Friday

Social Network

How to Sell Your Soul on Twitter and Who’s Buying

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What are you doing? No what are you doing Apple, Skype, Flip, StubHub and Box.net?? These standard companies just couldn’t resist paying off Twitter users to place advertisements into their Twitter streams using the new pay-per-tweet benefit Magpie. It’s enough to make you question the right motives of any outspoken fan and the end result is pretty laughable when you take “a bird’s eye view.”

We were disappointed when a browser script showed us a Magpie redirect behind a shortened link in a Skype testimonial today. Then we used a search on the benefit BackTweets to find out who else is buying fake Tweets on the benefit. It’s so revolting and pitiful that it’s kind of sad.

Sponsor

Each of these companies have more than one campaign running and these are all just from the last 6 hours! Magpie is spewing Tweets through peoples’ financial statement all day long. All of the links are obscured by URL shortening benefit is.gd (hope they are getting a cut!) and the clicker ends up on the advertiser site. Clearly disclosure isn’t mandatory; but even if it was this is just creepy, is it not?

Apple

We thought Apple was able to secure enough mind control with its design competency that it didn’t have to pay for it! We suppose that when most of these people say they bought one of these devices recently, they are flatly lying. Apple is paying them to lie like a robot to their friends on Twitter. Nice.

Skype

We especially like that one of the users here is named “High and patrician.” Uh, yeah.

Cisco’s Flip

The company that makes those Flip cameras just got bought by Cisco for nearly $600 million dollars – because everyone likes the Flip.

Box.net

We know and like the people at online storage company Box.net. Their CEO didn’t answer to our inquiry about the use of Magpie, but to a fantastic degree give him a hard time about it next time we see him. The last user in this picture is an account that just aggregates other peoples’ Tweets about farting – and then throws in Magpie ads. Classy all around!

StubHub

Ok, so StubHub might not be the kind of company you’d be shocked to find out participates in this kind of thing, but the informal language and appeals to family in this one struck us.

FatCow

Ok, we don’t know FatCow Web Hosting from a hole in the wall but the language here again is really remarkable. Dear FatCow “fans”: you are allowing yourself to be turned into a lying robot zombie for a few dollars a month! Have you no shame?

So here’s the Twitter-sphere for you! Bring on “real time search,” bring on a globally collectively community, bring on vapid, vile, obtuse shilling. It all seems pretty sad to me. And to the advertisers out here – is this cynical machinate the best you can do to engage with all the new ways people are communicating online? That’s pretty terrible.

Discuss