Comments on: Twitter Spam: Myth Or Reality?

By: Calvin Jones

Calvin Jones — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:20:15 +0000

Danny,
Great post — but think the @reply thing works differently — see my blog post here for more: http://snurl.com/27urd
Cheers,
Calvin!

By: Scabr

Scabr — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:38:50 +0000

Great post.There’s a slim border between
spam and marketing.

By: Kimber Cook

Kimber Cook — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:35:42 +0000

Funny. I just clicked through to follow Barack and within 10 second got an email that he’s now following me. I haven’t been on Twitter long (still trying to grasp what the hype is all about) but have had no problems with spam…yet.

By: Brian Carter

Brian Carter — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:35:14 +0000

Completely agree, Danny.
If you get spammed, you can unfollow…
What’s the big deal?
Personally, I listen for @replies from people I’m not subscribed to, because to me Twitter is about openness.
If I get spammed, though, I’ll switch that off.

By: AlexDeGruven

AlexDeGruven — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:35:06 +0000

The spammers are not there to get you to listen to their tweets. The few people they get to follow them back are simply a bonus audience.
The goal of the twitter spammer is to show up in Google search results. By following a lot of people, they get exposure. Each person they follow gets indexed, along with their list of followers, and eventually, the spammer’s tweets.
The more people a spammer follows, the more likely their 50 spam links are going to get indexed. When they all point to the same thing, their ranking goes up. Even with Google’s controls in place, it’s an easy way to work your way up the search results.

By: Footinmouthdisease

Footinmouthdisease — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:29:49 +0000

I agree that the permission based nature of twitter make it so that there realy is no-unsolicited” aspect. You have to allow them to send you tweets….