I have been a user of the micro-blogging site Twitter for over 18 months and I love the social networking aspects of it – I have met amazing people and found out about the latest sites and applications through them. Twitter has always been an “ad free” oasis for me…until now.

Get Rich!

A Magpie is a bird that symbolizes Good Luck in some cultures, but in Twitter land it is an insidious ad that is sent out as a “tweet” to your followers into their timeline from you. This is how Magpie works: Magpie is an ad network for Twitter (they are not affiliated with Twitter) . By giving them access to your followers, it sends out tweets that are matched by the topics you tweet about. The more ad tweets the more money. You can set the ad insertion at 1:1 up to 20:1. So you can be really irritating or just an occasional “wtf?”. What Magpie is asking of you is to put a “sandwich board” on you every half hour and then shove you outside on the corner with balloons and a horn. The most distressing Magpie Tweet I’ve seen to date is from someone I follow has this in the ad “you can run your own ads in other people’s timelines, now, that’s a neat idea!”, I already have enough ads bombarding me everyday, now I am going to get them from you?

Since its inception, I have seen about 6 of the people I am following using Magpie, it’s not a tsumani, but my fear is that it will become exponential. At first I was confused because two people had the same tweet. And then the same tweet popped up again in their streams. This is akin to having a conversation with a friend where they stop and pull out a 30 second ad and tell you all the benefits of a High Fiber diet before going back to what you were talking about beforehand.

Trust Me?

Irritating? Yes. Destructive? Even more. Why? I would say about 9/10ths of the people on twitter are there to network and promote their blogs, businesses, something they are personally working on. I like it when they post a new blog link or something they find interesting, but if they populate their tweets with “ads”, I will become immune to what they are promoting, it is like being “Rick Rolled” every 20 tweets. Eventually you will just “unfollow” them (leave their network). Is it worth a few pieces of silver to loose the network you have taken time and care to build? I don’t think so. And it dilutes your brand, if you are shilling ice cream one day and canned organic vegetables the other, then who are you? And why should we trust you?

Counter Point by Jason Keath

Magpie is becoming quite a dirty word within the Twitter community. Pardon me while I play devil’s advocate.

Twitter is media, it is broadcasting. Each Twitter stream is in effect its own media outlet, large or small. Where there is media, advertising will follow and where there is new media, spam will follow. I see services like Magpie as inevitable on Twitter. Users can already use affiliate code links and reap cash rewards of those clicks. It is only a matter of time before this model is effectively organized on Twitter.

In truth, Twitter was not too innocent before Magpie. It was already chocked full of selfish promotion, affiliate advertising, and blatant spamming. These patterns have flooded many successful social networks and they, as will Magpie, reached a natural balance. The social network implements better anti-spamming measures, offensive users are blocked, affiliate marketers are ignored, and people opt out of connections void of value. As with all advertising, if it is offensive, intrusive, or otherwise obstructing the positive aspects of the Twitter community, an equal reaction will follow.

Advertising can be done without going to the extreme of blindly spamming for money. Magpie is a step in that direction. They have already reacted to user response and allowed pre-approval of ads. ['reacted to user response']

The success of any media outlet’s advertising is dependent on whether enough value exists within or beyond the ad. If the value is there, consumers will accept the advertising, or at a minimum tolerate it.

This holds true for Twitter. If you offer all ads with no value, rejection from your followers is certain. Users with the most tweets and the most followers will have the most opportunity with Magpie. They will be able to dilute the effect of any ads, increasing any value/ad ratio.

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