Tweet like a Nightingale, Not like a Magpie
November 19, 2008
I spend a lot of time on Twitter. More than I spend just about anywhere else on the Internet. Over the past year and a half, Twitter has become more of a home to me on the web than any place before it ever has. Last January, Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) posted a blog called Twitter is my Village that sums it up beautifully. Twitter has a vibrant community – and a vocal one.
If something happens in the offline world, odds are good I can find more information about it, faster, on Twitter than I can by searching other sources or turning on the television. Whether it’s natural disasters or breaking news, somone on Twitter is posting about it. The same goes for online events too. No one who uses it regularly would dispute that.
So when something comes along to impact my Twitter village, be it positive or negative – or even as yet undetermined – I check it out as quickly as I can.
About a month ago, someone mentioned Magpie. So I did what you probably did if you haven’t checked it out already and followed the link to see what it was.
The short story is that Magpie is a 3rd party service, unaffiliated with Twitter, that pays people to allow them to insert advertising tweets into their twitterstream. The user gets to determine frequency. The default is 1 magpie ad for every 5 normal tweets. This can be adjusted up as high as 1 for every 20, or as frequently as every other tweet. The user gets paid based on 2 things – desirable keyword frequency and number of followers. Because of that second one, Magpie cautions potential tweeters “So keep your followers happy and don’t risk annoying them with too many magpie-tweets.”
In today’s pressing economy, that probably sounds really appealing. I mean, earn money just by doing what you do anyways? Cool!
But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
One of the things that sounds really appealing is the amount of money that Magpie promises if you sign up. You go to the signup page and it says to put in your Twitter ID to see how much you can earn. I put in GeekMommy and wow!! For those of you not used to thinking in Euros – I did the conversion. It says I can make up to $9,539.45 a month!! That’s up to $114,473 a year! I should quit my day job and just be a magpie!
Yeah. Right.
Still… even if I made a fraction of that, it might seem tempting. I mean, I’m not independently wealthy and my 401k is just as unhealthy as everyone else’s.
The thing is, what I realized as soon as I saw it was the part of it where the user controls how frequently s/he lets Magpie put tweets in their timestream – but that there’s no way for me to turn the volume down as someone who follows these people. I have only two settings – on or off. I can follow or unfollow. Those are my choices.
If hundreds of the Twitterpals I’m following are using Magpie, even if they only set it to one every 20, that doesn’t keep me from seeing hundreds in a row. Potentially, thousands, since I currently follow 4,000+ people.
I find a picture is worth a thousand words in this case.
If logging in to twitter to see page after page of this in hopes of coming across a non-Magpie tweet were my fate, this would leave me with 2 options: quit following those people, or quit using Twitter and go to another microblogging platform.
I was trying to explain to someone else that it’s the metaphorical equivalent of being told that I might have to watch an hour’s worth of commercials on TV before I’m allowed to watch part of the show I want to see and even then, there’s nothing that says I won’t get 5 minutes into the show and be subjected to another 30 minutes worth of commercials. I’d either switch networks or quit watching television.
So what am I seeing? My village is divided. Some are taking Magpie for a ride – thinking “hey, it’s only once every few tweets” and some (like me) are unfollowing those who are using Magpie. It reminds me of a small town council fighting over whether or not you should put advertising on your barn.
I’ve been rather a rather vocal opponent. But that’s because I can only see that in the long-term, this monetization scheme will change how I use Twitter. Because if I follow those using Magpie, I won’t be able to just sign on and find out more about those wildfires in California, or who Obama chose for Secretary of State – not without wading through the ads. If I unfollow those using it, the benefit of twitter definitely decreases for me.
And you? What do you think? Is it a good thing and I’m just over-reacting? Or is it something you see as a negative trend? Weigh in. I’m listening.
N.B. It has been pointed out to me more than once that I misspelled nightingale in the title – apparently, I tweet like Florence Nightengale, not a songbird! I’d change it, but that would break any links to it, so I’m afraid it stays a testament to mommy-brain! NEW: according to friends in my comments, the new WP plugin I added should fix that, so changing title to correct spelling.
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