Monday, April 20, 2009

Adver-tweets?

An ad network that lets users profit from Twitter is making it harder to distinguish between autobiography and advertising on the social networking site.

I'll be the first to admit that the success of Twitter is totally baffling to me. Perhaps it's betraying my age or my generation or just that I'm reaching premature crusty old fart-hood. I'm not so very surprised though that some enterprising folks have come up with a way to inject advertising into the mix. Users are getting paid to have ads sent from their accounts to their so-called followers.

Now is that a nice thing to do to your friends?

4 comments:

Wandering Coyote said...

I get a lot of spam "friends" on Twitter and I just block them. It's annoying, though.

Barbara Bruederlin said...

They'd be off my friend list so fast it'd make their heads spin.

Candy Minx said...

There are also "fake people" heh heh. They go to online web boards or blogs and make nice...then over a course of a month or so talk about products they like, as a chit chat...but they are paid to use their personas as adverts. Maybe this is a modern urban myth...maybe not

:)

I don't have any idea what twitter is...and I barely have time to blog never mind take on another form of messaging. Between e-mail, online bookclubs and blogging...I have barely enough time to visit folks as it is.

However...I was dragged kicking and screaming to blogging...I thought I would never enjoy it, remember Mister Anchovy? But it turns out it's been awesome addition to my life.

I tend to take the road that if some people enjoy something, it might very well be an enjoyable and valuable pastime even if i don't have time or inclination. I don't have any idea what "twitter" is but it sure seems to give a lot of people pleasure so it can't be that bad...right?

There is a question...if soemthing is popular with lots and lots of people what we term "mainstream" does that mean it is valuable, or worthless, or mob mentality or lots of fun? Or all of the above?

:)

mister anchovy said...

Well, Oprah is doing it now, so it should explode even faster than it has been. Soon everyone will know nothing much about everyone.