Considering the morals in some of the more "brave and advanced" marketing ideas of 2.0, I really do not want to know what 3.0 will be unless they permit the personal ownership of tactical nuclear devices at the same time.

Re:Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[sqrt(2)]

Since I am part of the glorious ad-blocker using internet master race I'm fine with my usage patterns being research and used to serve up more relevant ads--as long as I never have to see them. The day it becomes impossible to strip the ads out of some service is the day I stop using it. People like us should be happy about the new business model, it provides free services without ads subsidized by people too incompetent, lazy, or principled to block ads.

Re:Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[davester666]

Um, how exactly is sending everybody's tweets to third parties a privacy violation? Direct messages yes, but tweets in general do not appear to have any way for the sender to specify a limit as to who can read them.

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.

Re:Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[mwvdlee]

No, sorry, there is no such thing as a trust network.

When I walk around on the street and scream something to somebody walking on the other side, everybody around can listen in and -- should they wish to do so -- distribute it further. There is no trust network where only people who know me can hear me screaming unless I take explicit precautions to do so.

Similarly, anything you post to twitter is public. If you wish to keep it private, post it on your own password-protected site.

More to the point; you CAN reasonably expect any advertiser to take an interrest in you if there is even the slightest change that they could shove advertising in your face. It may not be the kind of interrest you want, but they ARE interrested.

Re:Sorry, Slashdot doesn't understand APIs.

[TubeSteak]

More likely Slashdot does not undersand Web2.0.

Slashdot is a good old Web 1.0 site where users were not considered a monetiseable item. 10 years ago selling the personal information of your userbase was an anathema. Today selling your user information and extracting maximum value from them is the main and often only business goal of any site. A lot of web 2.0 outfits have no other function and no other business plan but to collect personal preferences (the more intimate the better) and sell them.

I only there was a way to extract information from /. users.
Maybe with a poll...

Tell me arivanov (12034)
Do you typically read about __ books per year?
1. 0 to 10
2. 11 to 20
3. 21 to 30
4. 31 to 40
5. 41 to 50
6. 50+

While you're at it, could you tell me... your level of job satisfaction, how 'smart' your cellphone is, the # of employees in your workplace, what kind of camera you use, how many LED lights you can see before you go to bed, how many icons are on your desktop, how many pieces of snail mail you get per day, the mileage of your car, the size of your display, and about 800 other details of your life?

These polls brought to you by Slashdot.org, a subsidiary of Geeknet, Inc.

We'll be right back after this promoted content.

[LostCluster]

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

[syousef]

U cnt hv my frst brn f off twtr

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?

Re:We'll be right back after this promoted content

[Josh Triplett]

Aside the fictional Squirtler, does Twitter have any competition?

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.

At the end of the day.....

[Timtimes]

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.

What else is new?

[zmooc]

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/