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.
I totally agree. I been seeing magpie in tweets weeks back, then it went away. Looks like it’s back again.
I find it really annoying and very spammy. I am ready to unfollow.
- Cal
A billion tweets and twitter is still waiting to get monetized. if someone should make money out of twitter, it should be twitter and not some third party guys..
sounds horrible.
i ll unfollow anybody who uses this magpie stuff..
teraom´s last blog post..Six Twitter Follow management Tools you need
I’d go even further than you Grant. If someone insists on using Magpie and I don’t like the interference in my Twitter stream I will unfollow them. I’m giving it a wait to see if there really are a lot of ads and how intrusive they are, but I suspect it will be ugly. I think the best way to stop it at that point is a complete unfollow, because Magpie “rewards” them partially based on how many followers they have. If you still follow and block the specific tweets, you will still, in a sense, be helping the Magpie user.
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If the ads are reasonably well-targeted, and not too frequent or repetitive, I don’t see it as being much more objectionable than any other advertising scheme. Big ifs, I know.
The major difference is that by sending an ad as a tweet, the ad is the *only* content, whereas most web ads are *supplemental* to the main content.
#Magpie = Unfollow
Now if Twitter asked permission from me to do this and the income went to Twitter then that’s a different matter!
Styletime´s last blog post..Making Sales with ‘Glen Garry Glen Ross’
@designmeme Created a script to block all #magpie tweets called Scarecrow. It a good option instead of unfollow. Check it out on the following link, http://budurl.com/tbcf.
Scarecrow- the Magpie ad blocker now updated and helping restore peace to the Twitterverse.
I also completely agree. I had already decided to unfollow anyone I saw using Magpie. I want twitter to remain a community and not become overrun with spam.
Angie Bowen´s last blog post..Inspiration in Purple
As of now, not many people that I follow are using #magpie service. The problem will start when too many of them starts using it.
Even if they choose to push 1 ad per 20 tweets(which is the least), it will flood the stream of those who follow a lot of people. Then, the only solution will be to unfollow them.
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I have to say so far I haven’t found Magpie to be as intrusive as the constant follow-up emails I get from folks trying to push sales of their latest e-book, e-zine or similar products down my throat. I even hesitate to sign up for anyones blog these days as it seems to be an open license to fill my mailbox with trashy offers I did not request.
Of course things may change if TWITTER suddenly becomes nothing but ads. But at this point I haven’t seen that.
This was just mentioned via Twitter and so I asked for the definition from Cal at Mayhemstudios who was kind enough to send me a link. By definition this is what I enjoy the most and my primary reason for using this service to become familiar with like minded individuals who have similar interests and talents who share them with others. This isn’t to say that we’ll all agree on everything said on Twitter as the gospel, but I’d personally like to have some say in who says it. If we want ads we know where to find them… Thanks I think I’ll pass on Magpie!