Friday, April 2, 2010

Just like any other, so is twitter

For the most part, they are easy enough to spot and block, but are they really worth the effort?
Here is what I am talking about:
I signed up with twitter for the following, not the tweeting, per se.  I mean, there were a few people that, when I found they were using it, I was like, sure!  This could be cool.  So I joined.  Then, I was like, I can do this too.  Not, that I like, have anything worth tweeting about, but that is kinda it.  Just speaking you mind, and not caring much who hears. Well, I do not exactly speak my mind, but the point is, I do not really care who reads my tweets.  I care more about _what_ I put out there, but mostly, it is just whatever I am listening to, or stuff spat out by /usr/games/fortune
And an occasional 8 ball query result.

So, when I see that someone out there has decided to follow me, I am like, "Really? Why?" and just go on.
But, when they have like, hundreds of followers, following thousands, and ZERO tweets... I look a little closer.  Sure enough, drug and porn adds.  And an occasional financial rip-off.

I mean, really, does anyone out there, look through tweets for "I just found this terrific new opportunity! Check it out! (link)" and follow the link?

Do the people setting up these accounts get paid by the follower? They are just generating hit on and links to their add sites to bloat their counter numbers.

I am not surprised that these twitter ids are out there.
I am not overly perturbed by their presence, or by them "following" me.  I know that I only got hit because one of my tweets happened to go by at the right (or wrong, as it were) time.  They are not actually following me.  They are not even watching what I am tweeting... unless they are programm-atically scanning the content of my tweets so that they can try and provide targeting marketing... but I do not want to think about that.  That is a panic attack in the making.

But I am surprised if twitter really is such a worthwhile avenue for this shady-market malarkey.  The magic 8 ball said it is, so it must be.

And what is the proper spelling of malarkey?

LQ

3 comments:

  1. Malarkey. :p

    And they put such ads everywhere. They even have bots that make fake posts, as you would see sometimes on Fnet. It's really no surprise that you would see something like that on twitter, and surprisingly enough, people do click on those links. Like they say, there's a sucker born every minute. And as Albert Einstein once said, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the former."

    I just hope you're not the kind to tweet about going to the restroom. ;p

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  2. Well, now that you mention it...

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  3. I can't believe it, but just now, I noticed the proper spelling of Malarkey in your "about me" >

    I googled it for nothing. X_X

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