Very good points. I feel this is where Magpie and its CEO fail to realize why there’s such a negative feeling toward them. Following a marketer or advertiser is a person’s choice beforehand – let’s face it, it you follow a direct or internet marketer, there’s a good chance the majority of their Tweets will be self-promotional. But that’s to be expected.

With Magpie, it’s a hidden message that I didn’t sign up for, nor do I want. Nowhere on a Twitter profile will it say “Magpie advertiser” in the same way it does “Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Online Business Affiliate”, etc. This means that I don’t get to know I’m about to be hit with Magpie ads when I start following someone until they enter my Twitter stream.

What makes it even less appealing is that Jan has stated elsewhere that now, users won’t even have to have the #magpie disclaimer on their Tweets – it will just come out as a normal Tweet instead. To me, this is false advertising and delves into the “trust” issue – how do I know someone’s Tweet is a genuine recommendation, and not a spammy Magpie ad?

So far, Jan’s response to people’s views haven’t done anything to dispel the fears that it will turn Twitter into nothing more than the equivalent of a pop-up ad nightmare. Time will tell, I guess, but the signs aren’t great.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your views, look forward to reading your post.

Magpie is *trying* to cater to those that use the service to broadcast, and paying them for the value that they provide within that broadcast, but in reality, even those that heavily broadcast are still probably conversing more than 50% of the time, and no one needs to be paid for their conversations.

The result is that Magpie is spamming people’s conversations in a medium that has otherwise managed to stay rather spam free, and is only able to do so because it sneaks in through the back door of Trojan Horsing your friend’s feeds and bribing them to do so with speculations of huge financial gains.

I don’t like it one bit, and I hope the Magpie folks listen to your letter sooner than later and either change their methods, or close up shop all together and leave us with our still rather pure conversation channel.

(And for the rest of my Magpie ranting, see: http://thefutureofads.com/2008/11/03/magpie-tries-to-make-twitter-an-ad-network-fails/)

Thank you!!

I’ll be waiting to see.

Lucretia Pruitt´s last blog post..Tweet like a Nightengale, Not like a Magpie