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As Twitter continues to expand and be adopted by the masses, it seems that a lot of people are continuing to use its power for the wrong reasons. At it’s core, Twitter is an amazing platform that not only helps people connect and network with like-minded people online, but its ability in helping users keep track of current trends, industry specific conversations, and the power of its search tool is by far the best in the game.
As I’m sure you already know, the issue of Twitter Spam isn’t something new (it’s been a growing problem for quite some time), but lately it seems as if its been getting worse and worse. Even with the “Block” and “Report Spam” options, new spammers continue to sprout up every day and reap havoc.
Though I haven’t had a huge issue of Spammers following me since I first joined the community, yesterday seemed like every Spammer and their mother decided it was time to rain on my parade.
Apparently, yesterday’s hot item was a FREE Macbook Pro. From the moment I woke up (around 8am) to the time I got home (around 7pm) I was followed by 11 people that had the exact same tweet on their profile. Can you guess what it was?
And apparently I wasn’t alone…
I know that Twitter has been working on the problem (You can read Twitter’s post on SPAM here.) and is still trying to find a viable solution. After yesterday, I really hope they figure out something soon. Many of their users (who are bloggers) have and continue to voice their opinions on what they think should be done. A few of the proposed solutions include requiring a Captcha on Follow, banning URL’s from repeat Spam offenders, and a feature that analyzes new followers.
These all sound like reasonable solutions. What do you think needs to be done?
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Hello, can you please post some more information on this topic? I would like to read more.
You’re all missing the point of Twitter. “Spam” is meaningless in twitter, because *you* follow the people *you* are interested in, and you’re not following random people, are you (if you are, then you really don’t get Twitter)? So the only real way for a spammer to get your attention is to reply-to you in some way, which generally isn’t being done. Who cares if you’re being *followed* by spammers? If that bothers you, you’re missing the dynamic of how twitter works, the fact that relationships in Twitter are asynchronous and it shouldn’t matter how many millions of spammers decide to follow you if you don’t follow them.
Facebook’s changes won’t gain much ground. They’ll need to slowly convert their community over to see the light of microblogging, which is unlikely to happen. Twitter was built with a clear-cut intention– people who use it know why they signed up. Facebook users, on the other hand, have not been expected to “microblog” and so that interaction will probably seem foreign to them for quite a while. The people it will seem natural to are the ones who are using Twitter anyway. I actually get complaints from people who are sick of seeing my Twitter posts which are connected to my Facebook profile and have plenty of friends who get the same reaction. To go anywhere, Facebook would need to reshape the community, which is way harder than starting fresh.
@Mark – Just checked out Adocu. Interesting idea, but I’m not sure if I see the value there.
Why would someone contribute a one word thought or link on Adocu, when they could just put it on Twitter, Facebook, etc and at least briefly talk about what the link is?
Seems like it would be just another place someone would have to go to, which would be fine if it offered something unique to the user. But maybe I’m wrong. What value do you see in it that I might be missing?
Hi Eric,
First, glad to see ClickBooth fully embracing Social Media. Welcome aboard!
Second: I think microblog spam will probably be handled ala a WordPress-type plugin at the platform level (eg. Akismet for WP). Until these platforms provides a plugin architecture, spam needs to be controlled en-masse.
re: Facebook – I use Twitter for lightning-fast, short messages between associates, employees and partners. It allows me to be succinct and include links and references. No digging to find what’s important this moment.
Facebook rocks, but it’s noisy. Its function is much broader than Twitter. I think the two hold different positions on the social dialog map.
BTW: if you want to see the ultimate in short message services, check out http://www.adocu.com/MarkAlanEffinger this nano-blog service is good for one word, link or run-on sentence. Very intriguing.
Thanks for keeping the dialog lively.
What is this ‘Twitter’ you speak of?
@Charlie I think Facebook’s move towards becoming more Twitter-like is not only smart but necessary. They understand how Twitter is succeeding on bringing people together in a whole new way.
Now, Do I think Twitter’s popularity will diminish once these new FB features roll-out? Well, it depends. It’s all about listening to your community and adapting. If they can continue to do that, I don’t see people giving up on Twitter anytime soon. Plus, their SMS feature continues to grow in popularity each day, and from what I’ve read I don’t think Facebook is integrating that anytime soon.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you plan on leaving Twitter once these new features are added?
Greg, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think that so many of these spammers think that the more followers they attain the bigger reach they will have. While this may be true in some sense, they will soon find out that their messages aren’t hitting home with anyone, because they haven’t connected with their followers, nor have they provided them with any real value.
Not only that, Tweeple are extremely smart and aren’t falling for these Spammy Tweets, they are just reporting them and hitting the block button. I find it hard to believe they are having any success with their SPAM accounts.
1) What are your thoughts about the upcoming changes that will be made to Facebook to make it more “twitter”-like??
2) Will this eliminate the popularity of twitter since facebook will virtually be an all in one website? Thoughts?
Just this week I have been flooded with new followers, many of whom are life coaches and network marketers. The problem is that I have no connection with them and many have 30,000+ followers, so there is no opportunity to get to know them on a personal level.
I also do not see the value that they provide to their community. There comes a point when SPAM flows into these regular businesses as well. Smart marketers and companies are finding out that quality trumps quantity almost every time. These SPAM bots that you are talking about are finding that out as well.