So, I was looking through a design gallery when I came across “Magpie” – which claims to be able to make you so much money by overtaking your twitter account at random intervals and posting an advertising tweet.  I signed up, but quickly quit after seeing some of the tweets coming out of it:

1

Hm… three tags right after each other with the same web advertising on it, with seemingly no contextual significance linking the account holders.  Is that a fluke?

2

Hm again – two magpie sites in the same order one right after another.  This is seeming less and less contextual/random and more and more just random tweeting.

3

OK, now that’s just getting annoying and frustrating (especially because those people have the option to post that link manually) – but they also can let Magpie do it for them.  Did they? or did they not? I’m not sure.

4

It’s just so random.  Maybe that’s because there’s only so much contextual advertising they’ve gotten (not sure how new this site is) but until they can better attempt to randomize (or at least fake randomize) their tweets, then I’ve gotta veto it.  And, if anyone starts Magpie tweeting me, I won’t immediately unfollow them – just point them in the right direction.

Your thoughts?

EDIT: GeekMommy is having this same debate as we speak.

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Holy Cow! There are 3 Comments!


  1. by: Cory O'Brien

    I’m not a fan of Magpie for a variety of reasons, but the main one is just that it drastically diminishes the value of Twitter if you have to spend half your time on the service wading through ads.

    I wrote a fuller breakdown of my Magpie thoughts on GeekMommy’s blog, so check out: http://geekmommy.net/2008/11/19/tweet-like-a-nightengale-not-like-a-magpie/#comment-1013 and the original Magpie post that I wrote at: http://thefutureofads.com/2008/11/03/magpie-tries-to-make-twitter-an-ad-network-fails/


  2. by: hubs

    I use a service called Twittad which allows you to monetize your twitter account in a much less obtrusive way. There business model isn’t as sound as Magpies but the service is much more palatable (and probably profitable).


  3. by: studionashvegas

    I don’t know… people are making the argument that a Twitter Monitization service would dilute the true, pure nature of the tweets. I am inclined to agree, but even the advertising i *DO* put onto twitter, I try to give it some sort of benefit to my users (a screencast I did, a blog post on whatever topic, etc).


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