Gabriel Weinberg's Blog - Latest Comments in Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

dan — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:29:52 -0000

Remember when the "you got mail" sound was an invitation to discovery... to see what was in your in box? But now days, email is a chore because we have wade through scores of junk mail to find nugget of information or entertainment. Spam is spam and it will devalue any Internet experience.

Instead of trying to rig the system with a loophole, I recommend that you do real, innovative, and meaningful marketing.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

name — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:50:05 -0000

Actually I'm glad that they're being "hard" on possible spammers. Even with the option of having to pay for "spammy-type" tweets...I would rather just not have to deal with that at all. I hate spam and don't like unwarranted "sales".

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:25:18 -0000

Not yet :(. And thanks!

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Irma Camp — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:25:42 -0000

So did they reinstate you account. Congratulations on your new baby!!!!
Please let me know???>?

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:22:40 -0000

If it were tied to the click, it could run through a redirect and record the click in the process like bit.ly does. Otherwise, maybe it could count as reading if the API requested the tweet, i.e. assumed read. Getting paid tweets would presumably be turned off by default, so if it was requested I think it would be fine to assume it was read.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

remiejames — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:19:58 -0000

Interesting but when Twitter set up this system they should have realized people do repeat and I'm not talking about deja vu or the wizarding world. Simply that most people do the same thing even on a different day or when on a particular subject they can also repeat themselves. There's also people sometimes don't have an extensive vocabulary, are limited for time or space and want to get a point across Then there's also if you look at what Twitter offers ~ it has a retweet function so actually you in a sense is simply copying the same tweet which makes it a duplicate which actually breaks their own rule. <3 Remie James

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Steve Rumsby — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:27:30 -0000

How would that work when you read the tweets via a third-party client (e.g. TweetDeck)?

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

MacSmiley — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:52:52 -0000

Twitter TOS states:

"8. You must not create or submit unwanted email to any Twitter members ('Spam')."

It's a simple statement in typical Twitter fashion, but what constitutes "unwanted" is not exactly spelled out.

There's a particular subject about which I am passionate, namely, Apple's cancellation of its iCards service. When I see in Twitter's search that someone "misses Apple iCards", is it wrong for me send this reply?

"@User Check out my review of Steve Dekorte's PostCard, other apps + Popcard 4 creating emailable icards: http://tinyurl.com/6p6a8w "

Am I to suppose my message is unwanted because that user doesn't know me before now? Or because 140 characters leave me no room to say I have NO vested financial interest in the information I'm disseminating?

Again, since 140 characters leaves little room for creative writing, and because it makes no sense to reinvent the wheel, is Twitter going to suspend my account because I send duplicate messages to different twitterers?

I'm sure "search engine" is a more common phrase than "iCards" is, but it's a little unnerving to think my Twitter account could possibly be terminated because I ventured to outreach to multiple users with the same tweet.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:41:04 -0000

Thanks. I was doing exactly what you suggest before this happened. But the problem is that the tweet they did that was related may have been many days or weeks back by the time they follow you, if they ever follow you. So you lose both context and absolute #s. But I hear you, I'll go back to doing this if I ever get the account back :)

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Jon Aston — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:35:09 -0000

You could follow people, give them a chance to follow you back, then tweet about DDG.Just takes a little more patience. Good luck with your business, and with getting your twitter account back. :)

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:14:11 -0000

I tried DM, but it didn't work since they aren't following me. And if you don't have the @username at the beginning, they will never see it, hence the different messages.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Tina Clarke — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:13:53 -0000

I do this with a link to free ebook (no ads) and a link to videos on the subject matter (not mine) and all free to help people with a particular subject... its what I do ( I am a ms mvp) we help people for free... I will change the way i say it and the links each time. Mine is slighly different to yours in that I'm not advertising a service of mine.. but still if the question has been asked I don't see the harm in replying.

What IS annoying is when people post the SAME links to the same pages (even if free to view) repeatedly.. and this to everyone not to any question asked.. I also do this but I do it on another id ... and i post third party links on the same subject but I post EVERYONE'S tutorials not just my own and I number them none are repeated!!!! It is fresh content each time.

You should not have been suspended in my book.

hope your back on soon.

Tina

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

zenoizen — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:05:55 -0000

The way twitter is designed, you should have sent those all as DMs or as a single public tweet. Resending each as an @reply still goes out publicly, which ends up spamming your followers.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:51:17 -0000

Not even on the twitter page itself--in it's own stream, like how direct messages work. You wouldn't get emails about them (if you didn't want to, presumably the default), and you don't even have to ever look at them. But you could.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:49:43 -0000

Yes, and that is exactly why it should be separated out, as I suggested. So the payroll service gets to send you a message, which you don't have to look at. But if you want to, you can, and then ask around (or look up reviews about them or whatever).

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

bfinch — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:41:48 -0000

The problem with the payroll service example is that as a consumer, I can't trust payroll service A to objectively rate their own services. Their recommendation is of a lot less value to me than a third party recommendation.

Commercial messages wind up being highly valuable for the sender (given the low cost of sending them), and almost worthless for the recipient. This is fine in an ad, where the cost of viewing the message is also very low. When you mix the message with actual content (email, tweets) the cost for the recipient shoots up dramatically. The message becomes spam.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

bfinch — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:27:11 -0000

So ads on the twitter page but not in the comment stream? Sure, no problem. But that's fundamentally different than sending commercial messages over the service itself. As soon as the ads show up in my email (or in the tweets for twitter) they're spam. They diminish the value of the content stream they're polluting.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:41:03 -0000

It wouldn't be the first time I'm "WAY outside the mainstream" (and probably won't be the last). I'm still not convinced, however, there is no place for unsolicited commercial messages. If they are separated and so you only go to them having the expectation you will be seeing such messages AND they are targeted (that is related to particular tweets you sent), I could really see value here.

I think max's example is a good one. Suppose you ask twitter what is a good payroll service for x, and a good payroll service for x responds in this box. I think that is clearly a win-win, no?

Also, you bring up another interesting point. What does it mean to be commercial? My site is free, for instance, and currently doesn't even have any advertising. Is it still commercial? What if I follow someone and they ask a question and I answer with an unsolicited commercial link BUT I am not associated with that link at all--still commercial?

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

maxniederhofer — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:40:23 -0000

It's not spam if it shows up in a different section and is clearly labeled as paid.

Think ads on Gmail. What ads on Gmail? Exactly.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:35:22 -0000

That's really interesting. Here's a further spin. Charge $x to the send but only give the $x/y to the recipient if they read the message/click on the link. That is, wrap some kind of cost-per-click/action into it.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Gabriel Weinberg — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:29:35 -0000

What I am suggesting is actually the opposite of in your face. Put it in its own box where you don't have to look at it ever if you don't want to. That is, it isn't in the main interface at all.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

andrewbadera — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:21:06 -0000

Fail. We, the "average" user, don't want your bullcrap in our faces. That's the whole ethos of twitter. Look at the backlash to the use of magpie.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

bfinch — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:12:50 -0000

Gabriel did lay out his point very clearly. I'm guessing it's not the presentation that amy is objecting to, but the premise itself. You and Gabriel seem to believe that twitter should allow spam on their network as long as the spammers pay for it, and that unsolicited commercial messages have some sort of value and aren't really spam if there's evidence the recipient is interested in whatever you're selling.

You're both WAY outside the mainstream here. Gabriel's account was probably suspended because the people he spammed reported him. I think that's a good indicator of how much "value" most people get out of these sort of messages, and more importantly for a business...how the recipient will perceive the source of those messages.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

Mouse — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:00:33 -0000

I would only support Twitter allowing people to pay to spam if they also added a feature which allows me to automatically block anyone who is paying to send me tweets and that those people who are paying to spam me cannot know that I am not receiving their spam and thus they are wasting money without any real chance of recouping it.

Only then would I support a pay-to-spam feature. If people want to waste their money spamming the brick anti-ad wall that I turn on at Twitter, then they can do so at their leisure.

Re: Twitter: Please Charge me for Biz Tweets instead of Suspending my Account!

maxniederhofer — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:40:21 -0000

amy, I think he laid his point out pretty clearly. There is value in e.g. a commercial reply to a set of problems or a question I tweeted. If it doesn't clutter up the interface by e.g. being in a separate area, like on Google, I feel that could be potentially be pretty powerful. It's not spam because spam is both unsolicited and (mostly) untargeted. In this case, while I don't solicit the commercial tweet, I am clearly interested enough in a subject to be talking about it. If it doesn't hamper my user experience, I wouldn't mind Twitter implementing what Gabriel suggests.