Tweet-vertising

Everyone knows about Twitter and either loves it or hates it. The next-gen communication medium that allows users to send out mass alerts to whomever follows them (with a 140 character limit) has drawn fans from the likes of every background, from pop stars and famous entertainers to news anchors, politicians and university professors. The powerful messaging service has even had some uses outside of pointless ramblings and shameless self-promotion: the obviously-corrupt Iranian presidential elections earlier in the year prompted millions of Twitter users to flood the system with pro-democracy pro-Iran tweets brought pop culture’s eye to the events and purportedly aggravated Iranian officials trying to restrict the outward flow of information Iranian citizens were leaking through Twitter.

An American journalist who was wrongfully abducted last year by Egyptian police for photographing a noisy demonstration was subsequently released after the captive tweeted the single word “ARRESTED,” leading his friends to contact the American Embassy in Egypt who put the heat on Egyptian authorities. Unfortunately for most, however, Twitter’s usefulness (and to be frank, fun-ness) may be headed south as instream advertising platform publisher Ad.ly has begun poaching the followers of willing high-profile Tweeters. How it works is if you have over 1 million followers on Twitter and are interested in making a little cash with your follower list, Ad.ly will compensate you [an unknown sum] in exchange for access to your follower list, which will then be used to send “relevant advertising messages” [spam] through Twitter. I knew it was too good to be true.

Twitter, a free (and addicting) service could never stay “free” for long, it was inevitable that ads would begin popping up on Twitter – but I never would have thought they would be in the form of third party firms, paying high-profile Twits who have no problem exploiting their followers for cash. Among the so-called exploiters are Kim Kardashian, Nicole Richie and Joel McHale. These individuals are paid to send out specific advertising-tinged tweets in an effort to promote a show, product or other monetizable thing. The process is automated, but paid publishers can approve each individual tweet posted through their account.

When questioned about the entire premise behind Ad.ly’s in-stream advertising system, Sean Rad said “We view every Tweet as valuable content. It takes time and thought to produce. Everywhere else, where you generate content you get compensated. Same for a lot of these celebrities on Twitter. Their time is money, yet they’re not getting compensated. We’re answering a demand we saw with all these publishers.”

I personally think Twitter is on a slippery slope allowing this type of advertisement system to exist on its networks – although a user is the owner of his or her account and can use it as he or she pleases, I see this as exploitation. People follow other people on Twitter because they are fans, friends or interested passerbys who want to read tweets, not advertisements.