#tweepme = scam
EDIT(03/17/09): Tweepme changed its policy and is now free for the first 5000 subscribers. Tweepme will (in the future) implement filtering, as suggested in the comments below. Also they have fixed the issue of there not being an unsubscribe function for free members, and they have created an opt-out of the auto-tweet at sign-up
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It seemed like such a good idea, and I am gullible so I fell for it hard! Always looking to expose my blog and podcast to a wider audience, the idea of a couple of thousand extra followers on Twitter was plenty enticing. So much so that I mindlessly signed up for a service called Tweepme
On the surface, Tweepme sounds like good fun. Whenever you subscribe to Tweepme, you instantly gain the “follower-ship” of all other Tweepme subscribers. So it’s a quick way to pad you Twitter followers by a few thousand. If your in it for the exposure, cool deal… right?
First of all you are now also automagically following ALL the other Tweepme subscribers. If you thought managing the information stream that comes from following say, 80 people is a day-job, try doing it with several thousand followers. Yes I know there are A-listers out there that follow 10K people, but do you seriously think they read what you tweet? I can barely keep track of my 150 (or so) followers. I use Tweetdeck and have created 3 groups. My local connections, my interesting people group and…. everyone else. And I can still spend hours reading all my Tweeple’s drivel.
Second, every service that somehow interacts with Twitter needs my user name and password. Call me paranoid, but that always freaks me out! Where are they storing that information?? And what will they use it for later?? When I am not looking!! Twitter is great because of all the extra services that other software developers provide that hook into it, but it really needs a better way of authentication!
Third, why is this a pay-for service? 8.95 a month?? Sure the first 1000 early adopters (read: gullible dumb asses like yours truly) get it for free, but how did Tweepme assess the value of their service? Or as someone else (via Twitterfall) put it: You buy followers?
Fourth (yes the list goes on endlessly), spammers don’t even have to do the leg-work anymore. They just sign up and get a fresh list to spam their stupid “get a free iPhone” scams that require you to sign up to NetFlix, apply for a credit card and stand on one leg with a finger up your butt!
Do I really want this? Do you really want this? The answer is no! Twitter works because the people in your network are relevant to you. They maybe your friends, your fans, your co-workers, but you share a common interest. Blindly following 1000’s of people is not gonna get you much (if any) value. It’s only going to make managing your Twitter experience harder. After all what do you care what “soccer-mom in Idaho” is watching on her Tivo right now. Unfortunately, and I am no exception, people’s vanity will make Tweepme somewhat of a success. At least until we find out that receiving 10,000 tweets a day is not what we signed up for.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it @wefollow #NOT #Tweepme #fordamnsure!
PS: If you are one of the “lucky few” with a free subscription to Tweepme, try unsubscribing… IMPOSSIBLE!! Spammer Assholes!
March 16th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
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March 16th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
TweepMe has sparked a conversation today. What is the proper way to use Twitter? What is the future of Twitter? And, will anyone monetize Twitter? There’s been equal people on both sides of this debate. For every person that says FAIL there’s one that says WOOT! In fact, more people have left feedback that they think it’s a cool idea, than have the opposite. BUT one things for sure, debate is a good thing.
We haven’t even thrown the switch yet on the app, just signups so far and to have such a converation spark around the site is awesome. We are not out to devalue Twitter whatsoever, and in fact, the opposite is true. We are currently building a robust platform that will launch later this year.
There was an unsubscribe bug earlier, but Members CAN unsubscribe. We’ve even refunded all paid subscriptions until we reach 5,000 members.
Anywho, thanks for picking this up. Love the blog!
Bob Ullery @bobbr
-TweepMe-
March 16th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Thanks for visiting the site Bob. Good to see that the “company” building Tweepme is getting involved in the debate. That sparks hope for the future! I know you are probably not in the business of giving spammers a platform, and that is good. However, unintentionally I think you are! How do you propose to have your service filtered against spammers? You simply can’t! However cool Tweepme seems as a concept, the truth is, spammers will latch on and you are creating a beast that can’t be controlled. Social media is all about the community policing itself. However, we police our own community because we care about it. The fire-hose tactics of a tool like Tweepme, reduces that care about the community. Making it all about numbers, is a bad idea all around.
I furthermore do not agree with your assessment that for every “FAIL” there is a “WOOT”. One only has to go to www.twitterfall and filter on “tweepme” to see that if the tweet is not an auto-generated re-tweet, 80 percent or more is a negative statement about Tweepme.
I understand that you are not in the business of running a scam, I believe that every human being is in essence good until proven otherwise. I also believe that some actions by good human beings (including my own) are not very well thought out. It appears to me that you (or rather Tweepme as a whole) had a great idea and acted on it without realizing the ramifications of their brilliant brain-fart.
Now if you can show me tool that exposes me to the same number of people, but instead gives me the option to “re-follow” only those that I can filter on certain criteria, you are, as they say, DA MAN!
March 16th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
It reminds me of nothing more than Frienditto, the archiving tool for LiveJournal that, like TweepMe, required your username and password to do its job. It also has (among other things) some of the same downfalls as Frienditto — you’ve surrendered control of your account to an unknown third party (you changed your password, right?), you’ve opened up any private feeds you follow, and if I follow you or you follow me, you’ve gotten your ass blocked until you change your password and contact me by non-Twitter means to say so.
So, Bob, points for finding a way to turn known, previously-legitimate accounts into spambots. Shame it won’t last.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Hey Mr. Ullery,
If the “switch” isn’t even thrown yet, what is with all thos spammy tweets?
It’s all fake, because if you sign up for a tweepme account, those people aren’t really following because they are fans. It’s ludicrously obvious fakery.
Follower whoring is definitely a fail, not a woot.
Maybe this is why I feel so dirty when SEO comes up…
March 16th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I like that idea. It’s come up a lot tonight and we are considering how to approach it.
Again, we totally agree that this is NOT what Twitter is about. It’s mearly a service to get people who want followers some followers. Also realize this is the very first release and we plan many improvements on the system, including the one you just mentioned.
We all need to start somewhere I guess. I recommend that people who care about who they follow, remove those TweepMe people who do not meet your standards. We don’t promise they’ll be your followers forever, it’s your job to keep them (if that’s you goal).
Anyways, I think that this whole debate tonight is tremendous reinforcement of how valuable Twitter is. Instant feedback, whistleblowing, wooting, failing, and of course progress.
Thanks again for picking us up!
March 16th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Bob, how do you suggest I follow/un-follow the thousands of user you fire hose my way? That’s gonna take days!! Honestly I don’t think you can implement this service without a good filtering mechanism. PERIOD!!
March 16th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
We only add a few every hour… probably less than you personally get organically.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
If you only add a few every hour, then what exactly is the point of a service like Tweepme?? Just saying…
March 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
It’s totally not what Twitter is about, but you’re going to make money on it anyway because it’s in demand? We have a word for this: hypocrisy. I also think it’s going to be a very short honeymoon: you’ve already created a spam problem that the admins have surely noticed, your feed’s been suspended, and you’ll likely see the banhammer shortly.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Ooh, I missed the big one: if your service ever works as advertised (which I doubt it will), you’ve opened the floodgates for spammers. Nine bucks, one tweet, straight to the home page. Few things are so ripe for abuse.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
So what is the solution??
March 16th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Start by blocking tweets from any account that’s posted a TweepMe advert or posted from a known TweepMe IP until they change their password. Unless there’s a botnet involved, but I doubt that for something with a website.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Joel, I like the idea of a service like Tweepme, just not it’s current implementation. Why would I block tweeple just because they have come from Tweepme?
I am willing to believe that Bob (and Tweepme) had a great idea, penalizing its users is no way to make friends either… Just give me a filter, so that content posted by Tweepme folks is relevant to me. I dont care about your runny egg yokes, but if you own Fender bass guitar, I probably want to talk to you!
Can you do that Tweepme??
March 16th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Yes, filters are on the way! I love the idea!
Thanks for mediating SWB.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I am glad I could help!!!
March 17th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
There’s nothing in your post to justify calling this a scam.
Does the service do what it promises? Then it’s not a scam.
The followers you get may not add much value, but that doesn’t make it a scam, unless they promise otherwise. All I see is a promise that you will get followers.
Please tell us why you call it a scam.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Chris, that is semantics, isn’t it? While I am sure @bobbr is well-intentioned and I am really glad he took my suggestion of filtering tweeps, there are still several things that bother me about the service that is Tweepme. Nowhere on the site (www.tweepme.com) is there any evidence of an acceptable use policy. A simple TOS (Terms Of Service) is entirely lacking. So if I find my Twitter user name and password being used in ways that I had not anticipated, I have no recourse. I will state again that I think @bobbr did a great job of reaching out to the community and was eager to face tough lines of questioning about his service, but we still do not see eye to eye (and this is nothing personal) about some of the aspects of technology he built.
Without a clearly stated TOS, Tweepme is entirely free to sell my information to whoever wants to own it. so yeah… Scam!
March 17th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Re: >> It seemed like such a good idea
March 17th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
pjebsen: Selectively quoting me isn’t very helpful. Especially since most readers of this blog will not follow the accompanying discussion going on on Twitter right now. Yes I am critical of Tweepme! I am also open to discussion and @bobbr has shown that he is capable of such discussion, even implementing ideas that came from conversation based on this very blog post. I even updated the original posting with some of the ideas that flowed from the discussion several of us had last night, right here, on my blog.
You on the other hand are not giving any constructive criticism, you are being negative for the sake of being negative. You don’t bring any new point to the table. While I am still not sure about the service, I recognize that its developer is listening to the community he is trying to serve. Your point seems to be only to shoot at whatever moves.
March 18th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
As fas as my supposed negativity is concerned, I didn’t call anybody “spammer assholes”. (Do you consider that term constructive criticism?
)
Anyway, I fully agree with your blog post. No need to argue about anything.
March 18th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Ah, so using the words #twitterfordummies, #suckers, #scammer, #spammer is somehow more constructive? The big difference is the open discussion that followed. Judging from your web site, you don’t engage in any of that, you just keep repeating the same tired statements. Which is fine if they are your true believes, but you don’t seem to be listening to anyone. Funny, at 40-some years old you remind me of myself when I was 18.
Of course, the web site editor for a B-Rated daytime soap has to know everything about social media? right?
March 20th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
The #Twitter #Scam: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About #TweepMe … But Were Afraid to Ask…
I usually post my blog in my native language (German). But, since writing my initial post on TweepMe (“There’s a sucker born every minute”), I’ve been pretty active in the English-language Twitter debates. And I’ve saved quite a few b…
March 20th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
@Skinny White Boy: I have discussed TweepMe on my website (in German) and via Twitter (in German and English). If you don’t read German or if the points I raised in English don’t make sense to you, I’m sorry.
Again: I agree with your analysis of TweepMe. And I have no idea why you are trying to create an argument here.
If you want to know whose comments re: TweepMe I listen to, check out my latest blog entry:
http://sozialgeschnatter.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/the-twitter-scam-everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-tweepme-but-were-afraid-to-ask/
You are listed among the people I listen to and agree with.
So, what’s the problem?
In case you’re interested: The soap whose community-oriented website I used to develop and run was the top-rated prime-time daily drama (and the website was one of the forerunners WRT social media over here), but you’re excused if you don’t happen to know all the details.
(And, BTW, even at 18 I knew how to spell the word “beliefs” correctly, even in English.
)
March 21st, 2009 at 1:20 am
Peter (pjebsen):
My apologies for not correctly spelling the word “beliefs” A) I am not a journalist and, B) English is not my native language. (although I have lived state side for more than 10 years, I grew up in Holland)
My beef with your style of reporting on #tweepme, is not the points you make, as they are largely the same as my original post, it’s your pedantic style of sticking to them, even after the developers of the tool have listened to their community. @Bobbr has reached out to the community, and tried to change some of the most criticized features of his tool. Something you have ignored. You seem to be “out to get him” and keep posting the same arguments even after the original complaint is no longer valid because the tool has changed making most of what you spout about it a completely moot point.
I think I am not trying to create an argument, you are! You are the one treating everyone that is positive about #tweepme like your own personal enemy. Instead of recognizing that a software developer who initially made some mistakes, is really trying to serve a community and is really trying, you keep pointing out the same mistakes, even after they have been taken care of and your point is no longer valid.
My knowledge of German is limited, but I can read it well enough to get the gist of most of your sentiments and while initially we may have been on the same page, I simply no longer agree, and that is my prerogative. Change of opinion happens all the time and you seem the one not capable of dealing with it.
On a personal note, I don’t care how well the web site for GZSZ (or in Dutch: GTST) was received, it’s still the dumbest TV show in recent history only trumped by “Big Brother” which was unfortunately another Dutch invention. Having been born in Holland I can tell you, was not our nation’s proudest moment. At least not in my book.
In the end, what gets to me most is your “know it all” attitude. It doesn’t serve you very well!
Sad, if you were more open minded, we could have gotten along…
March 21st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
@Skinny White Boy: I appreciate the fact that @bobbr stopped spamming, and that he answers users’ question at GetSatisfaction.com and in several blogs. However, I don’t like the fact that he deletes messages critical of TweepMe at GetSatisfaction.com.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
While I’d LOVE to have thousands of followers, I’d prefer to come by it organically. Even if TweepMe were 100% non-monetized, there would still be a cost attached–that of having to pay attention to the thousands of folks you agree to auto-follow in the “attention exchange.”
My attention is a valuable thing; entertain me, challenge me, amuse me, and you’ll have earned it. I’ll try to do the same for my readers. I’m not giving that attention away, and I’m certainly not going to pay someone in order to waste my time.
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
According to Tweepme, followers are added in limited batches. Exactly how limited, is unknown. What we do know is that it runs on a 10 minute schedule(according to Tweepme developer) . To date I have seen exactly four followers being added. I know those four followers came from Tweepme, because I don’t know these people and they appeared in my “following” list. Hmm That’s nothing near the 1000’s promised. I don’t mind, one of them was actually very interesting, so I kept him (or her as the case may be) on my list. I have my return on investment (which was nada). If I had paid 8 dollars and change for this….. EPIC FAIL!
A reason for this failure maybe the API limits, I have TweetDeck open pretty much 24-Seven. It is configured to utilize the full 100 API calls allowed by the Twitter service. Tweepme uses your API limits, not their own. Which is why I have to chuckle every time I see someone say their (Tweepme’s) API access should be blocked, but that’s a different story. At any given time, that a Tweepme scheduled update may include my Twitter account, the likelihood of it banging straight into the “over limit wall” is VERY high.
What I think happened is that some great guy had a brilliant little idea, started working on it with the best of intentions, released it before it was every ready for prime time, everybody else liked the idea so it gained a lot of momentum and when the euphoria died down people started thinking of the rammifications. Including the original developer, who by now, probably realizes his brilliant idea is not brilliant but simply utopia. Throttling the add/follow rate you will never catch up with the 1000’s of subsribers and not throttling it will lead to such an onslaught of exponential traffic that the beast becomes outrageous.
@pjebsen: I agree that removing critical messages from a web site is unethical, at the same time you yourself have used words like “suckers” and “scammer”. The getsatisfaction account is, in the end, @bobbr’s. While some restaint with removing messages should be exercised , some editorial control is not strictly a bad thing.
(Wow I said something in @pjebsen’s direction without getting belligerent, whodathunkit?)
April 10th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
@SWP: I appreciate the nonbelligerence!
You reported: “To date I have seen exactly four followers being added.”
I have two test accounts. Only 201 resp. 246 followers have been added by TweepMe as of today.
If I had paid @bobbr for this, I wouldn’t be to happy.
April 10th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
It’s SWB, but that’s ok
I bailed out of Tweepme. Like I said, what seemed like a good idea, will fail on the AP limits that Twitter is imposing. I think you and I agree, if we would have paid for this, we are really talking about failure of epic proportions. Again, it started out as a great idea, but it turned into a pipe-dream…
Nuff said!
May 8th, 2009 at 8:21 am
I am using Twitter as a platform for presenting the work (books) of authors on Twitter. As such, I am quite anxious to develop a large and wide audience. In trying to grow my follower base I kept wishing that there was a way to connect w/others, who, for whatever reason, were also looking to increase their follower base. I found Tweepme. I immediately (and happily) paid $12.95. I had the option of saving $2.00 if I allowed Tweepme to send a promo tweet. I did not feel the tweet was worth the savings and so I paid the full price.
I set my Tweepme optional API limit to 95 (I do not use tweetdeck and so felt no conflict) which left 5 for when I run Twitter Karma. I was deluged with followers. One problem I encountered was that a seeming large number of those followers would unfollow immediately after I followed them. Many have similar stats ratios of following to followers e.g. 85/1800 200/2200 and so on. There were also many with 2000/800 and 2001/1500. I chose to aggressively unfollow those who were not interested in mutuality. In my first week, I added about 700 users. Of the many I checked, they appear to be high quality, individuals with the same aim. Overall I am very pleased and look forward to adding to my follower list. I do wish, however, that Tweepme pushed harder for mutuality to weed out those who follow, unfollow, follow, unfollow. ad nauseum. Thank you Tweepme.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Something occurred to me… Tweepme is old school marketing tagged on to a new media platform. All these new followers are essentially cold leads (or rather not leads at all). If you use it for marketing purposes, you are right back to the dark ages of sticking flyers under windshield wipers. you need 1000 flyers for every two inquiries about your product. Not very effective, and also doesn’t do anything for your brand reputation.
The problem with this deluge of followers that tweepme creates is this: Who has the time to check out if their 100 new tweeps they follow “automagically” are worth their time? So into the bit-bucket they go… Which will then cause reciprocation of the un-follow. So you are paying 12 dollars and change to basically play whack the mole.
I too fell for the “popularity contest” that is tweepme. If these 700 followers of your week one stick around, congratz, but I can’t help but feeling that tweepme is nothing more then the address lists that you could buy in days of marketing yore.
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