magpie

Over at Mashable, Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins describes the latest “Cash for Tweets” scheme Magpie:

I find this new method of Twitter monetization to be just as interesting, and based on the routes that the Magpie folks are taking, I think that it’ll do pretty well, assuming they’re able to keep a lid on those that would try to game the system and run them into bankruptcy.

They aren’t simply allowing just anyone to throw ads in willy-nilly, instead trying to encourage advertisers to target their ads to keywords that get indexed from the users’ Twitter stream.

Additionally, all tweets that originate from Magpie are prefaced with the hashtag #magpie, so that there’s clear disclosure within the system that this is a sponsored tweet.

My comment:

You rightly point out that some people will weigh the quick buck vs their social capital and credibility in the community and maybe decide to grab for the beer money. But those amounts are surprising for a reason. There’s just no way they are sustainable.

I’ve been watching clickthrough rates on my tweets for a long time via Tweetburner. They’re highly context sensitive and fine-tuned to the degree of genuine usefulness in the tweet or implied in the link.

Twitter readers don’t care who you are or how many followers you have when it comes to click-through-credibility, they care if the link sounds compelling.

So as the advertiser, paying magpie what sounds like a fairly high CPM, is probably NOT going to be happy with results and continue the advertising at that rate. The platform on the other hand (your tweet stream) will go down in value by losing followers and by losing click through credibility among followers. We’ll go blind to the #magpie tag just like we are to banner ads. For that matter, Twitter clients will probably offer settings to simply filter out the adtweets.

I believe, firmly, there are ways for Twitter to make money and for people and businesses on Twitter to make money, by working within the cultural system there.

Had I gone on, I would have pointed out that the clickthroughs I do see frequently depend more on “re-tweets” which are pretty unlikely unless Magpie obtains some amazing ad inventory. I do give them credit for transparency though, each ad begins #magpie. It’s not hard to imagine that imitators will follow that (try to) hide the adtweets.

So, How Many Clicks Would a Magpie-r Click?

Despite nearly 8k readers, I generally see just single or double digit click-throughs, with 200-300 for a blockbuster link. Tweetburner reports that I’ve shared a little more than 500 links through them and generated about 39,000 clicks, for an average around 75. (65 without the one @ZeFrank contest link with 5,000 clicks) System-wide, tweetburner is measuring about 5 clicks per Tweetburner link. Notably, many of these “per link” clicks are for unique links that were repeated numerous times when a Twitter post was “re-tweeted,” so the real numbers are even lower.

I really doubt significant traffic could be generated by paid advertising links, even if they could scale the service up enough to have a font of genuinely “fun and useful” ads to contextualize into Tweeters streams.

What’s a Tweetworth?

Even if making your Twitter use profitable is important to you, my guess is that your Tweets are worth a lot more than what Magpie, uT.ag or Twittad are going to pay you for them. We’re talking about your credibility and integrity. Your reputation and relationships on Twitter are a valuable asset. Think about it.

Whether you meet clients on Twitter, solve business problems faster and less expensively, find new opportunities to learn and grow, develop your personal network or any number of direct business applications on Twitter, you’re probably getting way more value in the long run (better jobs, more clients, new opportunities) than you might be able to extract in the short term by trading on your good name. Heck, even if talking with friends on Twitter replaces the cost of going to a movie or another expensive form of entertainment, would you really want to dilute the quality of that interaction to make a buck?

And so?

I frequently point out that Twitter was designed as a nicely self-correcting ecosystem. Yes there will be spammers and unwanted ads and ways that functions we enjoy may get mucked up and out of balance, but our ability to refuse to follow that which is not interesting is powerful. Our ability to block, pass word and choose to remain amongst those we know and love is significant.

Ads and other revenue schemes will come to Twitter, and they will work where they work and with whom they work. And much like the world outside, individuals will move and connect and read and express themselves in the neighborhoods most suited to them. Social pressures within the system will alter the flow of who follows whom, and what level and type of commercialization is acceptable to the localized culture.

Revenue approaches that serve a thriving community will flourish. Schemes that aren’t sustainable, won’t. And I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

UPDATE: ReadWriteWeb’s Rick Turoczy weighs in with a similar POV.

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