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Twitter Kills “Pay Per Tweet” Companies (The Twitterverse Rejoices)

Twitter Kills “Pay Per Tweet” Companies (The Twitterverse Rejoices)

It looks like Twitter has finally made up its mind regarding third party tweet ad services (like Be-A-Magpie, BeTweeted and the infamous Sponsored Tweets via IZEA) and the verdict is “no ads for you!”

For this reason, aside from Promoted Tweets, we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. We are updating our Terms of Service to articulate clearly what we mean by this statement, and we encourage you to read the updated API Terms of Service to be released shortly. (Official Twitter Blog)

This probably comes as a shock to many “tweet sense” companies, especially Be-A-Magpie which founder Biz Stone “apparently liked” (at least before promoted tweets was rolled out anyways.

While some users are railing against Twitter for cutting off another revenue stream, Twitter’s maneuver should help clean up the tweet stream by eliminating tweet spam in user’s timelines.

See Also
US Copyright Laws on AI

Despite the removal of third party tweet ads, Twitter is allowing companies to place ads next to the timeline, so mobile apps and web hacks should not be affected by the latest Terms of Service (at least for now).

View Comments (5)
  • I like making extra cash just like anyone else, but I have to agree with Twitter on this one. It’s not putting a complete end to all advertising on Twitter. It’s just limiting it in order to protect the user experience. I find spam posts to be very annoying and I have frequently unfollowed people who started out being interesting and quickly disintegrated into nothing but repeated spam posts with a real post thrown in now and then. Multiply that by a dozen or so people doing the same thing and before you know it, you’re having to sort through the spam posts to find the real stuff worth reading.

  • This is mostly a move by Twitter to make using their service more enjoyable for everyone. Nobody wants to sift through spam in their e-mail, much less on their social networks. Magpie had a great idea, and it was all within the ToS, but they had to know it was too good to last very long. When spam enters the playing field, it doesn’t take long for everyone to realize something needs to be changed. The time has come, and Twitter realized that third party ads are going to mostly be used by spammers for their own greed. Advertising should always be minimally invasive or an option for users and viewers.

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