How to Sell Your Soul on Twitter and Who's Buying
What are you doing? No what are you doing Apple, Skype, Flip, StubHub and Box.net?? These popular companies just couldn't resist paying off Twitter users to put advertisements into their Twitter streams using the new pay-per-tweet service Magpie. It's enough to make you question the true motives of any outspoken fan and the end result is pretty laughable when you take "a bird's eye view."
We were disappointed when a browser script showed us a Magpie redirect behind a shortened link in a Skype testimonial today. Then we used a search on the service BackTweets to find out who else is buying fake Tweets on the service. It's so revolting and pitiful that it's kind of sad.
Each of these companies have more than one campaign running and these are all just from the last 6 hours! Magpie is spewing Tweets through peoples' accounts all day long. All of the links are obscured by URL shortening service is.gd (hope they are getting a cut!) and the clicker ends up on the advertiser site. Clearly disclosure isn't mandatory; but even if it was this is just creepy, is it not?
Update: As a number of commenters and at least one of these companies have pointed out, it's not the companies themselves buying these ads - it's most likely outside affiliates. So direct your frustration to whoever is in charge of affiliate programs at these companies, not in house ad buyers. Update again: Box.net's participation in this program has been de-activated by Magpie based on the comment left by the company's CEO below. The company says they'd been trying to remove their affiliate links from Magpie prior to this story running.
Update: Four days later Stubhub tells us they have also given Magpie the boot from their affiliate program.
Apple
We thought Apple was able to secure enough mind control with its design prowess that it didn't have to pay for it! We presume that when most of these people say they bought one of these devices recently, they are flatly lying. Apple is paying them to lie like a robot to their friends on Twitter. Nice.
Skype
We especially like that one of the users here is named "High and Noble." Uh, yeah.
Cisco's Flip
The company that makes those Flip cameras just got bought by Cisco for almost $600 million dollars - because everyone loves the Flip.
Box.net
We know and like the people at online storage company Box.net. Their CEO didn't respond to our inquiry about the use of Magpie, but we'll give him a hard time about it next time we see him. The last user in this picture is an account that just aggregates other peoples' Tweets about farting - and then throws in Magpie ads. Classy all around!
Update: Box.net's participation in this program has been de-activated by Magpie based on the comment left by the company's CEO below.
StubHub
Ok, so StubHub might not be the kind of company you'd be shocked to find out participates in this kind of thing, but the informal language and appeals to family in this one struck us. Update: Four days after publication of this post, Stubhub contacted us to let us know that they are no longer allowing Magpie to be part of their affiliate program.
FatCow
Ok, we don't know FatCow Web Hosting from a hole in the wall but the language here again is really remarkable. Dear FatCow "fans": you are allowing yourself to be turned into a lying robot zombie for a few dollars a month! Have you no shame?
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. And to the advertisers out there - is this cynical scheme the best you can do to engage with all the new ways people are communicating online? That's pretty bad.
You can find ReadWriteWeb on Twitter, as well as the entire RWW Team: Marshall Kirkpatrick, Bernard Lunn, Alex Iskold, Sarah Perez, Frederic Lardinois, Rick Turoczy, Sean Ammirati, Lidija Davis and Phil Glockner. We won't try to sneakily sell you anything!
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The first time I heard of magpie I raged, shit is a pretty lame way of advertising.
Hmmm... Very interesting.
How much do they pay?
My network is worth something finally! :) lol
The Apple links at least are affiliate links. These ads weren't commissioned by Apple, but by an affiliate and it's likely the same applies to the other big name brands.
Sad, bad, & a guaranteed unfollow.
Posted by: Elpie
|
April 10, 2009 8:57 PM
If I see a Magpie post in my stream I'll usually unfollow the person. And I definitely won't read Magpie posts in a twitter search.
I honestly don't see why companies with products as hot as Apple's and Cisco's Flip would participate in such a scheme. Although I'd say FatCow is probably getting a pretty good return on their investment
@Alten Ah, that would explain the big name brands. I didn't realize they're affiliate links.
WTF! I don't know what else to say after reading this. (Apple, Cisco, Skype) Give me a break! There's too many seedy things happening on twitter lately! Good thing for friendfeed! BTW, Brilliant work uncovering this fiasco!
I have been seeing many #magpie tweets in my timeline and was curious about them, when i checked more I did find that they were paid tweets, however for many popular twitter users this could definitely be a nice way to earn.
Great. Twitter will just be all magpie spam. Nice way to ruin a good service. Oh letting Britney on twitter already did that.
Posted by: The Dude Abides
|
April 10, 2009 9:35 PM
Just to clarify (Marshall, I've just emailed you) - these tweets are not endorsed or supported by Box.net. They are happening through our affiliate program at Commission Junction. We're working on the matter as we speak/type.
Thanks,
Aaron
I'm not following any of those tweeps, but if I was this would be grounds for an immediate unfollow and block.
Very sad.
I'm tempted to pop in here and say "I think you're wrong...." much like you did in my corner of the web.
Your points are valid, but maybe a little too reactionary for me. After a time, I suspect you'll get accustomed to seeing advertising in tweet streams much in the same manner I'm looking at a good deal of advertising on your blog.
I think we all remember the days of bloggers screaming about advertising on blog being "inauthentic".
Cheers.
I love the last paragraph and agree with every word of it! Well said Marshall.
EEEEEEEEEEEEck! EEEck!
The folksy personal language is amusing. Unfortunately, form ads might end up being about as effective as form letters that are auto-generated to Congress about some issue or another. After reading the exact same language a few hundred times, your eyes glaze over.
However, unless the links were expanded before you took the pictures above, it looks like most of the links were NOT obscured.
... brilliant headline of this post .
What are you tweep tweetering about?
When there is an ad on TV you change channel.
When there is an ad in a magazine you turn the page.
When there is an ad on twitter delete the tweet and/or the followers from you follower list.
Take pretty much the same time than TV and magazine (At least if you use tweetdeck.)
So what if all these non-pro twitter accounts are making money directly off tweets they clearly did not write on twitter, what's the point?
I mean come on, this there is no way in hell anyone except the founder of the ad company is working from their home, and making any money on this crap. Do we really want to crush their dream job of turning people into permanent searchable billboard? Hello!!! Tweets have permalinks and it's a real pain to go back in time and delete a really old one.
Honestly if some schmuck I follow or follows me does this, I'll @call them an idiot and then block them. Now maybe if somehow they had a permanent pay-per impression royalty payment system, I'd change my tune. Probably not. Advertising is strange.
It can seem pretty frustrating until you realize the staying power of each Tweet makes the life span of a fruit fly look like that of an ancient redwood.
Advertising is ubiquitous, period. How fast can the eye move on? Better on Twitter than when they line the walls of a restroom stall or the conveyor belt with your groceries on it.
Plus, it is so easy to spot a ad before you click on anything. Way more people are shamelessly plugging their stuff constantly, but don't seem to suffer from it as far as follower numbers go.
Fascinating post. First time I saw magpie, I looked uber close at the concept... and decided it wasn't for me.
I spend inordinate hours building my following and relationships because I care so, so much about my peeps.
And sure I do my own marketing right along with the chit-chat. But to get paid to endorse a third party big name by shoving it in front of my carefully built network... something just doesn't sit well with me.
It's LYING!!! Pure and simple.
marketing should be about providing a *service* and interface. Not devious manipulation. OUT with them!
This sort of thing was kind of inevitable - whether it be through an organized service like Magpie or on the DL. Where there are eyeballs, there is advertising, or at least advertisers trying to get a piece.
What sucks about this, though, is that anyone talking about something they like on Twitter loses validity. Oh, wait, did that happen a long time ago, like when the first user signed on and realized the whole point of twitter is promoting yourself or your product?
Regardless, I've yet to stoop to Magpie level. I'd piss off my followers and myself. Love how the ad often makes it sound like the user has already tried / owns the product. Lies, lies, lies. We live in such a sad day in age.
You know I kept wondering why many of the people that I follow and who follow me keep putting up links similar to that and then I realized they were advertisements. I got this link also about how you can get so many people to follow you on twitter and the more people you get the more money you can make. What is that all about? Why would anyone pay you to get followers? Anyhow, with all the advertisement links that I have been getting I have been annoyed by it because there is no real content. And I have contemplated not following people who do that. They even have a list of people who are good at following back. I'm not on the list but I'm good about that. Could that be why my followers has almost doubled in a week?
Well, I don't think there is something wrong with that, just don't read the the twitts and unfollow the person using it,you can't blame a company for trying to sell theier products, as well as you can't blame someone else if you buy a product just because of the Ads, if you don't need it don't buy it, if you do and you can affordit, buy it and don't blame the others for trying to convince you to buy it, that's the way it works.
The headline is eye-catching.
i'm boycotting everyone of those. way to go advertizers. you just lost any potential business from me. apple never was on my buy list and never will be. i don't know nor do i care about the others now. but skype most definitely just lost some business. i'm gonna put off looking at them.
you idiot advertizers better start considering how many people you drive away. i think you'll be surprised.
but even if it was this is just creepy, is it not?
Why is this sad? Whats wrong with making money? Why this idealistic self righteousness ?
This type of thing will definitely kill twitter off for ordinary people...if all it becomes is one big advert....
people will start to just unfollow and filter out this type of thing....so there will be no benefit to advertisers anyway...
I would rather see context based ads running alongside, rather than sneaky redirects...that take my attention away from interesting stuff...
This is great! Anyone who receives one of these crap tweets can then instantly delete the tweeter thereby automatically reducing the crap tweets that one receives - it's like a filtering service. Once enough people realize that Magpie is killing the number of people following them, they'll stop using the service, then businesses will stop using the service and Magpie will die like the non creative zero contributing technology suckers that they are.
Thanks Alten for pointing out that these are affiliate links. My initial reaction was very negative toward companies such as Apple and Skype for deploying such tactic.
However, to play devil's advocate, after seeing the reaction of some of the folks, a new strategy to bring down your competition can be done by creating magpie campaigns for your competitors. Your competitors brand will go down the drain rapidly based on the current reaction I have seen.
lul who cares, titter is a horrible service for spewing junk, sounds like the perfect advertising platform for me!
It's Pay-Per-Tweet!
And yes, completely inevitable. We all knew it wouldn't take long for spam to find it's way into the tweetosphere. There are always people willing to sell their souls for a few dollars more, particularly in a down economy. The further an ecosystem expands into the "mainstream" the more inevitable it is that someone will set up a service like this.
I would have less of a problem with it if it was clear that it was an ad. For the clueless, I will point out that putting #magpie in the tweet does *not* make it clear that it's an ad, particularly if the tweet is written in the sort of way as in the examples Marshall gives.
The only good thing about it is that Magpie tweets will be a useful excuse to stop following people you might otherwise feel guilty about dropping.
Oh and yes, I wouldn't be surprised to find that all those name brands you were worried about are innocent and it's affiliates in each case.
OMG that's disgustingly spamming!
At least let them come up with their own unique lines.
Let's look at the big picture. The Internet would not be what it is today if there wasn't so many advertising dollars getting pumped into the system. It won't be long before we have to choose between ad supported free accounts and an paid ad-free model.
People will not walk away because Twitter is too good. It's networking at it's finest.
Magpie could have quite easily gotten away with this if they had let the tweeter write the message in their own words, and done away with the #magpie.
There are more then 20 ads on this page alone, and you are still reading it.
pretty bad indeed!
if i were the company, i'll pay the one who posts the best twit, not these redundant sentences they issue.
dabtanner - there is nothing wrong with making money and wish for everyone on the planet to make as much as possible. There is plenty wrong with exploiting your relationships for a buck or two.
So, running ads on twitter is wrong and running ads on a blog is ok? Aren't you a tiny bit hypocritical? SY
@hospitalera, I don't recall Marshall talking like a robot and pretending to buy products on this blog.
These are all affiliates running these though, so I think this post should be changed to clear that up.
Wow, right when I thought Tweet couldnt get any better!
RT
www.web-privacy.us.tc
I don't know what to think, but it can be confusing now if we send message like robot to make money, how to distinguish between real tweet and fake one ?
Advertising is a fixture in our modern world.. It's how we can enjoy so many free services. Directed Advertising is most desirable (e.g. google ads in gmail); but THIS is DECEPTIVE advertising. Unless I'm mistaken, the only reason people receive these ads (which are obscured by the Tiny URL thing) is because they believe they are 'following' their friends. This is SPAM and most ISPs would block it if it were email. All of you who support this magpie thing should also be made to receive all of these spam emails; your email accounts would soon become unusable.
Unfortunately has been inevitable. Hope the brands involved will take some action against their affiliates for this. But then again even traditional newspapers run 'advertorials' , and many magazine articles are just plugs.
Maybe twitter could introduce a 'report spam' button, alongside the 'unfollow'.
@Nouhailler: You can chose whether you want to write a short note before each magpie tweet so your users can identify which tweets are yours and which tweets are advertisement.
Dirty but as expected i suppose, if people don't purchase though surely it's a waste of money for them.
Wow... it's like having a bunch of robots as your twitter buddies. Thank you for this post, something to keep in mind as technology and social networking and marketing continues to reach up,up, up and above the conventional methods of advertising.
Oh, the outrage!
Come on. This reminds me of the early day of email and the internet (early 90's) when, horrors, people started to advertise their products and services.
The outrage was amazing. The internet would die. It would no longer be pure. I'll leave the internet.
Guess what, the largest firm on the internet, Google, is an ADVERTISING COMPANY.
Twitter is part of the internet. Advertising is part of human life.
You have ads on your:
- Internet pages
- Blogs
- Email (hotmail, yahoo mail, etc)
- Instant Messaging clients
Get used to it.
Shaun Dakin
@EndTheRoboCalls
@IsCool
Another model to look at is:
Adjix
Adjix makes it clear that there is an ad in a tweet and the person Tweeting can control what is advertised.
Here is an example:
Is Obama falling short? http://adjix.com/tv44 Ad: Free $25 Starbucks Card! http://is.gd/nK6d
Guy Kawasaki uses it.
i dont see what is wrong with it. Ads are there everywhere - in Google search, in TVs and radios, etc. You just have to live with them. Advertising industry feeds, clothes people and creates jobs so they come up with all kinds of appealing, clickable ads, that look like personal testimonials. At the end, if a computer user can make money from using Twitter, that is something that will drive more and more users to sign up, just as the promise of earning money in the not-so-distant future is driving hordes of bloggers to find some good material to write about. I for one, would definitely encourage it, this is just another business model in our economy, and one that would increase internet/twitter usage. If it is not Magpie, there will be another Parrot the next day, and even if an user is not using Magpie, (I dont), they can still recommend their friends, contacts, and promote their own affiliate products, and there is no way to tell a personal testimonial from a paid testimonial, in this case the payment happens through well-known magpie. Expect more twitter competitors for magpie.
Follow me on twitter - @MohanArun
Had to comment about this:
"There is plenty wrong with exploiting your relationships for a buck or two."
What "relationships"? Are you seriously building your serious relationships using public twitter service? use private email for that. That shouldbe obvious, because @reply goes to public timeline, something that is a-fault.
Also, may be Magpie can start a @Magpie where if you register yourself with OPTOUT saying
"@Magpie OPTOUT"
then you wont be getting any paid ads frm Magpie from anyone in your follow circle.
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