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The idea of twitter.com/beamagpie is completely spam-annoying.
http://twitter.com/beamagpie and http://be-a-magpie.com/
The idea that I might receive paid advertising tweets from someone I follow and not be told that their opinions have been paid for is disturbing to me. I do choose the people I follow carefully, and I find it unlikely that anyone I know will use this - but still, I want to know when someone is paid for recommending something, and when they are just talking about it because they like it. Further, I would appreciate it if there were some aspects of the twitter world that remain ad-free, and that would be the tweets themselves.
I do realize that twitter is not affiliated with "beamagpie" - and that this "campaign" may not even violate the twitter TOS - but I still think there's room for conversation about this. I couldn't see that this topic had yet been posted, but I know I'm not the only one that finds this kind of advertising proliferation deceptive, kinda obscene, and certainly tedious, and doesn't wish it to infect twitter - a place we'd like to stay.
The idea that I might receive paid advertising tweets from someone I follow and not be told that their opinions have been paid for is disturbing to me. I do choose the people I follow carefully, and I find it unlikely that anyone I know will use this - but still, I want to know when someone is paid for recommending something, and when they are just talking about it because they like it. Further, I would appreciate it if there were some aspects of the twitter world that remain ad-free, and that would be the tweets themselves.
I do realize that twitter is not affiliated with "beamagpie" - and that this "campaign" may not even violate the twitter TOS - but I still think there's room for conversation about this. I couldn't see that this topic had yet been posted, but I know I'm not the only one that finds this kind of advertising proliferation deceptive, kinda obscene, and certainly tedious, and doesn't wish it to infect twitter - a place we'd like to stay.
I’m disgusted
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Inappropriate?Public twitters are indexed by Google, so I guess that's why companies are willing to pay for positive twitters. It's called Social Media Marketing, but there's also a catchword for it I can't think of right now. Anyways... thanks for posting, it's good to be aware of these things.
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Inappropriate?re: "I want to know when someone is paid for recommending something, and when they are just talking about it because they like it."
I too am not a fan of putting ads in tweets. To be fair, though, Magpie in particular says they will always prefix any tweet they send with "#magpie" -- so there is disclosure to all followers that it's a Magpie ad.2 Comments
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This answers the question
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I'd love to be fair - I'd also like to know where you're getting that info about the hashmark prefix. I've been all over their site and I don't see it - although googling it returns a German site mentioning it, as well. Do you have a helpful link to that in beamagpie's online materials? -
You know what? You're right! I can't find it on their site either.
But I did read it somewhere so I looked through my web history, and found the Mashable blogpost that talks about it: link here.
The relevant excerpt is:Additionally, all tweets that originate from Magpie are prefaced with the hashtag #magpie, so that there’s clear disclosure within the system that this is a sponsored tweet.
And a Twitter Search seems to confirm this info: #magpie search -
Inappropriate?I cannot see why this does not fall under SPAM.... There is a massive discussion going on about spam on twitter (in get satisfaction) and it would appear that most people that take part in this discussion is not satisfied with the way that spam is being dealt with. Now the fact that we are not going to know whether we are being advertised to or someone is really recommending something is all a bit annoying.
I would like to know what twitters thoughts are on this development.
I’m disgusted
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Inappropriate?mdy and QuoterGal:
FWIW, here's how to find the originalall tweets that originate from Magpie are prefaced with the hashtag #magpie
reference:
1. Go to http://be-a-magpie.com/start
2. Enter any (non-protected) Username in the for twitterers box.
2. Press the Bling-Bling! button and wait...
3. The right-hand side of the page changes to:
Here's how it works
1.You define a tweet frequency at which you will accept magpie-tweets for your Twitter account. Given your current tweet rate does permit it, our service will try to find a matching magpie-tweet and twitter it.
2. Magpie-tweets will contain the hashtag (what?) "#magpie" and thus be readily identifiable from your other tweets.
3. For each sucessfully delivered magpie-tweet you will be rewarded in cash. Remuneration depends on the number of your followers and the popularity of the magpie-tweet's topic.
[...]
Oh - and the left-hand side of the page shows how much Username would earn if every 2nd. tweet were a #magpie advertising tweet.
(Thus the user twitter could "collect up to € 647.08 € / month" ;-)
@Eridanus Remember to add 1 pinch NaCl to any tweet from any user timeline which contains regular #magpie hashtags.
I’m resisting the temptation to "collect up to € 11.31 € / month"
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this answers the question
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This answers the question
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Ah! Thanks for that, Eridanus! I was wondering where I'd seen it on the site. It must have been when I was checking how much money @barackobama could make. LOL!
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Inappropriate?If you really want to the ads in action, just do a #magpie search. Of course, it seems like there are more people talking about it than actually advertising so far, so you may have to scroll a bit to see a real ad. :)
I have been using the search to pre-emptively block people. ;) I am so done with spam.
I’m resisting the temptation to "collect up to 81.89 €/month!"
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Inappropriate?Thanks, Eridanus and mdy, for info. How, um, opaque of them - this info should not be so difficult to locate & almost byzantine in placement. However, it all appears a little less insidious, now. That's about all it changes for me, and it remains tedious and spam-like in nature.
However, I am thrilled by the fact that it will be entirely easy to know who to un-follow now.
I’m more informed but still disgusted
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Inappropriate?FYI - there are already a couple of tools available for blocking Magpie ads:
1) Scarecrow GreaseMonkey script: http://www.designmeme.com/scarecrow
2) Last Tweets application will let you know which of your followers are using Magpie. http://lastweet.appspot.com
Note: Right now it only checks your first 100 friends. -
Inappropriate?"I couldn't see that this topic had yet been posted, but I know I'm not the only one that finds this kind of advertising proliferation deceptive, kinda obscene, and certainly tedious, and doesn't wish it to infect twitter - a place we'd like to stay." - QuoterGal
I couldn't say it any better than that.
I’m not at all happy.
