Comments on: Why Twitter Bots Are Effective

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:34:46 +0000

Insanely tempting to click on that link. I’ve resisted… so far.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:12:14 +0000

When have you not known me to engage in my fair share of black-hat and sinister activity?

By: Alexander

Alexander — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:38:08 +0000

“it makes a case to how having thousands of followers can translate into money if I’m sending them to a page with ads on it. ”

Do you realise how sinister that sounds?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:34:29 +0000

I agree that twitter isn’t really a conversation. I think friendfeed is doing a good job of allowing impromptu conversations.

Here’s an update to my link experiment. Out of 163 followers, 79 clicked the link that said “testing to see how many will blindly click this: ”

That’s pretty good – and it makes a case to how having thousands of followers can translate into money if I’m sending them to a page with ads on it.

By: Jason Doucette

Jason Doucette — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:17:10 +0000

Thanks for writing this up Ryan, lots of good points!

The thing about Twitter is that “following” doesn’t necessarily mean “reading what these people say” – there seem to be three types of users, those who post to their followers, those who read what the people they’re following tweet, and then those who engage in two-way discussions. I think they’re room for all of these people, but new users especially need to realize that there are a lot of reasons why someone might choose to follow you, and respond accordingly.