Tweets for Rent

What if a friend on twitter (some you know well either in real life, or just online) told you where to get personalized m&ms and included a link? Would you click it? Do you ever click a shortened link, not knowing where it will end up?

According to an article from the New York Times Tweets are the next billboards for rent. There are several start ups that are looking for Tweeters to hand over their feed for a quick ad. They’re hoping to use celebrities with thousands of followers, but also regular tweeters too. These tweeters get paid, but the start-ups take a cut. Some companies differentiate between celebrities and Joe schmoes, while others just take a 30% cut across the board.  A sample tweet would be marked as sponsored, which would let followers know its was an ad. The article mentions that three years ago, a similar trend started with blogs, but the posts were not clearly marked as ads so a lot of people were against the idea.

Even though the tweets are clearly marked as adds, some people are against the idea, because the ads would spoil the “authentic dialogue” on Twitter.  But I think sometimes the only difference between an ad and a hearty recommendation is the label. We all tweet recommendations  – I usually tweet about the podcasts I listen to. While I’m not against the idea of tweeting ads (and even would consider looking into signing up if I needed the money) I know I would not purposely click on a link from someone I know if I knew it was an ad beforehand.

What do you think?

 

How we should use Twitter

Straight from the CEO:

My theory is it’s more or less a good thing for us. If I had to choose, I would rather have adults on the service than teenagers. The reason kind of makes sense if you think about what you care about. Twitter is not a social network. The emphasis is on information and finding out what’s happening among things you care about — work, industry, company, news. And it’s well known that teenagers are not really consumers of news.

you’ll find the transcript/interview here

I know he’s the CEO but there are teenagers who read the news! I was one of them. I still constantly check the boston.com website for local news. I follow a couple boston sports writers on twitter. I guess I’m just an exception to the rule and that’s why I use twitter.

But then how do you explain this site? (It’s a complete tech blog run by teenage boys, who all use twitter. I was amazed at how well put together this site is.) The blog article hit on the Twitter/Facebook debate. Most young people will say facebook is fun (because of the apps) whereas they might not have heard of Twitter, or think it’s boring. That’s too bad because I find Twitter really useful to stay on top of things. And while I don’t think everything I tweet is really that important, I like the idea of sharing some of my thoughts to potentially the whole world. Kind of like this blog, but a lot quicker. (Which is where Twitter gets its micro blogging tag despite the CEO)

No, Mr. CEO, I think I will stick with Twitter thankyouverymuch. I think the key to using twitter is balance. It is what you make of it. I follow friends, I follow news for Star Trek, I follow writers. I have people following me who are into writing, who I know and who I don’t know.

It’s definitely better than facebook. 😉

Twitter’s Religious Diversity

I remember there was this poll on twitter, created by Pigeon Poll, that asked about religious diversity. I voted Catholic but was surprised about the number of atheists and agnostics who were on Twitter. (the poll wasn’t that great of a poll as it was user created but it was still interesting.)

Now, there’s a trending topic on twitter that is No God… it all stemmed from somebody tweeting the saying “Know God Know Peace… No God No Peace!”
I was surprised to see it in the trending topics so I clicked on it. A lot of the tweets are atheists/agnostic but there are some faithful who are responding to. I actually did as well: ‘I do not believe there is No God. I was raised to believe in God and I will keep on believing’

I think that phrase could easily be revised to Know a god, know peace. No gods, (then usually not as much) peace. (It’s so hard to make it PC.) And to know a god doesn’t necessarily mean to follow a religion (blindly or not). Lots of people susbcribe to no religion but still consider themselves spiritual.

But I do think my belief in God makes ,my life fuller. From my personal experience, I have called on my faith in hard times and have been rewarded: I know my strong connection to my church in Charlestown did help me get through my Major Depressive flare three and a half years ago. Before I got sick, I was contemplating leaving my Church and going to my mom’s Episcopalian church but then O got really sick and took comfort in the community at my church. So when all the dust cleared I realized that I had such a strong connection to the church that I wouldn’t be able to leave it, not until I move away after school.

I realize I have pretty strong faith for a 20 year old going away to college. If I didn’t get sick in high school, would I have fallen out? Yeah probably. I would have been like most college kids who were raised in a faith but don’t practice once they’re on their own. But I’m not.