There has been some discussion the last couple of days on twitter about a new service called be-a-magpie. My first reaction was, what ever. Then the more I heard and the more I looked into it, the more I became concerned.
“Magpie is an ad network for twitter.” Their words not mine. Here is how it works:
- advertisers create campaigns providing a message and some keywords.
- matching twitters are selected, costs are calculated based on # of followers and hotness of topic
- ads will be blended into the message stream: 5 tweets, one ad, 5 tweets, one ad…
It appears to me from my research, they pick the ads, they decide which ones to push to your tweet stream and they push them out every 5 tweets or so. They say you can adjust the number of tweets between a Magpie ad push.
Cheryl Smith over at her great blog, CultureSmith Consulting says it best in her blog post “Do you want fries with that?”
Don’t you hate it when you go to a burger joint, place your order and maybe even say, “that’s all,” only to be met with the infamous question: Do you want fries with that?
My concern is the same as Cheryl’s, I don’t want those fries jammed down my throat. So, don’t be jamming Magpie ads down my tweet stream either.
Services like Magpie defeat the purpose of twitter and its purpose is not to jam unwanted ads down someone’s throat like those unwanted fries. Twitter is about interacting and learning from those you follow and who follow you. Twitter is about the conversation and relationships you build there. And yes, you do build relationships on twitter. I have and I know others have too. I do not see how Magpie fits into the purpose of twitter. Where does pushing ads in your twitter stream benefit the conversation? Where does pushing ads in your twitter stream fit in building relationships? And, where does pushing ads in your twitter stream come into play in interacting and learning from those you follow and who follow you? It doesn’t.
Based on some of the comments I have read and the tweets I received from those who responded to my question on twitter about this, I don’t see this being too popular with too many people. I would imagine when these Magpiers start to push their fries down our throats, they will see their twitter followers decrease as we go on a no fat diet. I also plan to set up filters in my twitter app of choice, TweetDeck so it filters out any tweet coming in with the #magpie hashtag.
