Magpie, Twittad and the like will be the downfall of twitter. At least, if they are widely adopted.
(No I did not sign up.)
Sure, it looks like you can earn lots of money. But what happens when it catches on because all the Cool Kids are doing it? And believe me, the Cool Kids are the only ones that will be able to command any type of monetary value out of it. Your Twitter stream will suddenly be filled with ads. First it will be ads for related social networking sites, then ads for contest for the latest gaming system or game, then onto weight loss and hookup sites.
Jeramiah Yang (@jowyang) 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!” in a Tweet today. It’s funny…but it has a ring of truth in it, doesn’t it?
Magpie and Twittad want to put words in your mouth. Tweet content for you. Imagine if the majority, or even a large percentage, of the people YOU follow joined their services or others like it.
Boycott Twittad and Magpie. Keep the noise down. #notwitter ads – Please retweet!
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I tried Magpie, and I found it to be a major annoyance, so I totally agree with you there.
But Twitter has replaced blogging, in many ways, so don’t be too quick to throw them under the bus.
Great post, Angela. I think in-tweet ads, should they catch on, might be enough to drive me away from Twitter. It’s one thing to integrate advertising into the UI but to actually make it seem like my tweeple are the ones promoting the products or services? ya, that’s not cool.
Spot on!
The sad part is that it’s the promise of easy money that is luring our twitterpals in these hard economic times to join a service that can only hurt their twitter experience.
I must be following some good Tweeps because I haven’t seen an ad yet!