To Magpie or Not to Magpie, that is the Question.
November 3, 2008 by Colleen Coplick
Filed under Social Media
I had quite the debate on Twitter today about Magpie. There are certainly some strong opinions and several people completely against it.
Magpie is a new service which inserts ads into your twitterstream using the hashtag #magpie. You choose the frequency of the ads, and Magpie (apparently) inserts appropriately keyworded ads. I’ve heard from a few people, both advertisers and publishers, that the keyword insertion isn’t working very well right now. (image source: Magpie)
When I asked my twitter stream what they thought, I got quite the conversation going. A few people were pro-Magpie for sure, but the majority of my people were pretty adamantly against the idea and the service.
Lucretia Pruitt (aka Geekmommy) explained it this way:
@ColleenCoplick – because your blog is your space, my twitterstream is mine. I choose not to have ads in it, ergo, I’ll unfollow.
I totally understand that point of view, but I’m not sure how using magpie ads differ from using Twitterfeed to push my blog posts out to my followers. Why is that not considered spam but the magpie is? And would it be any different if Twitter themselves inserted ads into that same twitter stream?
So, what are your thoughts? Are you for or against advertising in your twitter stream?
From my experience as an advertiser with Magpie, and seeing the first wave of ads being placed without my URL included (and no response to feedback and request for reimbursement), I would not recommend being an early adopter of this venture. The responses I’ve heard vary from the apathetic to the vehemently annoyed.
The difference is that when I subscribe to people, part of the reason I do so is that I want to be exposed to their content. Their blog posts, their thoughts, their submissions to social media sites, etc. That’s why I am subscribed to you and saw your tweet on this post.
When you put ads in the stream, they are no longer your content, they are whoever is being plugged at the time. Don’t get me wrong…I am a SMM myself, in addition to other things, and I know some of us are on the job when we are on Twitter, but that is not the same thing as ongoing ads of just…whoever…in the stream.
The fact is that this is a bad SMM campaign, simply because the value of the affiliates as influencers decreases as the ads run. I looked at Magpie and was told I could make over 5k euros a month…but I say after that first month my value as an influencer would be gone. S short burst of revenue followed by the complete loss of status in social media…it’s a bad model.
Just my $.02.
Hi Colleen,
Just wanted to say that I’ve started reading your blog. I’m wondering if you have heard about the book, “What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business”. I heard the guy (Chris Flett) on the Today Show and thought you probably have already heard of him. I’m wondering what your thoughts were. He seems to be really taking on the ‘Old Boys Club”. I just emailed him, but haven’t heard back.
Anyway, keep up the great writing.
Best,
Bihter.
I may also treat Twitterfeed as spam, if that is all the person is doing, or if it’s a majority of their tweets. If I want to see their blog posts, i’ll subscribe to the blog.
One major difference, if you’re using Twitterfeed you are still, in the end, controlling what goes onto the feed as you write the posts. Magpie gives you far less control
Totally agree with thePuck! Twitter is about subscribing to a person’s content, be it thoughts, blog posts, music they’re listening to, movies they’re watching, etc., so the occasional blog post is just part of that mix. Some people also use Twitter like an RSS reader, so accounts that are just repostings of blogs are fine by me as well since they make no attempt to fool the follower. They are obviously RSS feeds from the start, and followers know what they’re getting themselves into when they choose to subscribe.
With Magpie, it’s different. Magpie interrupts the flow of a person’s content to add in content from an outside source, and it does so automatically and autonomously, so the user doesn’t even have a chance to filter what ads are shown. Magpie is trying to make the ads seem like a recommendation, but with no opportunity to filter beforehand, what comes out is just mindless shilling for a few extra bucks a month, and definitely not the revenue model that Twitter should be forced to deal with.
I’ve got more, but it’s probably more than this comment box can handle! ;) – http://thefutureofads.com/2008/11/03/magpie-tries-to-make-twitter-an-ad-network-fails/
Hi Colleen,
I’ve been doing some additional research on the author, Chris Flett, that I talked about on my last comment. His company is “GhostCEO” (www.GhostCEO.com) and his book is a bestseller. I found it on Amazon here. Anyway, he was in the NY Times last Sunday under the “Career Couch” and he makes reference to women’s blogs like yours so I thought you might like to connect. I’d like to see you interview him and see what he’s all about. I saw on another blog he was a guest blogger. His email is: chris@ghostceo.com
Best wishes,
Bihter.
You should try zenect instead at http://www.zenect.com. this has all the benefits without the downsides of pissing off your twitter followers.
I was just about to sound off in agreement with Cory and Neil, when I realized I’m kinda/sorta doing the same thing already, myself – I have a feed that inserts tweets recommending social change initiatives, with links to the org. I do this because it’s congruent with my politics and philosophy of money – and also, I do not get any kind of revenue. But still, it is interjecting others’ tweets with my own. All of which is to say I’m totally against Magpie and a bit of a hypocrite.
@nancy
I don’t really think that is the same. There are a couple of charity/human rights type things I tweet on regularly and support. The goal is that me tweeting will help support a cause I support, thus I still consider it my choice of content.
Magpie is not like that; you are not choosing who you are plugging.