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Followr, Twitter Bots, and Ethical Considerations

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Re: Followr, Twitter Bots, and Ethical Considerations

#3

Post by instakill »

How does this work? I've installed it and configured it but it doesn't require me to oauth the extension on Twitter.

Some notes for consideration:

- Adding customization for number of favorites per hour (i.e. maybe someone wants 2 per hour max).

- Not favoriting someone if you already follow them.

Re: Followr, Twitter Bots, and Ethical Considerations

#4

Post by ztratar »

instakill wrote: post #3

How does this work? I've installed it and configured it but it doesn't require me to oauth the extension on Twitter. Some notes for consideration: - Adding customization for number of favorites per hour (i.e. maybe someone wants 2 per hour max). - Not favoriting someone if you already follow them.

Exactly. It runs through your native logged in Twitter webpage.

Agree on the customization. I will glady allow a throttle on tweets, but don't want people to set to 200 tweets every hour for obvious reasons.

I mention intelligent tweet selection at the end of the blog post. I could use some help here! ;]

Re: Followr, Twitter Bots, and Ethical Considerations

#6

Post by ztratar »

mvc wrote: post #5

I challenge the assertion that you must you have followers for twitter to be useful? I get plenty of utility from following my favorite comedians, notable developers, companies of interest regardless of whether they follow me back or not.

I can see that. What about the assertion that you're not getting as much utility out of Twitter as you could be? For me, Twitter's true power doesn't lie in purely consumption -- it lies in decentralized idenitity + boundless conversation.

Re: Followr, Twitter Bots, and Ethical Considerations

#7

Post by canterburry »

eh...installed it, tried it and uninstalled in within 60 seconds..

1. Some automagical signin process happens so fast I don't even know what happened or which twitter account I even got signed into 2. I press the run button and... nothing. What the hell did I just do to my account? what is being Favorited? Sorry, I simply don't trust your algorithm out of the box and right off the bat to just blindly let you favorite things without me seeing it...not in the beginning! If I am trying something for the first time, I need to know exactly what's going on. 3. How do I stop this thing once it's running?! No clue...uninstall.

On a more positive note, I just recently started thinking about my own twitter automation and think there is great value here. I love the idea and I'd love to see how you solve it. My most important criteria is to build a relevant and targeted following, who are relevant to me and to whom I am relevant. That is how I believe I can best promote my business.

Re: Followr, Twitter Bots, and Ethical Considerations

#8

Post by ztratar »

canterburry wrote: post #7

eh...installed it, tried it and uninstalled in within 60 seconds.. 1. Some automagical signin process happens so fast I don't even know what happened or which twitter account I even got signed into 2. I press the run button and... nothing. What the hell did I just do to my account? what is being Favorited? Sorry, I simply don't trust your algorithm out of the box and right off the bat to just blindly let you favorite…

Awesome feedback -- this is definitely the current problem with the v1. It needs to be more transparent about exactly what it's doing.

I'll be making these changes within the next day or two. Thanks again.

Re: Followr, Twitter Bots, and Ethical Considerations

#10

Post by ericmsimons »

I've been thinking about building a twitter bot for many of the reasons outlined in this post. I worry about the detrimental effect that this could have on the twitter ecosystem though; it will be difficult for twitter to block chrome extensions. There is obviously a lot of potential if done correctly, and it seems that followr is moving in a non-malicious direction.
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