As someone who believes that Twitter has a legitimate use in society, I like to keep up on Twitter. Lately, there’s lots of talk lately about the microblogging empire Twitter and the rise of spam inside of it. Furthermore, rumor had it that Twitter was testing advertisements in its streams. This was later proven to be false by Last Podcast, who emailed Biz Stone, head of Twitter, for an answer.
Still, this brings up some interesting questions. Twitter certainly has grown from being a little niche for the in the know crowd. Naturally, once something gets popularity, in comes the Twitter spam. I think DigiDave said it correctly in a post against Social Media Consultants:
The person following me is also following 8,624 billion other people. They are being followed by around 200-300 back. In fact, these Twitter accounts are nothing more than an attempt to spam an RSS feed or get social capital behind some lame social media consultant.
Just recently, one of the individuals who added me to their following list basically had nothing but extremely generic self-help advice on his Tweets. Come on, that’s just stupid. Who’s going to listen? The only way a person can see you tweet is if they follow you, which if you’re a spammer, you’re not going to get. You’re actually doing bloggers a favor by following them with spam accounts, because they look bigger.
UPDATE: Apparently, there’s a whole movement rising up dedicated to stopping Twitter spam. Check out Stop Twitter Spam for more info.
As a random thought, apparently, One can make good money selling a Twitter account online. Suppose Andrew Baron’s Twitter Account will make him a nice profit? Who knows.
Twitter is a great toy, and it can be so much more. But like any cool thing, it can be abused by unethical people such as spammers. Twitter already has several defences built inherently against spammers, but the fact that spam is present on it suggests that Twitter may become a new social force over the next year or two, possibly rivaling Myspace or Facebook.
If you like my stylings and writings, maybe buying me some creative juices will make better stylings and writings! (Suggested Donation: $4)
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
