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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143 Responses to “Tweet like a Nightingale, Not like a Magpie”
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I have to agree. There is already enough promotion and self-promotion going on. At least without this third party advertising we are forced to be creative and entertaining about what we tweet.
Thanks for the well-written summation of the issue.
As you know, I’m firmly in the “Against” camp.
I’m all for people making money and earning some passive income, but where Magpie fails is that they are forcing their ads into your Twitter stream.
It’s like coming into my house, changing my TV and drinking my beer, even though I’m perfectly happy with what I’m watching.
Magpie doesn’t ask my permission to enter my Twitter stream - I just have to put up with it or end some great connections.
Way to go on being the anti-social media, Magpie…
[...] GeekMommy’s screenshot of Twitters using Magpie [...]
I use the free version of Twitterrific on the iPhone, and it serves up a 3rd party ad every 50 messages. That much, I can tolerate. In fact, I even clicked through on one ad because it was relevant. But if I had *friends* pushing ads at me on Twitter, they wouldn’t stay friends for long.
Excellent insight. Anything social media is so not about broadcasting and advertising… but about sharing something that will ad value to your followers. So if it’s a link to a product you think will change their lives and happens to come with a referral code for you… go for it… but selling your tweet space… I think goes too far against the grain.
It’s doing my head in just thinking about it. I see your argument and think you make valid points. I still haven’t made up my mind though - but I’m good at screening out advertising too.
At first, I was tempted by it, too. After seeing a lot of talk about it today on Twitter, I gave it a close look. I decided to wait a day or two to think about if I should sign up or not.
And then just ten minutes ago, I saw the same ad posted by three different people all on the same page of my Twitter feed. That made my decision right there. I’m already annoyed by it just from that small example. Obviously many of the people I follow have similar interests, and so they’ll all be served the same ads. Seeing the same ad 3+ times within a minute is enough to make me run away screaming.
I won’t unfollow anyone over this yet. But if I keep seeing a flood of these, I might have to start unfollowing. I don’t have enough time in my day to wade through a sea of ads to read the tweets I want to see.
I saw your tweets on unfollowing people who use it and was curious. Then saw someone else’s blog post on how she’s gonna use it. So I clicked over and checked it out.
I agree. Lots of followers plus lots of tweets is supposed to equal big bucks.
But if I post lots of tweets to my many (in my case, hypothetical) followers, I’m pretty sure they’ll unfollow me. Then no money. I know I’ll unfollow those who use it.
It’s a scheme that’s destined to chase people away.
I agree that it’s just like being force-fed ads. There were free long-distance services for awhile that played ads that you had to listen to before you made your call. I don’t think they lasted.
I hope magpie fades away, because I really enjoy the twitter community. I don’t want it clogged with commercials.
One thing that absolutely astonished me when I visited NYC last month was how much advertising Americans are exposed to. It was EVERYWHERE! It made the uncluttered halls of my local airport (Pearson International in Toronto, ON) seem naked and bare and clean looking. Why would anyone wantto expose themself and othes to even MORE advertising? Even if it is for a $ or two? It’s so overloaded that I wonder if we even see itanymore? IS it even effective? I’m very strongly in the AGAINST camp on this topic, as you can probably very well tell.
>some (like me) are unfollowing those who are using Magpie
As will I.
The folks that tweet me with ‘ground floor’ opportunities are arguably entrepreneurs (to put the best face on it).
Carrying water for Magpie seems a little like working in a House of Negotiable Affections.
If you translate this stuff to real life, it stops being something that’s even debatable.
If someone invited me over to have dinner and then it turned out — surprise! — to be a Tupperware party or something, that friendship would be so completely over.
It’s like the Truman Show or something. Who inserts ads into conversation? In real life, the argument that “hey, I’m only blasting you with ads once every few times we have a cup of tea together” would never be enough to convince me that we should hang out more often.
Luckily I haven’t had to deal with much of this on Twitter. My “I’m unfollowing the second you even start with this” thing has — amazingly — only needed to be applied once.
Anyway, with you in spirit!
I also blogged about Magpie…but my conversion was off, apparently. Yes, according to Magpie, I was turning down serious cash.
It comes down to what is your name and your reputation worth, and in my own dialog you will see that is the debate people are talking about. I would give you the link…but my name will take you there if you’re interested. No need to promote when the blog is helping me just fine!
Seriously though, if you use Magpie, then bully for you. Prepare for people to not embrace it (or you) because of it. And if you are able to quit the day job on account of it, please, feel free to Snoopy Dance on us and sing “I told you so…”
I don’t think that magpie will overtake Twitter. I look at it from an economics perspective: at some point, the cost of using magpie will outweigh the benefit for many individuals and then for the network as a whole….at some point, we will reach equillibrium.
I, for one, will not sign up because I really appreciate the benefits of Twitter (such as hearing the news, making new friends, learning new things, etc). I don’t want to diminish the “value” I have to bring to the table by trying to get something out of the people who contribute to my life in so many other ways.
Twitterers constantly tweet about how this is supposed to be a community of conversation, not a one-way blurtfest.
I agree with that sentiment. I love the conversational aspect of Twitter, and am never more annoyed than when I follow someone who is either recommended to me, or I find interesting, and the next thing I receive is a DM stating “Want to buy my product?”. Its probably not annoying enough to make me unfollow that person, and yet they have somehow suddenly become less interesting than they previously were. If that same tweeter were to Magpie me every 5 or even 25 tweets with a pitch or ad of some kind, I would have to unfollow, no question.
If you are adding value and people are interested in what you tweet, and your blog, or whatever, they will naturally gravitate towards what ever you may have for sale as well. I don’t mind ads on Blogs because I can easily over look them, and by the flip of the coin, if i am so enamored of a blogger, it is nice to be able to see their other products there next to their blog should I want to purchase them .
I am all for a little self-promotion, but I don’t think Magpie is a good idea for Twitter.
Thanks for this blog!
Cheers!
Virginia @cars4causes
I am NOT a fan. I use Twitter to connect with people. I want to read fun things they find, not get some random “supposedly” targeted ad. And I have enough tweets as it is. I don’t need more junk in my stream.
I’ll be unfollowing as well. Hey, if they lose enough followers over this maybe it won’t work…
For lack of more technical terms; Magpie just feels icky.
You are right about one thing! Twitter is more than just a frivolous place to hang out you make real friends on Twitter and it is just wonderful. I feel you are also correct about magpie that would be very very annoying. Good post!
I say repaint the barn and cover up the ads.
I don’t mind when people promote their blog post, new artwork or writing. It’s cool. We all want to show off our stuff to some degree, I don’t kid myself about that.
However, last night I got my first all-caps spam tweet and it was really annoying. Followed by three more.
I felt exactly how I feel when I just want to go into the Gap downtown but I get stopped by the survey people (go around, go around, go around).
I hope that magpie isn’t long for this world because I like Twitter as a safe spam-free haven.
Sanctuary!
I really work hard in my life not to push against the things I don’t want, but rather to rally for, bask in, and otherwise appreciate the things I like. The things I want more of in my life.
That being said, I can say, without reservation, that I appreciate the honest tweets of the many people I follow today, perhaps even more than appreciated them yesterday. And I appreciate that I get to write my own honest tweets today, speaking my own mind, to tweet about the issues, discoveries, and mundane realities of my life.
I accept the idea that monetization will come to Twiiter. I’m willing to participate in a process that provides a revenue stream to the people who provide a valuable service to the Twitter community. At the same time, I appreciate the honest communication I’ve come to expect from the tweeple I follow, and will continue to follow that stream of communication.
Sometimes, stating the positive is more of a challenge than just saying Magpie feels icky to me (bravo, Kelly, for that word choice) and I won’t be participating, or following it.
I agree. Possibly putting that many ads into my twitter stream would ruin the whole experience.
My question, how do you know who is using Magpie?
Against. No question. This truly disturbs. It’s a violation and a trust breach if you ask me. Non-disclosure is worse than lying.
For me, Twitter is a very rich experiencd. As my list of followers grows, the stream of people I follow is growing faster than I would like since I return follow all who seem cool or interesting.
And it takes a bit of time to come to know the people I follow. Following too many new people at a time feels like being a stranger at my own dinner party. I hate that.
I am telling you this to demonstrate how I “use” Twitter. For me it has been a truly fabulous method of connecting with people and ideas that I would have been unlikely to encounter otherwise.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Twitter is that we, the users, are actually in the process of creating it since we are the ones creating its culture. If we permit Magpie and other similar services or the bad behavior of some users turn Twitter into an advertising stream, we have ourselves to blame.
Thanks for clearing this up for me - I came into the conversation late and was totally confused. Magpie does not sound like something I want to be involved with. How will I know if someone I’m following is “magpie-ing” me? That’s my question. I guess the more people I follow I’m sure to find them. I just hope it’s none of my favorites, b/c I think I’d have to unfollow.
It sounds like if Twitter would just ad an option for followers to filter out Magpie tweets if they wished, everybody would be happy.
It sounds like it would be effective advertising and a smart way to monetize the site otherwise.
I’d be more likely to pay for advertising through it than publish magpie tweets though personally.
I’m with you, geekmommy. I’ll link this on twitter
I saved this site that someone posted today about. It lets you filter what you see on twitter.
http://www.twalala.com/login
I signed up for twittad, seems more appropriate for the site.
Been thinking about this a lot and really appreciate the post. Well written and argued, @geekmommy.
While it definitely feels like spam to me, I think the worst is yet to come. I have started receiving messages in my _email_ inbox asking if I wouldn’t mind “tweeting something out…” on a company or person’s behalf. Right, you’re thinking, it’s a favor. Well, I don’t feel that’s the right way to go about twitter. When I tweet something like, “OMG!!!! Opensource Cupcakes” it’s because I’m _genuinely_ thrilled someone has taken the time to make a site like that.
So, I’m a brand enthusiast for Nintendo - since June 2008. Let’s say _they_ make me a deal and offer me $500/tweet to mention how much I looooove the new DS. That’s when things will really start to get hairy. It’s just like the age-old question bloggers have about “will it make a sell-out?” Difference, being, of course, it’s 140 characters and not a blog post.
I think we have to strive to keep the experience pure and simple. That’s what it was, that’s what it is. That’s what I hope it continues to be. I’m not sure I will unfollow folks using the #magpie sign but I will keep an eye on them…the way a teacher does a student she’s considering putting in detention.
@hotdogsladies, Merlin Mann, has called for a “time-out” function on tweeps (I think that’s the word he used). I love the idea of being able to “mute” folks who are exhibiting spam-like behavior. Some people have told me they unfollow me when I live-tweet events and then add me after the event ends, which is fine. What if they could mute me for the weekend instead?
Maybe this is a feature we need to, in a group fashion, ask Twitter for…it could make a richer experience for all of us. And, in the long run, having an active, empowered user base of folks hitting “mute” or “time-out” on tweeps, to me, is a strong alternative to the very final feeling, “unfollow.”
I agree with you. I’m warning people as to why I’m unfollowing them, but I will unfollow them nonetheless. I put #magpie into TweetDeck just to see if people were REALLY getting contexual advertising - it was a bit of a stretch. And the ads seemed to be coming in the same order in spurts (ad A, ad B, tweet, ad A, ad B)… it was really strange.
I shut it down.
http://www.studionashvegas.com/2008/11/18/magpie-spam-or-just-another-ad-network/
Thank you so much for this post. There is already enough “ads” through self-promotion on Twitter. I definitely do not want to see my twitstream filled up with #magpie ads.
I like you will unfollow magpie users.
Thanks and Hugs!!!
Cathy
I follow you and respect your opinion, GM. No Magpie for me, and I’ll unfollow people who use it. Advertising? I don’t want more of it.
Exactly on the money. I don’t want ads in my Tweetstream.
If they’re on blogs, that’s a totally different issue.
I have to say I totally agree. The incidence of spam is small and I consider my community *family*…having a friend or family member purposely agree to fill my already-too-full day with ads is definitely grounds to unfollow. Ads aren’t the answer if you _need _ to monetize.
had fun hangin’ out with Chris the other day Geekmommy! great post!
[...] GeekMommy is having this same debate as we speak. Share and [...]
Yes…lets just turn twitter into a giant safelist(*note the obvious sarcasim!) and maybe people will still be making money when no one in their right mind bothers to visit the site anymore…
You know what we do with magpies where I come from?
Shoot ‘em!
The reason I follow the people I do on twitter is that I’m genuinely interested in them, in what they’re doing, what they’re working on, what their opinions are. I check out their blogs, their businesses, the links they want to share. If you put ads into the twitter stream it muddies the waters. I can no longer trust their tweets are their own, that their opinions are their own.
If people are so willing to lose their reputations for a few dollars then I lose my respect for them. A good twitter following is of so much more value than that. It’s not all about money, or at least, it shouldn’t be.
Great post Lucretia, and you have pointed out the very reason I won’t use Magpie.
I had 6 Magpie ads in a row show up in my Twitter stream today, and as your Twitpic http://twitpic.com/mh1s clearly shows, this can get annoying - quickly!
If someone wants to tweet an occasional self-promotional ad, yes even if it includes an affiliate link, I don’t freak out - BUT - the emphasis is on occasional.
Not ready yet to unfollow those that use Magpie, I’m waiting to see how long it takes the “new toy” feeling to wear off. I will however; let those that I follow know how I feel about it.
Regards,
Sharon McPherson
@SharonMcP
I have to completely agree GM! it is noisy enough keeping track of what is going on without having to apply magpie filters. I for one will give anyone 24 hours to drop either me or magpie, should any of my tweeps be so inclined to subscribe to magpie’s services.
We really have to hit the “advertising in my face” ideas on the www else it will end up just like television, controlled by corps and not individuals.
BTW: nightingale not nightengale
I’m on the fence. I guess ultimately there’s a better method for making money and it seems that magpie isn’t even following through on their end with promised money and actually tweeting!
That being said, I did do one tweet that netted me somewhere around 1.50 (I forget). Since we can’t cash out til we reach $50, what about getting those who made a tiny bit of cash (but who now don’t want to participate) to band together their money, cash it in, and donate it somewhere.
I’d hate to see magpie just keep the money that I made for them!
Twitter is my community of choice, and bringing money into the equation kind of defeats the purpose for me (unless someone wants to pay me to Tweet for them, which is a fantasy of mine.) I want my Twitterstream to reflect me, not some random company. Not to mention that if even 10 percent of the 1,300+ people do Magpie, I’ll be overwhelmed with spam. I hope this is one of those new Twitter toys that dies a quick death.
I was one of the ones that jumped on board with it and have now decided not to go forward. You are right. I am very happy with the community I am tweeting with and would not like to offend anyone. I would find it offensive to have all that advertising coming at me.
Thanks for the post.
I’m with you, I will unfollow those who use magpie. While I understand the idea of making money by twittering is tempting, I actively block spam that is emailed to me, why not block spam that is twittered to me?
I use Twitter as an individual, I don’t want to have it overrun by marketing and advertising.
I’m with you.
I don’t mind that many of us are dropping our own links as part of social networking, but I absolutely do not need or want to be bombarded by 3rd party advertisements.
I was already following someone I enjoy but the volume of self-tweets was already a bit much (blatant self-link dropping several times a minute) but then she added Magpie every other link. Then there was the conversation of mutual followers/ees about what was it. Followed by many of them signing up.
Followed by a number of folks being unfollowed.
I don’t like it. AT ALL. In fact, the major influx of advertising everywhere is one of the factors that drove me away from the last online community I was actively participating in (for the past two years!). If Twitter turns into another place with wall-to-wall ads, I’ll be much less inclined to waste as much time here as I currently do (hey, maybe that’s a good thing).
And for those that use the example of blogs serving up ads, I think that’s a poor example. I tend to avoid blogs that have heavy advertising everywhere. As long as it’s limited to a side column, I can just ignore it. But if you’re serving up a three-column layout where two of those are jam packed with ads, I am much less inclined to return to your blog.
Magpie: (noun - definition #2); used in similes or comparisons to refer to a person who collects things, *esp. things of little use or value* [emphasis added], or a person who chatters idly.
I don’t think this is a coincidence.
When I follow someone, I don’t want to hear something that strives to be almost as good as Adsense. I want to hear more about their own world and what things they pay attention to. Magpie is garbage fueled by the promise of money, and I don’t want it.
That said, I’m not going to un-follow anybody for using it. I just choose to ignore messages marked with #magpie for now.
I usually don’t get into issues like this, but I have to agree with you 100%. I love Twitter too much to see it run rife with third party ads. It’s one thing to promote your blog, business, web site, whatever. But an entirely different thing altogether when you start to see random ads from your followers about products/services they probably don’t care about.
Magpie is horrible on so many levels. I already can’t stand it. I don’t even like twitterfeeds; they’re also quite annoying to me.
Thanks for posting such a well thought out post.
The magpie promos are annoying and an increase of same is inevitable. The beauty of Twitter for me, as others have stated, is the social aspect of it - the news - the ideas - the conversation. Strangely, it has become on its own something I quite enjoy. I notice if I don’t see people for a few days. I notice friends being made. Business taking place. Arguments happening. Romance flourishing. Ideas taking off. It’s a wonderful network - and it’s fun. People communicating, coming together, self-promoting - just lovely. If Twitter becomes a vehicle for third party promotion via tweeting I will unfollow those who jack with my stream. If it becomes too offensive - I’ll pack it up and go. I can ad-drown on the sites I must visit - I choose not to do so and refuse to do so on the sites I visit for pleasure.
Enjoyed the post, GeekMommy
Gina Cowley
Well this is interesting. Magpie predicts paying me $14,230 per month. Is this a lottery or something? Haha. I have not received that kind of offer before. And there is a reason. It would be ridiculous.
I do think that advertising has a way of penetrating everything, even bathrooms. So, give it time, and greed will win over the weak ones and the poor ones first. Then ppl will become engraged, followed by densitized (like we all watch tv ads? Not). I don’t mean to surrender, but I just don’t see Twitter dodging ads. Even Twitter itself will have to earn revenue some day soon, somehow.
Do I want to be paid for ads in my stream? Financially, sure. For my friends and followers, no, not really!
I see ads on blogs as harmless unless they are all over the place–they’re sort of like billboards on the highway. Sometimes, they can even be fun to look at.
BUT
If people I follow on Twitter were using Magpie, it would be like rounding up a carpool of people. And I’d either get a great ride where we’d have a rockin’ conversation and I’d learn 100 new things OR I’d end up with someone trying to sell me something. And frankly, I would personally ditch the carpool and drive alone (or take the bus–I feel like I need to keep this analogy going) instead of risking being subjected to someone talking at me. Sometimes I need to have an ad-free conversation.
I was actually leaning toward acceptance of this advertising / monetizing model until I read your post and observed your timeline image. That puts it into perspective. While Twitter may elect to inject ads into our timelines at some point, I don’t think it will be as obtrusive as following dozens or hundreds of Magpie users. I’m all for making money and moderate self-promotion on Twitter and other media platforms, I can see that without any way to throttle the ads on the receiving side it can get out of control very quickly.
I think this is another example of a practice that sounds good at first at the individual level, but doesn’t scale well. It’s essentially a “Tragedy of the Commons”, where the “commons” is the collective attention of the Twitterverse.
Everyone thinks their one little “more than my fair share” won’t hurt anything, but when it overruns the commons and everybody leaves, destroying the common resource in the process, nobody will be happy, and everybody will be shocked.
You have to look at social networks systemically:
Shifting the Burden in Online Communities
btw, in response to Gwen Bell. There is a service called TwitterSnooze that will enable you to temporarily unfollow someone up to 30 days. http://twittersnooze.com
One drawback to using it is that when the “snooze” expires, the person will get a notice that you’re following them again. Not too cool if you didn’t want them to know you had them on snooze.
Sharon McPherson
@SharonMcP
Gwen Bell, I think you make an excellent point. I do consulting for an online resume service, because I was an enthusiastic user when they found me blogging about their product and brought me into the fold. I talk about them all the time on Twitter because I genuinely believe in the product and concept - I would do it whether I worked with them or not, based on seeing someone mention they need a job or they’re updating their resume. Is my recommendation of them any less credible because I do some work for them? I am still the same person, regardless of who my clients are, and some of them lend themselves to my active promotion more than others.
I think the Magpie thing is literally much ado about nothing at this point. Without advertisers in the system, there are not going to be overwhelming numbers of ads. I have a lot of designers in my group - they tweet, retweet, and retweet each other’s tweets all day long, many times a day. It can be annoying sometimes, but I value their association, friendships, and talents so even though they are doing something I tend not to do as much, I don’t unfollow them or devalue them in any way. I follow over 800 people and have yet to see a magpie ad that I can remember, and I know some of them are signed up.
To automatically devalue one who uses Magpie or Twittads or whatever exists, in an effort to take advantage of a potential revenue stream, is a bit shallow. After all, you don’t know where people really stand in life - there are serious economic difficulties and tons of layoffs, and perhaps someone really needs some extra money. After all, it is their followers they are gambling with this venture - most of these folks are normal people who aren’t trying to pull scams & schemes. We’re so quick to judge these days. If someone adds value, makes me think, makes me laugh or simply consoles me when I’m stressing, and a Magpie ad, or personal recommendation, or whatever comes across from them, I won’t automatically unfollow on matter of principle. I might as well cancel my cable service and shut off the phone - after all I see and hear ads there too. If it becomes the bulk of the person’s conversation and too much noise with too little value, then I’ll probably unfollow. A twitter user is more than this one decision to try the Magpie service or not… don’t throw the tweeter out with the birdbath, is my philosophy.
Wonderfully written, geekmommy!
I’m against magpie as well. It’s annoying because I can’t ignore them the way we can ads in other parts of the internet where they’re relegated to the sidebars or even the dreaded pop-ups. Magpie ads are distasteful, especially since I wasn’t sure if they were ads to begin with. Seeing the same magpie tweet multiple times in a row was not cool.
I have only unfollowed a few people b/c their magpie use. I also unfollow people who turn into pure self-promotion. I’m not on Twitter to be bought. Hopefully enough people will see that and magpie will go away.
Wouldn’t it be great if one out of every five, ten or whatever phone calls from your friends, or relatives were a telemarketer calling on behalf of the person you know trying to sell you something?
Even worse, each of the people who call you is letting a telemarketer use their phone once out of a certain amount of calls, how soon before you aren’t answering your phone at all?
I just learned a lot from reading this comment thread - now truly appreciating what Chris Brogan says when he says the comment threads are where the true discussion happens.
Thanks you guys… and realizing that I have always spelled ‘nightengale’ incorrectly now… only Florence spelled it that way. hm, to change or not to change? Would break links if I did. :\
Hi Lucretia,
thank you for mentioning Magpie in your blog and thanks for giving us your honest opinion.
I am sorry to hear that Magpie lead to a decrease in benefit of Twitter to you. However, we believe that — as Magpie has just started a couple of weeks ago — a lot of people are still in the process of finding their “equilibrium” with tweets and ads. We encourage the discussion between Magpie-Twitterers and their followers in order for everybody to adjust their ratios so that they’re not annoying. Also, as Magpie grows, a larger diversity of ads will lead to better matches for more relevant ads. Even today a lot of people are actually telling us that they’ve found interesting new services and products through Magpie-tweets.
That said, we believe that every Twitterer provides a service to her/his followers. A service for which she/he did not get paid for until now. Magpie aims at changing this by allowing a Twitterer to monetize her/his tweets and placing a limited amount of relevant ads among them.
Basically it’s like on your blog. You provide a great service to your readers. That’s why they come back often, read your RSS feed, etc. Of course, nobody is paying you for your posts, which is fair enough. But appearently, you’d like to be rewarded for what you do. So you chose to put banner ads on your blog which - in my opinion - is also fair enough. You chose to put up 7 smaller rectangular banners and one large on the left hand side of every article. You did not put up more banners and you’re not using popup ads as they would very probably annoy your readers.
Magpie works a lot like this: we enable Twitterers to put a customizable amount of ads in their timelines. We don’t set the ratios — our users do. Some users will choose a higher tweet/ad ratio than others but everybody will respect what their followers say in order not to loose them.
Thank you again for starting the discussion. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you or your readers have questions/suggestions regarding Magpie.
Jan
CEO Magpie & Friends Ltd.
Had a friend once try to get me in on a “presentation” just to “practice” for a possible job interview. Obviously some kind of Amway-ish promo.
You simply don’t do that sort of thing to people you want to call friends. And Twitter friends are among the smartest friends there are. In the long run a grand reputation for honest conversation is worth much, much more than anything Magpie could offer you.
Although there business model isn’t as sound, I personally use twitad. It’s monetzation without all the interference.
If only Motrin had Magpie. Swift response, good points and very well laid out here in the comments, Jan. Well, there you go. I say the answer is still a “mute” button, but if Magpie is working closely to get good ads to their demographic and doing so in a way that people trust, more power to ‘em.
Jan, you’re doing a great job on the PR end!
Jan,
The problem you don’t seem to get is that the person following the magpie users can become inundated with ads from multiple sources. If I happen to follow 50 people who tweet 20 times a day and have magpie set on the default 1 to 5 ratio, then each person is going to send me 4 ads that day. That’s a total of 200 ads … and i would be willing to bet some of them would be (a) repeats and (b) sequentially one right after another on my timeline (from multiple sources, of course). That is the true problem. As Scott mentions above, it just doesn’t scale well. It’s not the same as a blog, where I can choose to overlook the ads on the sidebar. If I log in to Twitter and see 10 or more magpie ads, then I have to wade through all the magpie droppings to get to real tweets. I never did like messing with bird poop.
I’m heartened by the overwhelming comments against using magpie. Tweeters understand that we all have something we sell, but we are sellers with a face, a personality, and the desire to give back to our Twitterverse. Our ’selling’ is after our community, not before, and never as a replacement for relationship (or at least, that’s the way I look at it.).
Magpie is a direct contradiction. It’s old fashioned commercialization that doesn’t give a hoot for the individual Tweets of Twitterville, except as potential buyers. There’s no relationship going on. So go away magpie and chatter somewhere else.
Wow, loving all the commentary and will have to go check out Jessica’s post with the opposite viewpoint. Doubt it will change my mind though - the only monetization of Twitter I’m ok with is BY Twitter, to allow them to continue offering us the joy of Twitter, lol!
I think the more people you follow the higher potential that Magpie is going to get out of control. I’m not unfollowing anyone yet, but the minute the magpie tweets seem too much for me I’ll be done with them.
For me, one main difference between Twitter and say a blog, is that you have a right to control your blog, but you don’t have a right to control the advertising in MY twitterstream. We don’t own Twitter, we just have access and abusing the privileges will have consequences - let’s just hope it doesn’t ruin Twitter altogether.
Totally agree. TO me we are bombarded by ads everywhere we turn and on Twitter well it just doesn’t have to be.
I’m in the camp that will unfollow anyone who does that to me. I don’t auto follow. I choose people to follow based on what they offer. And I think most other twitterers are the same. It will be self-defeating and self-destructive.
@Jan
Thank you for your swift response. I do agree with Gwen that it’s well thought out and rational.
But I also agree with Michael that once again, you’ve missed the thrust of my post.
If I, the audience, were able to control the frequency of ads in my stream, then I would be less inclined to be worried about it. But presently I follow over 4,000 twitter users. If even 10% of them used your service and opted for the smallest frequency of 1 out of 20, given that the people who use your service are those who twitter frequently with high followers, it is completely possible that I would have to scroll through 400 of your ads before I found one tweet that wasn’t an ad. That’s 20 pages of ads before I found one.
I’m sorry, but you missed my point entirely. I have no volume control other than on or off. And I choose off. If someone is using your service I won’t be following them because you have left me no other choice.
While I appreciate your well-written response - I would posit that you have an interest in convincing people other wise that includes a monetary one, whereas I do not.
If you are capable of visiting 4000+ blogs a day, more power to you. But until you find a way to allow me to opt out of your advertising I won’t be participating by following those who use it.
I’m glad your blog has good readership, because I also posted about this as soon as I heard the word from the twitter bird.
I think that there are TWO arguments against magpie, 1st is yours about being flooded by multiple users of magpie,
the 2nd is an aspect that people don’t realize the HUGE potential for a real spam problem. Since twitter can be manipulated by “bots” fairly easily, going and following large numbers of people very quickly(who many will automatically follow back), while shooting out semi-coherent tweets. That puts real profitability into tweet spam and that’s not a good thing??
I have yet to see one Magpie ad come through my stream. Everyone I’ve heard from that follows me is against Magpie. I think it will die out from the negative backlash.
All of this conversation makes me wonder…is this magpie thing even going to WORK for the advertisers? If they discover “hey, these twitter folks probably won’t buy our product BECAUSE they saw our ad,” then hey…it will just fizzle out.
But the question is, do magpie ads work for their advertisers? And if it does, then yes, we may be in for it.
I signed up today to take Magpie for a spin. I’ve also signed up for qwitter so I’ll know how many people unfollow.
I’m not sure I see what the BFD is. If everyone I know used Magpie and set it to the default of 1-5 then I’d be fine. I follow about 250 people and I think most of the people that follow me are in that same range. I have twhirlset to check for new twits every 5 minutes and I usually get around 3-8 twits per update. That means I’d have about one add per update. I’m not really seeing a problem with that.
I can see for someone following in the thousands it could become a bit of a pain.
One very simple idea is to add a feature to a Twitter client, like twhirl, to just ignore any twit that has the #magpie stamp in it. Problem solved. I’m an AIR developer myself. So if no one adds this feature I’ll make a Twitter client myself. Stay tuned.
Hi Lucretia,
thanks for your reply.
I did get yours and Michael’s point. However, speaking from experience, I think that you’re already “wading” through heaps of irrelevant non-Magpie messages every day simply because of the fact that 4000 Twitterers do tweet a lot
One important point about Magpie is the targeting of ad messages. It has not been that visible so far, simply because we’re just building up the network of advertisers and there aren’t so many different ads yet. However, as we are getting more and more campaigns covering different areas you will actually find a lot of Magpie-tweets which you’ll consider interesting. Our customers would not pay for ads that would only be “waded through”. They want you to look at them. They want you to get interested in their offerings.
We can only meet those expectations by delivering relevant ads to the right people — at which point “wading through” won’t be a problem, because magpie-tweets are tweets that matter.
Thank you, kind regards
Jan
CEO Magpie & Friends
“Magpie, n.: A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.” ~Ambrose Bierce
So glad to see others speaking out against the spam ads on Twitter!!!!!
Hhere is a solution if you want to use another client to filter out ads. I came across http://www.twalala.com/login today, and have not yet tried it out. The developer @sondernagle is on Twitter and looking for feedback. He contacted me today after I tweeted about his program.
@fairminder
I’ve never been against Magpie. I’m all for people who I value enough adding ads to their twitter stream, their podcast, their Facebook page, their car, their house, their forehead…….
Won’t make the rest of their twitters less valuable to me.
I have 2 ideas for Magpie (make the “pie” bigger and then share some of it):
1. Change design. If I sign up for Magpie, send a complete tweet after every “N number of my tweets, as opposed to embedding ads in my tweets. Give me the ability to color those differently. It will help my fellow tweetpeeps ignore those more easily.
2. Give people the ability to mute. If people do not mute Magpie out - then reward them by paying them $X for every N Magpie tweets they see.
Overall, I think different people will respond differently. I think the key here is for Magpie to give a bunch of options to people who sign up (has been said in the comments above)…..besides just the frequency.
For some reason I think twitter will handle this well - we have so much noise already and we have figured out ways of dealing with it. And guess what, twitter is almost a platform …if there is a need for a functionality, people will build a tool. Just look at the gazzillion tools that overlay twitter today. I can see “Ignore the Pie” tool being released very soon
@ Jan. I was about to congratulate you on your initial response to Lucretia, and then I saw your second one.
I feel it’s a little bit disrespectful to imply that the people I, Lucretia or anyone else here follows are “irrelevant”. Who’s to say that I don’t find relevance in what I’m reading? Not you, which I feel now goes to put Magpie in an even more negative light for me.
I don’t find catching up on comments akin to “wading through” - that sounds like a chore, and getting to know the people I follow is certainly no chore.
You also mention that you’ve only just started with the advertising - therefore, can we expect even more ads beginning to pop into the Twitter stream? Six in a row is bad enough - if your frequency is increasing, I’m concerned as to how spammy it could get.
Perhaps where I feel you’ve really let yourself down is in your last comment. You mention I, or anyone else, won’t have to “wade through” anything because “Magpie tweets are tweets that matter.”
Does this then mean that other tweets aren’t meaningful?
Sorry, Jan, you’ve just put me off Magpie even more…
Excellent blog post as it captures the dilemma so many people feel right now about the apparent “free money” from sending ads on to followers. But that free money comes at a tremendous price: credibility and trust.
For me, this just feels quite awkward. I think people follow each other on Twitter to learn, get entertaining content and create relationships based on trust. I just could not betray the trust of followers to participate in this. They did not follow me or anyone else to get ads; they followed out of interest. Even if every single follower approved, I still would not do it. I joined Twitter to learn and hopefully help others - and serving others does not include pushing ads to them in my opinion.
Maybe Magpie forces a new community into Twitter, those that don’t mind getting ads. Personally, I just can’t participate, I respect my followers way too much to try and capitalize on them for my own benefit. I am like you, I want to get into Twitter, see what is going on, and get on with my day.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a good post too,
Louis
Late to this post (I’ve been busy lately) but a VOCAL anti-Magpie here. I am in the ‘unfollow if I see use’ category. My Twitter stream is too key to my life/work to waste one minute on links/referrals not from the heart that I can’t really trust.
I agree with your posting 100% and will be un-following any #mapgie tweets that I see. I follow people because I am interested in what they might have to say, not because they’re serving ads.
I signed up for it when I first heard about. Turned it on. Saw the “ad”. Turned it off. Not good for Twitter.
Great post. Sure the money would be great, but I think I’d lose a ton of followers and then the $ I earn would go down and it would turn into a downward spiral. Not to mention how crazy I would go having to view everyone else’s ads myself. Gah.
I agree with you. It’s a bad idea.
This post seems to have hit a nerve. Jan, you seem to have done your homework enough to have tracked this issue on Twitter - but not enough to know how people actually use it.
I’d be happy to enlighten you as to how power-users that follow more than a couple hundred of people use it:
“no, I don’t read all Twitters. I only read them when I’m sitting on my computer and online, which is probably only about 10% of the Twitters that the people I’m following write. That is, unless they directly mention me in them, then that percentage goes up to 100%.” - Robert Scoble http://tinyurl.com/56hq9c
That’s probably the best summary out there about how anyone following more than about 50 people uses it. But to say that I’m “wading through irrelevant posts” is to insult the people I have built a community with on Twitter. Which ones do you suggest are being irrelevant?
I think you really don’t get the community you’re trying to enter here. Or if you do? You don’t respect them.
Wow, no idea Magpie would open up such a can of worms!
I think as an internet marketer (not all I do, but I do that) with a lot of peeps I follow who are IM’s I am just used to seeing links. And, we are used to creating autoresponder ads which send emails out to our list automatically. So, Magpie just seemed like no big deal… same old same old just in Twitter. I personally see people post links all the time (could be who I follow though.) If they ONLY post links I may not unfollow but I will ignore them. But, if I know them or they interract with me, then they sometimes send a link, no biggie.
In fact, I have been using Twitter to promote free calls I do to help people on Tuesdays.
However, I can see if you are not used to internet marketing, or if all the ads go out at once for the same ad, this could get irritating. However, if Magpie works like it’s supposed to and it’s based on our tweets (mine is set to the highest threshold so the least number of tweets), then if would seem to be impossible for the same tweet to come out at the same time. That is, what are the chances of me just happening to hit my 20th tweet at the same time as you? And, we have likely not exactly the same audience so again it should not even be the same ad.
I’m just saying, if it really works like promised this would be hard to imagine happening. And, perhaps it’s not working the way it “should” right now.
I don’t know if the screen shot was sequencial tweets or a search for Magpie (so real or not. ??)
Now, I have another account @ThoughtShifting. The only one I follow there is me, so I can see all my tweets. I think I set the lowest threshiold on Magpie, which is 20 (and I would be fine if I could do it less, I tweet a lot.) So far I have seen 2 magpie ads and I said “Oh, what is that?” forgetting I even signed up. So, magpie must not consider replies or dm’s as tweets because for sure I have had more than 20. I clicked on one ad, it sounded interesting!
So, don’t know where I stand on the issue. I would sure hate to irritate my followers–never my intent.
Warmly,
Pam
@ Pam. I can see your point, but I think there’s one main difference. People who sign up to follow you do so knowing that you’re an Internet marketer, so they won;t be surprised if a lot of your stuff is self-promotion or affiliate marketing. Seth Godin calls it “permission marketing”.
With Magpie, I don’t have that luxury. Their ads will be blasted to me without me wanting or agreeing to it, all because I want to follow someone I may find interesting whose profile makes no mention of “Magpie marketer”.
That, I feel, is the main difference. And it’s a big one.
Danny,
thank you for replying to my comment.
I am sorry if my last post gave you the impression that I was implying that the tweets of the people we are following are not relevant. Of course, this is not the case. We would not follow them if they were not relevant to us.
Nevertheless, I think that there’s a lot to catch up on if you are following 4,000 people.
“Wading through” was actually a phrase which Lucretia used in her initial post when referring to ads. Basically, we believe that Magpie-tweets are interesting, because they are targeted. Thus, no one has to wade through anything
Kind regards,
Jan
CEO Magpie & Friends Ltd.
@Pam - I see your point - but even with the minimal amount that they’ve been sending out marketing this was in my twitterstream just yesterday:
http://twitpic.com/mh1s
If it was 3 in a row before everyone signed up - I think it’s safe to say the frequency will only *increase* as time goes on.
And for disclosure reasons? I saw you using it yesterday and did unfollow - it’s the first time you’ve ever tweeted anything that would put me in that position. Because I trust *your* judgment - but you don’t get to make the call there - they do.
Jan - you are now rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. I’ve already told you how those of us using Twitter use the service when we follow thousands. I’ve also already told you where the problem lies with my not being able to control the volume of your ads in *my* twitterstream, not the person letting you use their’s for your business. You haven’t addressed either. Because you can’t. In the end - I have two options when it comes to your service - refuse to follow those using it, or passively sit by while it makes Twitter essentially unusable.
I choose the first.
Thanks for the Magpie explainer. At this point Twitter is a soft place to fall with your peers. Just tweets, no ads. It’s the same reason I prefer TCM for viewing movies on television.Give me a non-intrusive pleasure any time.
@ Jan. To use your quote: “Nevertheless, I think that there’s a lot to catch up on if you are following 4,000 people.”
Imagine how much you’d have to catch up on if every fifth tweet was a Magpie ad then…
Unfortunately you’re still missing the point (or seem to be). I choose to “catch up on” conversations, because they’re exactly that - conversations.
Give me one good reason why I should choose to catch up on non-choice broadcasts.
Danny said: where Magpie fails is that they are forcing their ads into your Twitter stream.
That’s it for me. If _I_ think a product is cool, I’ll say so. I don’t want magpie or anyone else speaking for me.
Also, keep in mind that some people get tweets on their cellphones. I don’t want to pay for _your_ ads.
I think we’ll see the application writers giving us more filtering options. My Twitter Reader will simply filter out any magpie tweet.
I wasn’t previously aware of Magpie. Not a terribly nice name, is it? Anyway, I found my way to you via @CrunchyGoddess and think you made an excellent case for staying away from this application. It would indeed change following behavior!
Best wishes,
Kimberly (@msomustek and @labortrials)
@Jan: I just signed on to try your product out and I previously tweeted to ask for a 1:20 ratio increase to 1:100 for more balance or control of the ad stream. I am a serial commenter and can be quite chatty in tweetsville. My first problem with your comments in this forum is the fact that you have disdained our chatter, the very vehicle that triggers your ad release into the stream. Not cool and very foolish. We all write about what interests us. We follow people who interest us. We promote ourselves and each other simply by being ourselves. Monetizing our streams interests us if it is done in a non-offensive carefully controlled way with a balance of options to opt in or out of the program. You may want to rethink disrespecting people who have a right not to agree with your assessment.
@ the pro choice proponents, we know very little of what the community at large in the twittersphere really thinks because there certainly has not been a vote upon it. As a business owner I am always looking for multiple streams of revenue and exposure, but not at the expense of my friends, customers or clients. First I try, then I trust (or change my mind). This is an experiment for me so I humbly ask that you all be honest as we move along regarding what Magpie can and can not do for you not based upon speculation, but experience with testing the product.
@ the opponents of the product. I understand your concerns and believe there is merit in the hypothetical and reality of this new situation. I respect your positions, but ask that you do not act so hasty as to un-follow people who care about you while they try something new. It’s been two weeks… the program needs to be tweaked to find balance for us all. If they fail to adjust according to the feedback, do what you must and do what is best for you. I just discovered a few of you a few days ago and really enjoy reading your tweets. I would hate to think you would kick me to the curb because I simply want to learn or try something new. I certainly would not do that to you. When I decide to follow someone it is not a casual or emotional decision…
Twitter is looking to monetize the site. Give them (Twitter and M-pie) time to create the apps that you are requesting to control and filter what you believe you need to improve your user experience on this site. The widgets are being written and will continue to be created by a lot of talented people in-house and third party. This is the world of micro-blogging. It is effective. That is why it is being monetized… Think of this as a temporary growing pain. Contact Twitter direct as ask for more user friendly controls so each side can function with balance.
Your ActiveRain.com blogger buddy Carolyn Tann-Starr has seen this very reaction happen in AR when Localism was launched. We freaked out for nothing. Turns out we fell in love with it in the end and did the Snoopy Dance when they created our Outside Blogs. The AR conversational thread was a lynching in the making, a lot harsher than this, so I figured I put my two cents in.
This has certainly been enlightening. I’ve been watching the conversation and wondering what magpie is. After reading this, I think I have to side with the anti-magpie crowd. I don’t want to be blasted with a bunch of ads and may unfollow if it becomes a problem. I do that already with those that just blast ads out with nothing interesting to add to the conversation.
I do welcome people doing self-promotion. I do a bit of that myself. To me, that is a part of networking and socializing. I do frequently check links out and have found lots of interesting things.
There is a big difference in personally recommending something and running 3rd party ads! I vote NO on magpie.
I think something that potential Magpie users might not consider is that they may not only have to deal with unfollows but some may choose to block the Magpie user all together. (Most people I know don’t like spammy tweets or Twitter accounts.) And if they get too many blocks their Twitter accounts will be inactivated defeating the purpose of Magpie in the first place.
Kenya, very true. In addition, if you over-tweet in a session Twitter temporarily suspends your account, which is why I am so concerned about the imbalance and lack of filters and control.
[...] followers still have the ability to block people. I’m wondering if most people agree with Lucretia Pruitt? I also wonder how many users who sign up to be-a-magpie will get blocked early on, and loose their [...]
It’s amazing to watch the Twitter community debate the value of Magpie in such a public way, and I love the implications of that debate. In a sense, we have all become gatekeepers for our ideal vision of what Twitter can be, and we as a Twitter community are coming together to decide which services are allowed within Twitter, and which services are not.
For me, I’ve been vocal about my opposition to Magpie from the beginning: http://thefutureofads.com/2008/11/03/magpie-tries-to-make-twitter-an-ad-network-fails/
Twitter has so far remained a very forced-ad free place, and I would love to keep it that way. By forced-ads, I just mean ads that you don’t opt in to receive. What’s interesting is that Twitter is not a brand free place. Instead, brands are allowed onto Twitter, and can spread their message within the community, but they have to do it while playing by the community’s rules. They have to provide value, and provide enough value that you’re willing to trust them and follow them so that you can hear what they have to say. It’s not that we’re entirely against hearing an advertising message or two on Twitter, it’s just that we’d rather hear it directly from the company that’s putting that message out there.
The problem with Magpie is that is avoids these rules all together, and gets in through the back entrance by taking over the feeds of those that you follow. It’s taking a traditional advertising method (text ads), and just applying it to a new medium without adapting to the requirements of that new medium. It’s forced, and it’s unwanted, and it gained access by essentially bribing people with big dollar amounts for little to no work.
From those in support of Magpie, I often hear the argument that blogs have advertisements, so why can’t Twitter have advertisements too?
However, the point that is often missed by this argument is that blogs have ads next to content, while Magpie puts ads instead of content. To equate Magpie advertising to blog advertising, you would have to set up a blog so that every X posts were automatically created by a service that turned that post into an advertisement without any input from the author. While I don’t mind blogs that use advertisements as a way to generate income off of the work that they put in to writing for that blog, I would quickly tire of wading through advertisement-only posts just to find the genuine content that was actually written by that blog.
To imagine this in real life, a blog would be like a lecture at a conference, and blog advertising would be like a banner placed next to the speaker that featured the logos of sponsors of that conference. You’d be aware of the sponsorship, and may even check out a few of those sponsors because they were enabling the conference to take place, but they wouldn’t interrupt the flow of the message from the speaker. Magpie would be like the speaker stopping every five sentences to talk about one of the sponsors. You’d still get the message, but you’d have to do a lot more work to filter out what was important, and what was just sponsored garbage, and the overall value of the speaker’s content would quickly diminishes.
To take the analogy even further, you’d then have to imagine that after the speaker’s talk, you’d walk around to meet new people, and each of those people would stop after every five sentences and talk about one of the sponsors of the event. The more people you talked to, the more time you’d have to spend listening to the same ad over and over, and you’d probably not want to stick around for very long among all of the ad-filled conversations.
In addition, we’ve accepted ads within blogs because blogs provide value to us, and we’re trading our views, which an advertiser values, for free content from blogs, which we value. Blogs could have gone without advertising and just charged for the content like a traditional publisher, but the exchange of admission price for advertising is understood, and we’ve learned to accept it.
On Twitter however, there’s (usually) no need to compensate the author. In most cases, Twitter users are conversing with one another, not sending out valuable content in one-way communication to their followers that they could otherwise have been paid for, and it would be odd to expect compensation for those conversations. You could remove ads from a blog and charge admission, and if the blog provided enough value, there are plenty of people that would pay for that admission, but I can’t imagine too many people would be willing to pay just to follow someone on Twitter.
Cory, very well said. A most excellent comment post.
My apologies in advance as this will be long, but bear with me. If you reply to me, please read all my thoughts before you respond.
1. People here are blowing this way out of proportion. Twitter is a great thing, but one of its downsides is that certain groups are able to rally others into shark-attack like pools of reactionary frenzy.
This past weekend’s Motrin “scandal” was a great example. Where Motrin failed is they (very lightly) made fun of an audience they were trying to sell to directly. In bad taste and a tad lame? Yes. Certainly not worth the time and energy of the backlash it received. I know people who have done babywearing and frankly, as highly as they’d recommend it for the bonding aspects and convenience, they were taking pain medication the whole time because it hurt. Motrin’s ads were misdirected, but really not that far off.
Now, Motrin will be turned off entirely from engaging in the social media space and we all lose because of it. Other companies will be hesitant and we all lose because of it.
2. Most people are fundamentally against change–even those of us that are “early adopters” like many of us in the Twitter community. Remember the backlash when Facebook launched the news feed/mini feeds? Yet that has become one of the greatest features on Facebook–the feature that keeps people engaged and going back frequently. Without trying new things with an open mind, we’d never have anything new.
3. Economically, I don’t see how #magpie is going to succeed with their current model. I think their promises on amounts are overblown. CPM is a tough advertising model and becomes even more so during tight economic times. Marketers flock to more controllable scenarios such as CPC or CPA. They are promising upwards of $4-5 CPM for a community that is unresponsive, without direct call-to-action, and in a very flat medium. That will prove to be a problem for those that subscribe to #magpie.
4. An equilibrium needs to be found. The #magpier needs more control of this aspect, ie 1 every 5/10/20/25/50/100/+ tweets. If people with Twitter streams that are worthwhile to follow find the right balance, they are being paid for adding value and we are subjected to an occasional ad for tuning in. This is very much the equivalent of the video/tv model except it’s even easier to ignore thanks to all of the noise that already exists on Twitter (more on that in a moment).
Before people fine-tune this balance, they will lose followers until they’ve hit an equilibrium where people are willing to pay attention or ignore the ads for the value of paying attention to the person. I do think that once that balance has been found the number of impressions will go way down (going back to point #3). Still, that is a problem for #magpie and anyone trying to monetize their stream and not for us “followers.”
Once people have found this equilibrium, it should be bearable. If for example the balance turns out to be around 1/20: if you follow 1,500 people that all use it you’ll see 1,500 ads interspersed in 30,000 tweets. That is still 1/20th of the time. Some ads may come right in a row, but for the most part they won’t due to people posting at different paces. During the early stages, they will appear to come around the same time or be the same text, but only because people are experimenting to find this equilibrium and there are a limited number of advertisers. As the number of advertisers grows and as people find this balance, it will even out and become less repetitive. Also, people will always stop following anyone that is abusing it by using a bigger ratio than what becomes socially acceptable. The market will correct itself.
I don’t even follow that many people (I’m @chucksense) and I already see the same things many times in a row. Especially during live events. It makes no difference to me whether they were originally an “honest tweet” or an ad, it’s the nature of the medium. There is so much noise in Twitter, we all need to find ways to be able to make sense of it (signal to noise ratio). I personally would like to see some ability to group, prioritize, and otherwise filter Twitter posts altogether.
5. I personally will not unfollow anyone that chooses to try this out unless their signal to noise ratio becomes unbearably small. I certainly won’t unfollow “out of principle” as this fear-mongering post suggests. If people can find an equilibrium, I’m all for them monetizing the value they are providing me. Just know that I don’t think the business model will work, so take the money you can get while you can get it–and good for you for doing so.
6. Finally, note that I would never use it, so I have no bias towards it. While extra money is always attractive and my “reach” on Twitter is fairly meager and not worth it, the bottom line is that I already have a job. It would be a conflict of interest to have an income source as addicting as Twitter when I want to be successful in my real work (of which paying attention to social media is only a small part).
Wow… end rant.
OK have read all this & Lucretia I saw your TwitPic. I have a few comments:
1) First, I appreciate you disclosed the unfollow but bummed would never have known unless I happened upon your blog post tweet. Of course I never like unfollows, but just me… especially since we had connected personally and I found you someone I would want to know more. It’s also the idea of unfollowing for a principle vs. the person. It is a new thing…
2) On the other hand, the beauty of Twitter or anything else is we do get to choose our view & voicing it is a choice we have.
3) I understand your view you trust me but not them. If I send a link to my free calls or whatever they are from me. One idea would be for Magpie to send the tweets to peeps & let us decide if we want to send them on or not. We could retweet what we like. It’s not so automated but would make it more personal. And, it;s very similar to the idea of peeps who send affiliate links.
4) Having said that, I wll say looking at your picture I don’t see how Magpie could be operating as promised… I see no way that three people could have their 5th (or 20th tweet) at exactly the same time and/or with the same ad. So, for now, I will shut it off. I would like to see some improvements…maybe along the lines of delivering the tweets to people in a DM & letting us choose to send it on.
Warmly,
Pam
@PamRagland
I have unfollowed people due to their use of magpie, and will continue to do so. However, I wonder if any of the Twitter client developers have thought about adding exclusion filters. For example, any mention of the word magpie, and I don’t see the tweet. Such a feature would end this debate promptly.
Great post. I really don’t understand why Twitter has to be monetized? It takes me about ten seconds to blurt out a tweet. It’s not CONTENT, it’s a conversation. Not all words need or deserve to have dollar signs attached to them (and I say that as an unrepetant freelance writer who insists on getting paid for my work). Twitter isn’t exactly “work”, though it does already give tweeters many opportunities for self-promotion.
1) Is anyone actually making any money using this Magpie thing?
2) I wonder what the Magpie people have to say about all this negative press around their app? Would be great to see one of them pop up here and state their side of the story.
3) I’m not a fan.
If you really don’t like seeing the Magpie ads, but you don’t want to unfollow people over it, I’ve got a Magpie Ad Blocker available on my site.
I saw @jowyang tweet about Magpie, and it sums up how I feel about Magpie’s role in conversation.
He said: “Can you imagine Magpie in real life? At coffee with your friends, then all of the sudden they blurt out “BUY PUMPKIN FRAPPAMOCHA NOW!”
Magpie is advertising trying to bolt itself on to a new tool, but doesn’t quite belong. Great post, and even better conversation in the comments.
[...] know you’ve been following this conversation. My friend Lucretia M. Pruitt has started a very healthy debate at her blog and I noticed your comments there. It’s commendable that you’re taking the time to [...]
Ken, exactly! And to me the difference between that and self-promo is that it wouldn’t bother me at all if a friend at a cocktail party mentioned that she’s got a new book coming out or wanted me to come see her in an upcoming play or something. Whereas if she blurted out a random third-party ad…well, I’d walk away.
I contemplated it for a brief moment, just out of curiosity, but then I thought about why I use twitter and the effect that it would have on the people who follow me, and that went right out of the window.
If they paid me to have me view ads in my own stream, then maybe. As it is, no chance.
[...] Tweet like a Nightengale, Not like a Magpie [...]
Hello Jan:
I am really disappointed in your responses. You apparently do not understand the concept of building a brand, or good public relations. Instead of being defensive and making subtle attacks against Lucretia and others who vocally oppose Magpie, you should ask this community “well how can we make Magpie better?” Or go to the Twitter community and request suggestions to improve the service. There are some very influential people on Twitter and who are influential in their own right, who oppose Magpie and pissing them off will only ensure the demise of your service.
I am not opposed to people making money on Twitter. However, there are more subtle ways to accomplish this goal.
@geekmommy : I just recently found you on Twitter this past weekend, and I think we have a lot in common
I agree with you and most of the comments here (especially Cory!). I had a similar experience following 2 people who were using AllTop? The tweets came through — exactly the same, exactly the same time. One of them I really liked her other tweets, so I ignored the AllTop ones. The other I seriously thought about unfollowing because most of her other tweets seemed to be self-promotional. While I was considering this unfollow, she announced she was starting #magpie — and I saw her response to you about unfollowing. That sealed the deal for me. I don’t think she responded to you very nicely at all, and I’m not following her any more.
An interesting point about #magpie is it will someday make ads more contextual to what the person tweets. That may provide variety for some, but honestly, I follow a group of people and we all tweet about the same things — whether it be motherhood, open source, or web design. So if a group of mothers I follow all decide to do #magpie, I can very well see the same ads coming through for each of them and I simply don’t want to see that.
Muting is great for muting one person for a specified time, but I’m wondering if there’s a way to mute on a topic. Like if you got tired of seeing #motrinmoms this weekend, you could just block all the tweets with that hashtag
Just some random thoughts that have come from this discussion. I truly look forward to following you
@Latoicha:
I think your response is out of line. Jan has been a great sport in taking this trashing of her business in stride and trying to rationally address the concerns of the community with their side of the story. Of course not everybody will agree, but she is keeping it positive and hitting the right topics.
Whereas you resort to insults and threats? “You apparently do not understand the concept of building a brand [...] There are some very influential people on Twitter and who are influential in their own right, who oppose Magpie and pissing them off will only ensure the demise of your service.” Way to keep the conversation elevated.
I understand you don’t like their business, but let’s remain reasonable here.
I agree that everyone has a choice in how they handle their own affairs, however, when other’s choices begin to cross my own personal boundaries, then I have to pause and think.
I love to know what others are saying and thinking, but not with a price. If I were to have the pleasure of conversing one-on-one, in person, with anyone that I have followed on-line, I would never expect every 5th sentence to be attached to a pitch or an ad. I would expect this same consideration in cyberland.
Isn’t it (Twitter), in fact, a mere extension of the connections we wouldn’t ordinarily be able to make in our day-to-day lives? A privilige, in my mind. Is their no region in our lives that can remain uncluttered, no resource that can’t be used with it’s original intended purpose? Must we always dig through the ‘garbage’ to get to the good stuff? Just my questions to self.
Just as everyone has a choice or right on how to conduct their own affairs, I also have the right to disagree with what they are doing. The use of Magpie is more like a statement to me, one that says it is time to part ways in this particular venue, one that says, in my opinion, that we’re no longer on the same path of what I thought we had in common.
So go ahead with Magpie, if it is something of which you feel so strongly. I will stay with you at first, but I know myself. I will eventually get sick of seeing the ads and I will have to ‘unfollow’ you when I can’t take it anymore - just like when I turn the channel on TV.
[...] GeekMommy’s Weblife – Tweet Like a Nightingale [...]
I have to agree with Chuck, above. I think this has blown way out of proportion. I already have to wade through many “ad like” posts on Twitter. Some people I follow will send a string of 5 or 6 at one time, all promoting their business.
It takes me all of 5 seconds to get through them. Honestly, it takes about a second to scan a tweet to see if its relevant or not…so if some of those tweets are ads, so be it. No biggie.
I think unfollowing people who use Magpie is silly, but that’s just my opinion. I don’t want to miss out on what they have to say just cause they throw an ad in once in a while.
Out of principle, I’ll be unfollowing anyone who says they’ll be unfollowing people who use Magpie. If anyone is that fickle that they would do so, then I don’t really want to associate with them anyway.
Peace.
@Jenn - you do see the irony in posting:
“Out of principle, I’ll be unfollowing anyone who says they’ll be unfollowing people who use Magpie. If anyone is that fickle that they would do so, then I don’t really want to associate with them anyway.”
Don’t you? I unfollow those people not because I don’t value them, but because I refuse to be a captive audience to magpies ads.
Why is your principle “better” than mine? I don’t unfollow those people because I’m judging them, but because I’m not going to help Magpie succeed by providing an audience for their product.
Either way, it’s not a problem for you, since you don’t have to follow me. That’s the beauty of twitter - we are NOT captive audiences.
@ Jenn. From a blog post of mine (a letter to the Magpie CEO) about how intrusive the ads could be:
“The default setting is that every fifth Tweet will be an advertisement. That’s a lot. Yes, you mention that Magpie users can change the default setting to a less frequent schedule, but then won’t that be less effective for those looking to earn revenue from your service? After all, less adverts=less money, no?
So, let’s say for arguments sake that people leave the default setting of every fifth post. That’s 20% of someone’s Twitter stream taken up with advertisements. Looking at some of the people I follow, that could be anywhere between 60 and 5,000 advertisements. Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive? And that’s just on the default setting - what if people went with the suggestion on your homepage and lowered the settings to every other Tweet so they could earn even more?”
I think there will be a bit more involved than just skipping through ads, if the people you’re following have similar keyword tastes for advertisers to use. I can see a whole stream of identical ads going out at the same time from people I follow - and that’s bound to ruin the Twitter stream.
I can only imagine if everyone I followed used Magpie. I’d see pages of ads. There is no other advertising platform online that would have that frequency and rate of displaying them.
Great post and obviously a hot topic - some amazing comments. Thanks!
What you’re doing is just like not being friends with someone anymore because they choose to work at Google (a huge monetization company) & saying “If any of my friends decide to work at Google, I won’t be their friends anymore because I don’t support Google.”
Magpie does not send out tweets that often (even if you choose a high frequency) so, you’re chances of receiving a full page of Magpie tweets is slim to none. Plus, you chose to follow that many people - no one twisted your arm to do it.
If your Twitter friendship with me is not worth more than 1 Magpie tweet every 7-10 days then I’m glad you unfollowed me. That’s just wrong.
Wow, I’m another one who says BFD. I signed up and I maybe generate one magpie tweet per day, if that. I have over 1700 followers and I’m going up about 50 per day on average. I see the odd magpie tweet in my feed, but I miss most of them. I don’t watch the stream continuously, so there are so many tweets I never see anyway. I don’t see an issue with scanning the stream to read the tweets I’m interested in. I already to that now.
Also- the magpie tweets that have occurred in my feed, as well as the ones that were generated by me, have all been things I was interested in so far (ok, except the ad for the Jimmy Hendrix replica stage outfits) I’ve clicked on them all and found some pretty cool stuff.
It’s just advertising, and they are paying me…cool!
I think people are over-personalizing this.
First of all, some of the people who follow me follow thousands of people. I’m not so delusional as to think that they all really consider me their “friend”. Further, I know there are people who have followed me merely because I followed them and there wasn’t anything objectionable enough about me to keep me OFF their follow list (something I’ve also done, because I’m interested in getting to know new people.) That doesn’t mean they’re hanging breathlessly on my every word. Again, it’s like a cocktail party–just because I’m not blown away by the brilliance of somebody’s conversation, I’m not necessarily going to unfollow them…but if I start feeling annoyed by 1/5 of their tweets, I very well might. It has nothing to do with friendship, and everything to do with trying to keep some semblance of control over what I’m reading during the course of my day.
And if I’m already just another voice in someone’s several-thousand-voice Twitter stream, why would I expect them to put up with ads from me? I mean, I’m a good conversationalist, but not THAT good.
Again, do whatever you want, but there is nothing PERSONAL about it. Maybe I wouldn’t unfollow my best friend over this, but a random person that I followed because they followed me and has never exchanged a personal message with me? Yeah, probably.
Also, several people have said that there’s no difference between third-party ads in a twitterstream and self-promotion. While I disagree with that, I’ll also offer up this observation: from my vantage point, some of the people who were quickest to jump on the Magpie bandwagon are ALSO the most self-promotional. If 2/5 of your tweets are promoting your various businesses or your friends’ businesses, and now you’re going to throw in another 1/5 of your tweets as third-party ads…at some point, this camel’s back will be broken.
[...] no one is saying, “Cool, more ads. I can’t wait.” I’ve read another post about it and people in the comments seem pretty bent on hating it. I personally don’t see what the big [...]
I don’t think it’s a big deal. If you follow over a few hundred people you don’t read all tweets anyways. I mean is #magpie any “worse” then a useless Good night everyone, auto post from a blog that isn’t so hot or a shout out for a friend? (All which occur constantly on twitter).
If I started getting flooded by people then maybe I’d consider doing something but I don’t see that happening.
That being said I”ve never run a magpie tweet but I’m not opposed to it.
[...] have already blogged about their opposing thoughts on it, and some are publicaly open that they are now Magpies. For me, it was just a test that I’ve [...]
As tempting as it does sound, i’m sure that this would end up being a bad thing for everyone concerned. There are times when I don’t twitter very often, but then there are other times when I’m tweeting so much I can’t keep up with my own conversations. Those times is when the ads would get really irritating! I’d rather keep twitter the way it is, and not try to muck it up with ads. We get enough ads everywhere else we go.
Is it me? Or does it seem like those saying “no big deal” didn’t actually bother to read the post? Half the time it seems like they just clicked through a link, scrolled to the comments and started posting why they don’t see a problem with it *right NOW*… and if they’d actually read the post, the point of it was that as it grows (heaven forbid) it won’t be ‘easy to ignore’ or ‘just one tweet every so often’ because there’s no way to limit the number you see in your stream.
More than one commenter has pointed out repeatedly that if up to 5% of you stream (assuming the 1in20 limit) are ads, that’s still a lot of freaking ads.
But hey, why bother to read the post when you can just ignore the facts and come comment on why it’s okay for you to spam the crap out of your followers as long as you’re making money at it.
Why do people keep saying things like “t sounds like it would be effective advertising and a smart way to monetize the site”?
Magpie is NOT a way to monetize Twitter. Magpie is a way to monetize Magpie.
[...] talking about this blog, well, guilty as charged. I’m trying to remedy that. But that last post of mine hit such a nerve that I was a little afraid about what to follow it up with. So [...]
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someone referenced this in a discussion on friendfeed. Good write up - nice articulation of the different considerations with this service. I have a feeling I’ll be referencing it in the future.
@Brad THANK YOU!! (it was driving me nuts actually) That is going to be remedied first thing tomorrow morning!
@fary thank you - was trying to get the points up - did actually miss the part that if you are getting tweets via SMS on your phone, you are actually paying for each text messaged ad that they send you - but I think it’s just icing on the cake at this point.
[...] recently tested the Magpie advertising system on Twitter. Some have already blogged about their opposing thoughts on it, and some are publicly open that they are now [...]
@Brad Hart - thanks for the headsup on the plugin - I have since fixed
Great article, glad to see there are so many people anit-Magpie.
Hoping that twitter close the loophole that allows it soon.
Is nothing safe from paid advertising? One of the beauties of Twitter (for me) has been the ability to share helpful information along with (I admit it) a few of my own brilliant pearls of wisdom. This smacks of the kid in high school who’s paid to ask you to the dance. Something just wrong about that!
I’m annoyed by the idea that people think that friendships and relationships can be monetized. I have a different analogy than yours… I think it’s like me giving my phone number to someone to build a relationship (whether personal or business) and them selling it to a telemarketer. I do not find Magpie tweets interesting. Quite frankly, I get enough “ads” from people I follow giving recommendations and plugs.
I acknowledge a brilliant business idea, but it’s one that personally rubs me the wrong way.
I completely agree that we don’t need magpie, and should just leave it alone. Well said, all voices against this intrusion.
I want to be able to trust any reference and find out for myself, not be “pied” into a trick. My attention is worth more than that, I don’t want to feel betrayed.
I’m against it and I think its odd. I’m all for self promotion in small doses but having someone shove third party ads in my face on twitter is overdoing it and then some. What is cool about twitter is that if people like something they tell others even if there is no financial gain to them personally. Just advertising random crap that you might not even like doesn’t sit well.
[...] which has already been covered by brilliant tweeters including Jeremiah Owyang (who ran a test), Geekmommy, Pistachio and Rick at Read Write [...]
I have only been using Twitter for about a month and recently learned about Magpie. I was lead to your site for more info. I can agree with you that a person following 4000 people would likely end up having to wade through many ads and can appreciate your sentiments.
However, I do want to illustrate two points. #1 Many of people that claim to be against Magpie for ruining the purity of “twitter” are likely many people who use twitter for social marketing and networking purposes. Although most are putting in more of an effort to meet future clients by not using Magpie, the fact remains that they are using it for the same reason, just with a different aim.
#2. My one big argument for allowing people to use Magpie are current economics. I do not know how well Magpie pays and the number you were shown is giant… but how many tweets does it take to get that much money? I digress, but the point is, perhaps we are helping someone afford an electricity bill because of it.
After typing all this, I should admit that my mind is still not made up. I doubt I will ever be a member of Magpie, but since I only follow about 750 people and few use it I will remain following those that do choose to use it. I guess I just wanted to play Devil’s Advocate for a bit.
Great article. =)
Jodie
Darn, I forgot to say that I the message about Mommy Brain. Thank goodness this has been a medically proven condition. It has been my saving grace. lol
Thanks for making this issue so clear…and sorry I am coming to this so late…I am in total agreement with you. Twitter is amazing - I have found so much helpful information and support and I look forward to checking my tweets all day long as I surf the net looking for work…yes I am one of the many who have lost their job in 2008 so Magpie should appeal to my financial desperation…but no way do I want to ruin the twitter experience!
keep the good tweets coming!
Vcitoria