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Twitter Should Shut Me Down

edu.mkrecny.com

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61–70 of 219 posts

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#61

Post by abductee »

abductee wrote: post #52

you don't need more vms to get around their rate limit, you just need to query their api using a clientside language like javascript, that way the ip twitter gets is the ip of the user, not your servers. The company I work at has awesome search, so I have a tool which grabs tweets from individual user's streams (if a customer has an issue with my product and tweets about it I like to search their public twitter strea…

obviously the users would have to be logged in for this to work, which in your case might not be the desired use. Still, this could be an optimization step that could save you some cash down the road.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#62

Post by mhaymo »

AznHisoka wrote: post #23

"My data showed the cost of a real, targeted follower on my platform was about 12 cents, versus $2.50 on Twitter Ads" The cost is lower, but can someone do studies on the lifetime REVENUE of a real, targeted follower? It might all be meaningless if that number is 0.01 cents.

That people are willing to pay $2.50 implies that the value is at least $2.50. Of course it depends on how effective you are at getting value from your followers, so for many, the answer is close to 0 cents.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#63

Post by fudged71 »

vickytnz wrote: post #32
joyeuse6701 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it's a social hack of sorts that he's using for advertisement, which is cool, but abuse of it would render favorites meaningless and it would become spam. However, I could see how if @pepsi wanted to favorite a tweet by @averagejoe because it said 'this new pepsi can is awesome!' it would seem legitimate enough and not spammy.

Yeah, savvy companies are getting away from the annoying "RT every nice thing people say about my company" with 'fave it and then point the faves at people if they want testimonials". Hostgator does this well: http://twitter.com/hostgator/favorites

I don't understand what you mean by "point the faves at people if they want testimonials". Looks to me like they're just favoriting positive feedback that is sent to them

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#64

Post by mootothemax »

Finster wrote: post #55
macspoofing wrote: post #16

It's amazing how much devs want to build on top of Twitter. There's got to be an opportunity for Twitter to monetize that instead of fighting it and pissing everyone off. Why can't they just have some reasonable fees for API access?

If they put a paywall on their IP, then they'd be bound to have a reasonable support structure in place. No one in their right mind would want to support the Twitter or Facebook API's...

No one in their right mind would want to support the Twitter or Facebook API's...

This could be done sensibly though: limit the number of emails per month; or only include support in higher-priced plans.

eBay's API can be pretty tricky at times, and if you want any help that doesn't involve using their forums, it costs $75/hour:

http://developer.ebay.com/join/pricing/

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#65

Post by fudged71 »

AznHisoka wrote: post #19

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this service automates the process of favoriting someone's tweet? What was the conversion rate in terms of someone following you back if you favorited their tweet?

Yes, that's what the service does. He claims that it worked really well and people were willing to pay $50/month for it, so there must have been a decent conversion.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#66

Post by adventured »

jonknee wrote: post #50
niggler wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they acquire him when they could shut him down and replicate the service? It's not like they have much of a reputation to maintain. He doesn't have extremely significant traction (otherwise they would have done something by now) and AFAICT he doesn't hold any patents. To clarify: I don't mean to disparage him, but acquisitions have to bring some sort of value to the acquirer.

He is monetizing Twitter in a way that advertisers like better than what Twitter's own advertising department came up with. That has to be worth something to a company desperate for revenue.

Given the small scale of the data points in question, there's no way to make the claim that advertisers in general like his product more than Twitter's. Even if I find that entirely plausible, I have to disagree with making such a dramatic statement without much larger scale testing.

Even in the case of this all being true, the real problem is the ability of in-house people to ignore reality and refuse to favor a not-made-here product. Always difficult to tell which way the wind will blow on that. Companies make really stupid decisions all the time.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#67

Post by unreal37 »

This business model isn't analogous to "promoted tweets" or "Twitter ads". It's analogous to "email spam".

You're a spammer essentially. Using an automated bot to fake a human interaction (favorite) in order to get my attention and get me to follow you. It doesn't matter that it's more effective than "Twitter Ads". Twitter Ads are marked as Ads, your favorites are not. I really do hope Twitter shuts you down, as well as those follow bots that follow me 10 times a day and unfollow me the next day.

Sadly, Twitter doesn't do much to combat spam so they likely will not. But don't fool yourself into thinking you are going to partner or be acquired by Twitter.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#68

Post by evan_ »

stefan_kendall wrote: post #26

This is an incredible idea, and it looks like you executed your design well, and even had the gusto to put school aside to go 100%. If anyone deserves to succeed, it's you man. I hope twitter comes around for you.

Really? He just came up with a different way to spam people and you're wishing him well? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#69

Post by TylerE »

mootothemax wrote: post #43
macspoofing wrote: post #16

It's amazing how much devs want to build on top of Twitter. There's got to be an opportunity for Twitter to monetize that instead of fighting it and pissing everyone off. Why can't they just have some reasonable fees for API access?

There's got to be an opportunity for Twitter to monetize that instead of fighting it and pissing everyone off. Agreed, and speaking personally, I would love to pay Twitter $XXX/month, especially if it included some form of "we'll reply to X emails within an hour" support. The fact that they're not even charging $20/month for minimal API access is baffling to me. I'd expect it'd only help reduce spam as well!

For $20/month they'd probably spend more on the accounting infrastructure and payment gateway than they'd generate.

It's like (snail) mailing someone a bill for $0.25.

Re: Twitter Should Shut Me Down

#70

Post by biznickman »

I'm confused. Why would someone who's running a profitable business, that works, expose their techniques at the risk of killing the business? You know it may be shut down at some point, so print cash until that point arrives. Not sure why someone would sabotage their own business this way. Is the appeal of recognition that significant?
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