6 ms·

"How I'm spamming Twitter to acquire 100 uniques in a day"

by mikkom 12y ago

shawabawa3 12y ago
To be fair, if you post a question on twitter you can hardly call it spam if someone answers it, even if it's with their own product
- trevorstarick 12y ago
  A question of ethics. I could have written it to be as flexible with its replies as possible but I didn't want it to look like spam. Even now the odd tweet gets passed but it occasionally makes for a laugh as the replies I'm giving make no sense based on the question.
  - pidg 12y ago
    If this is the tweet you blanked out in the article: https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464740467213496320 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464740467213496320 I'm interested in how that works. Is it a realistic-looking spam account you can hire? (Not judging - genuinely interested.)
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - trevorstarick 12y ago
      We have a few realistic accounts which we maintain. During office hours we manually reply to the tweets but we can't, unfortunately, be up 24/7.
      - dirktheman 12y ago
        To me, this is a big no-no. If you're answering someone who posted a question and it's clear that you're the business behind the product/answer that's okay with me. But if you're using a personal profile (real? fake?) to push traffic to your website, you're actively misleading people.
    - floody-berry 12y ago
      Whatever it is, it's replying to tweets that have nothing to do with their spammy service: https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464387770178215936 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464387770178215936 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464082317913243648 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464082317913243648 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/463863787963949056 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/463863787963949056 She or he is supposedly in the UK and they "know a few places in Monroe"? Some of their "tweets": "About ready to knock doc the fuck out if if he keeps fuckin with these grades"" "Boost Male fertility http://bit.ly/aA4gur" http://bit.ly/aA4gur" "I can never use anyone either I got it or ima wait on it frfr and that's that I really don't need nobody for shit" "Miley Cyrus USED to be fucking stunning" "Them was some good ass fights people who was there got the best view we just tried to include the outsiders and yall being ungrateful he'll" Congrats on being a worthless spammer.
- mikkom 12y ago
  I think the question is, how spammy would you think if 1000 other people would do the same? How relevant would the answers be if every answer would have 100s of answers from bots that are advertising their service?
  - wpietri 12y ago
    Not sure why you're getting downvoted. "What if everybody did that?" is a great framework for considering the effects of novel behaviors.
    - knewter 12y ago
      literally is just Kantian ethics
  - Nogwater 12y ago
    I agree with the sentiment that this is borderline unethical, but I think that it's probably okay as long as there's a human in the loop presumably spending as much time/effort verifying the usefulness of the tweet before sending it as it costs the end user to read the tweet and decide if it's worthwhile.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- wpietri 12y ago
  That's ridiculous. People often write about making web stuff here. And their email addresses are often easy to find. Does that mean that we're all asking for outsourcing firms to send us "manual, personal" form emails via a 99.8% automated process, even if a marketroid blesses each one? Of course not. That's spam. Similarly, if I post a question on Twitter, I'm asking my followers. If some random jackass butts in because it's profitable for them, that's spam too.
  - bengali3 12y ago
    There's a difference between holding up a 1x1 foot sign at a gathering of friends and planting a 1x1 foot sign on your lawn. Are you expecting your tweets to be private or public? If you publicly announce a problem, (and asking for public comments back.. ) then it is not spam if you get a relevant and appropriate message sent to you. Scaping usernames here however is not comparable to the blog post's example edit: misrepresentation as 'just another follower' is what i am against here.
    - wpietri 12y ago
      My tweets are public. As are my posts here. From both, I am easily contactable. But if you are doing it in bulk to push your product, it is spam.
  - cinitriqs 12y ago
    we're on a free internet (sort of)... for the good AND the bad ;)
joshdance 12y ago
How is answering a question asking in a public forum spam?

"How I'm spamming Twitter to acquire 100 uniques in a day"

by mikkom 12y ago

"How I'm spamming Twitter to acquire 100 uniques in a day"

To be fair, if you post a question on twitter you can hardly call it spam if someone answers it, even if it's with their own product

trevorstarick 12y ago
A question of ethics. I could have written it to be as flexible with its replies as possible but I didn't want it to look like spam. Even now the odd tweet gets passed but it occasionally makes for a laugh as the replies I'm giving make no sense based on the question.
- pidg 12y ago
  If this is the tweet you blanked out in the article: https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464740467213496320 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464740467213496320 I'm interested in how that works. Is it a realistic-looking spam account you can hire? (Not judging - genuinely interested.)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - trevorstarick 12y ago
    We have a few realistic accounts which we maintain. During office hours we manually reply to the tweets but we can't, unfortunately, be up 24/7.
    - dirktheman 12y ago
      To me, this is a big no-no. If you're answering someone who posted a question and it's clear that you're the business behind the product/answer that's okay with me. But if you're using a personal profile (real? fake?) to push traffic to your website, you're actively misleading people.
  - floody-berry 12y ago
    Whatever it is, it's replying to tweets that have nothing to do with their spammy service: https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464387770178215936 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464387770178215936 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464082317913243648 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/464082317913243648 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/463863787963949056 https://twitter.com/DeasesRuthann/status/463863787963949056 She or he is supposedly in the UK and they "know a few places in Monroe"? Some of their "tweets": "About ready to knock doc the fuck out if if he keeps fuckin with these grades"" "Boost Male fertility http://bit.ly/aA4gur" http://bit.ly/aA4gur" "I can never use anyone either I got it or ima wait on it frfr and that's that I really don't need nobody for shit" "Miley Cyrus USED to be fucking stunning" "Them was some good ass fights people who was there got the best view we just tried to include the outsiders and yall being ungrateful he'll" Congrats on being a worthless spammer.
mikkom 12y ago
I think the question is, how spammy would you think if 1000 other people would do the same? How relevant would the answers be if every answer would have 100s of answers from bots that are advertising their service?
- wpietri 12y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted. "What if everybody did that?" is a great framework for considering the effects of novel behaviors.
  - knewter 12y ago
    literally is just Kantian ethics
- Nogwater 12y ago
  I agree with the sentiment that this is borderline unethical, but I think that it's probably okay as long as there's a human in the loop presumably spending as much time/effort verifying the usefulness of the tweet before sending it as it costs the end user to read the tweet and decide if it's worthwhile.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wpietri 12y ago
That's ridiculous. People often write about making web stuff here. And their email addresses are often easy to find. Does that mean that we're all asking for outsourcing firms to send us "manual, personal" form emails via a 99.8% automated process, even if a marketroid blesses each one? Of course not. That's spam. Similarly, if I post a question on Twitter, I'm asking my followers. If some random jackass butts in because it's profitable for them, that's spam too.
- bengali3 12y ago
  There's a difference between holding up a 1x1 foot sign at a gathering of friends and planting a 1x1 foot sign on your lawn. Are you expecting your tweets to be private or public? If you publicly announce a problem, (and asking for public comments back.. ) then it is not spam if you get a relevant and appropriate message sent to you. Scaping usernames here however is not comparable to the blog post's example edit: misrepresentation as 'just another follower' is what i am against here.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    My tweets are public. As are my posts here. From both, I am easily contactable. But if you are doing it in bulk to push your product, it is spam.
- cinitriqs 12y ago
  we're on a free internet (sort of)... for the good AND the bad ;)

joshdance 12y ago

How is answering a question asking in a public forum spam?