Twitter will be finished before the year is out
I’m still a Twitter newbie. I was sceptical for a long time, calling it a massive waste of time until I was finally persuaded a little while ago to dive in. In all honesty I’m begining to warm to it and can see its potential. However, this is all academic since Twitter will be rendered absolutely useless, perhaps even unusable before the end of the year.
My pessimistic stance on Twitter isn’t a random swipe, it’s a genuine concern. A concern that angers me since Twitter is being destroyed from within, day by day and hour by hour, by the users themselves.
I’ll explain.
When Twitter emerged it did so relatively quietly. Bloggers picked up on it along with a minute crowd of in the know net users
The blogosphere’s unlimited reach powered Twitter’s popularity rocket trip. It could do no wrong.
But then, soon afterwards, the marketing drones moved in. One by one different tools emerged that allowed anyone with a Twitter account to automatically follow people and automatically message people. Every semi-literate marketer developed some sort of hack script that allowed them to create an artificial following for themselves on Twitter.
And now we have the ubiquitous Twitter Getter, the ultimate Twitter pyramid scheme. Now anyone with a Twitter account can ratchet up a large following of like minded idiots by simply entering their account details into a web based form. Hit the button and watch as your begging message flies around Twitter, rolling around like a lizard in a tin.
I’ve had a handful of these begging messages already, even though I’ve only been active on Twitter for a short space of time. Depressing isn’t it? Just as I dive in Twitter starts to turn like day old milk that’s been left out in the sun.
The reason gullible people use pyramid schemes like this is because they have fallen for the oldest line in marketing. The blind assertion that the money is in the list.
Let’s burst that bubble straight away. The money isn’t in the list. The money is in the relationship.
The morons who think that pyramid schemes like Twitter Getter will work are the same morons who still rely on chain letters to build their business. Rather than taking the time to build relationships these marketing drones just care about the numbers. Empty numbers.
The tragedy with respect to Twitter is that its infrastructure makes it impossible for pyramid schemes to be ignored. As they grow, and grow they will, they will randomly approach and attack more and more Twitter users. Given enough time it’s reasonable to assume that they will approach and attack everyone. And then, ultimately, we will reach a point when being approached and attacked by a pyramid scheme on Twitter is no different than receiving a spam email.
In the blogosphere it’s easy to avoid the charlatans. For instance, I think Brian Clark is a man to avoid so I don’t visit his blog. Simple. Job done. But what if Brian Clark decides to start a pyramid scheme on Twitter, if he hasn’t already? It’s likely that some of his marketing stink will waft my way, spoiling my Twitter experience.
That is the root of the problem. When Twitter becomes a pain people will stop using it. And pyramid schemes, automatic following tools and the general increasing presence of the marketing drones is making Twitter into a more painful place, day after day.
The solution is clear. Instantly delete the account of anyone who employs automation.
The million dollar question, has Twitter got the guts to nuke the accounts of the abusers before they ruin yet another party?
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Ashley Morgan is a UK jazz trumpet player and owner of independent record label 447 Records.
Ashley Morgan is the trumpet player with Enormous.
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Ive been a member for 4 months, never had a problem so far.
It’s REALLY easy to not let people like that ruin your twitter experience. Don’t follow them. That’s it. Seriously. You don’t have to follow anyone you don’t want to, even if they follow you.
And besides, if they are collecting “a large following of like minded idiots” then they really aren’t gaining anything.
I am happy to see that you have blogged on this, Ashley. My experience went from one of interest, to obsession, to not-so-much, to bored.
My goal was to seek out people to network and build relationships with. Although that has worked, to an extent, I am turned off by all the “blah, blah, blah”. I do not want to be bothered with spam, or gross personal stuff better left unsaid, etc.
Isn’t the goal for most people to network and get name recognition? My experience is that most people are simply talking and not listening.
You can choose not to follow the MLM’s and all the other obnoxious Twitterers. I choose to follow those who have great content in their 140 characters. I am enjoying viewing the world through so many other eyes. I have learned more in 30 days on Twitter than I ever would have on my own.
I don’t think (I don’t hope it) so although such things do happen! Yahoo closed down Geocities recently!
I am not disturbed by marketing at present. I do my followers list once a day, and block anyone I think is spamming. It’s not more than six or seven a day. If it becomes thirty a day, I might just ignore them instead of blocking them. I don’t auto-followback and I don’t follow anyone whose profile/bio isn’t sympathetic to me. Spam is for the general principles twitterer. I’m on here for a reason, and it isn’t to expand my social networking. :-) it’s to communicate with likeminded people quickly and easily. Maybe that’s why this autospam thingie doesn’t get my goat. I’m low profile.
I’ll note your theory and watch with interest, but I think it’s excessive concern at present.
An elephant has recently walked into the room which could make things a lot worse for everyone. Oprah. The old media dinosaur recently stomped her way onto Twitter, opening the floodgates for billions of day time television watching newbies.
Tweeter Getter will find its nefarious way onto the radar of this new influx of gullible newbies who will probably jump at the chance to follow their divine leader and chase thousands of artificial followers.
And for every gullible newbie that signs up for Tweeter Getter there will be hundreds of new spam messages flying around.
Things are going to get worse in a hurry.
I really don’t get what you mean Ashley. How can you get spam if you don’t follow the spammers? It’s not hard to unfollow someone. They only way I can think of getting unwanted tweets in my twitter stream is RTs from people who are retweeting what other people have said who I do not follow.
I was excited when I heard you were signing up to Twitter but after looking at your twitter stream I’m disappointed. Unfortunately YOU seem to be a Twitter spammer, mostly every tweet in your stream is about new blog posts, that is exactly the kind of people I avoid. I have you in my RSS reader, so why would I follow you on Twitter to get “re-spammed” what is coming through my reader?
You get what you put into Twitter. I’ve made some great contacts and online friends through the service, as well as leads for illustration commissions. I’ve never had a problem with any nefarious spammers and I really can’t see how you have.
It seems that before you even joined Twitter you were against it, which is fine, it is not to everyone’s taste but before you go bashing Twitter, maybe actually use Twitter as a social media tool, rather than another means to continually bombard followers of blog posts, which they probably already know about anyway.
Mark, my definition of a Twitter spammer must be different to yours. I use a remote system to update Twitter with my blog posts. When I get round to using Twitter for anything else, if I get round to it since I’m starting to move towards the opinion that it’s all one massive waste of time again, then I will may be able to get more out of it, as you say.
The blog post notifications are there so that people can choose to use Twitter in preference to their RSS feed. Not that many do, however. RSS is still king and will be for a long time to come.
Sure, I don’t have to follow those who annoy me. But, unless I’m mistaken, there is nothing I can do about the slew of automated messages from Tweeter Getter that is growing every day.
I’m not bashing Twitter. If you read what I’m saying again you might pick up on the point that I’m angry that Twitter is becoming a play ground for marketing drones and attention hungry spammers, hell bent on using every automated tool under the sun. I’m bashing the people who are ruining the system, not the system itself.
You’re right. Oprah has screwed up Twitter with all of her mindless celebrity junk and inane uneducated psycho babble. Someone should ban her and the other celebretards before the place is completely destroyed.
Over the next month Oprah will bring a new wave of soccer moms and couch potatoes to Twitter and we will all have to put up with their crap.
Twitter is the new Myspace. Kids and losers have taken over the coop.
You shouldn’t mock Oprah. She has opened up a whole new world to people like me. My husband is out all day and I get very bored sitting at home after the chores are done. As far as I’m concerned, when Oprah launches a new product I’m behind it all the way. So when she launched this internet Tweeter thing I signed up straight away and followed Oprah. All of my friends are going to do the same thing as well and nothing you all can say will stop us.
I guess I’m old school, since I prefer to sign up for RSS feeds of people I find interesting and related to my work, which I view through a linked NetNewsWire account. I use one of the Ollicle themes, so I get the full article instead of marketing copy and a shortened URL.
I also don’t see the point of using some 3rd party app in order to make twitter usable. My time is too valuable to sort through the awful signal-to-noise ratio on twitter. Twitter updates my status on my website and facebook.
My RSS feed already includes aggregators that pick up the hot stories from the blogosphere, so I doubt I miss much with retweets. If I have a question, I email people directly or respond in comments where other visitors could benefit from my questions / comments. Why shouldn’t people be able to join your website conversation directly instead of a third party app with loads of downtime?
Twitter followers are akin to facebook friends and digg traffic, and we all know how valuable they are…
Just keep churning out quality content and you’ll be fine…
I see your point now Ashley, I googled that Tweeter Getter to find out more about it and it is indeed just a complete spam-a-thon and waste of time.
After re-reading my comment I feel I stumbled into somewhat of a rant and I apologise for gracing your website with my insanity.
Off topic, I’m liking the new design, the new header is not so much “in your face” now. I presume you are still fiddling with it as the homepage is still the same.
I concur, largely.
Twitter will do well by all friendly users by pinching the conduits of automated access; automated garbage cleanup. Tricky, but worth the time, in my opinion.
See any similarities to myspace in Twitter? Any difference between Twitter, Facebook and Myspace in this regard?
Could it be that increased mention by pop-culture media & pundits + displaced complexity from general users + complex access through an API = Twitter becomes a veritable petri dish for spamkers and list-pimps?
Twitter is a tool and one that puts the power in the hands of the user. Like all tools there will be uses people find for it that are distasteful BUT Twitter gives the user the power of saying NO.
Ignore the autoresponder issue, Twitter are addressing that themselves. Ignore it too because if you don’t use it, because it doesn’t affect you. Ive been on Twitter since 2007 and I have NEVER signed up to a spammer. I take personal responsibility in who I follow. I am picky and choosy. I wish I could say the same for email or browsing (both of which seem to be still going strong after how many years).
Also get some good Twitter clients that will help focus Twitter the way you want it. Tweetdeck and the new Statuzer allow you to create groups, follow searches. Great research tools and noise cutters.
Finally when I first read this my thoughts were “He has missed the point so badly this must be an attempt at link baiting”. With Twitter (like with Captain Planet) the power is YOURS
Thanks for taking a second look Mark.
Danny, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Allison, it’s not link bait, it’s a genuine concern about the destructive capability of spam tools like Twitter Getter.
Twitter can be a very useful tool. I specifically follow people I know so that I don’t have to talk to them all of the time to know what they’re up to but get little snippets from them from time to time.
I also use the twitter search RSS feature for work. I search for what other people are saying about our company and it gives me a chance to jump in and explain or if they are having a problem, help them with the solution.
I had one guy from a non-profit say on twitter that he loved the service but didn’t like the price because they are a non-profit and don’t get a lot. I contacted him and gave him the discount for non-profits that he was not getting at the time. He didn’t feel comfortable contacting us directly but did post it on Twitter. He was very happy that we heard him and helped him out.
I guess that use of Twitter for marketing can be good, but just random spam is bad bad bad.
Frankly I don’t give a damn, Ashley > Or was that Charlotte? Hmmmmm, great blog my friend.
Did yo know that the people behind the people of Twitter are starting another service called Chirp? It will be like 15 characters and the challenge is to be witty in that frame work. That alone will kill Tweet tweet twitty pitty bird
Victor the Synic (sp)