The Lost Jacket - Latest Comments in Twitter Shenanigans

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:08:07 -0000

Digging up the pertinent information for you now. If it's not GM based I'll eat my words. But a reliable source informed me that that's what they were using.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

fantomaster — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:43:47 -0000

Are you sure it exists in terms of actually having seen, possibly tested it yourself rather than merely reading about it? A Greasemonky script, as you say?
There's others around, but they're not GM based.
Merely inquiring to check if this isn't just another rumor mill a-spinning, or a case of mistaking one app for another.
Would be nice to see something more definitive and verifiable, if it's not asking too much.
(And don't get me wrong: I'm NOT saying you made this up, or anything - but this thingy does seem pretty hard to track down. Which is a mite strange if it's really being deployed as widely as you say it is.)

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Alysson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:15:08 -0000

Right back at 'cha, Stuart! I'm happy to have you as part of my Twitterverse. :) It doesn't seem like all that long ago one of my friends said, "Hey...have you heard of Twitter?" Almost 6500 updates later, here we are!

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:10:33 -0000

Oh...they are, love that movie. And Aly, you're one hell of a good Tweeple :) Glad to have met you early on!

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:10:03 -0000

Definitely, I feel like a broken record from how many times I have had to say "Twitter is all about the relationships"

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:07:35 -0000

Haha thanks...it was really really starting to piss me off. But hey...they are being Farvas :)

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Alysson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:04:20 -0000

There is more to Twitter than generating followers for me. My goal isn't to build a rock star following of people who also follow thousands of other people and, because of that, never see even one of my tweets throughout the day.

I follow fewer than 300 people and I'm sure I miss out on a lot of useful and relevant information just because of the noise in my Twitterstream. Everyone's goals for using Twitter are different, I suppose...but I actually use it to connect with people who share similar interests or, at the very least, have something interesting to say.

I also don't reciprocal follow and certainly don't follow someone based on their number of followers. Most of the people I follow have some ties to the search marketing industry. Like JeremyVaught, I go through those I'm following periodically and weed out those who have never engaged me or offered anything useful that I can recall off hand.

By the way, I absolutely adore that you used a picture from Super Troopers to illustrate shenanigans! Just for the record, I'm pretty sure they're really baked in that scene. I'm just sayin'!

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

andymurd — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:54:35 -0000

Good detective work! I'd wondered the same thing but I soon worked out that the number of followers a person has is a very poor measure of their worth/interest.

It's more fun to find those people who are interesting but have only just started tweeting and then interact with them. They might get 4,000 followers in the next twelve months, but they'll remember that you're the nice guy who chatted when they were starting out on twitter.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

johnnywon — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:09:57 -0000

I've noticed this epidemic as well. I do not know if it's really the worst thing in the world but I like this post. Love the graphic.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

antfaber — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:35:53 -0000

Why not just get rid of the auto-follow feature? If a twitterist has to confirm, this won't work.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

1stAngel — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:06:17 -0000

OOps lol sorry

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Marvel Goose — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:49:15 -0000

after 48 hours it just auto follows them anyway. I believe you can also set the waiting time.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:36:22 -0000

Thanks Victor!

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:35:33 -0000

Actually 48 hours may be to long...

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:34:50 -0000

Great idea. Def. going to test that out as well :)

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:34:26 -0000

The main reason it caught my attention is because a service like Twitbacks.com utilizes follower count to offer free custom backgrounds to that user. I definitely am pretty scatterbrained when I tweet. But I try to add lots of value when I can. I'm very interested (and knowledgeable) about marketing, branding, social media and advertising. So I pop my head into those conversations and add my 2 cents :).

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:33:00 -0000

As of right now I've had a hard time finding it Jesse. It definitely exists but I haven't been able to find a link (have to do a lot of digging for it apparently). Doubt anyone will send me the link now though...

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:31:19 -0000

That is definitely a great method Jeremy, I should probably utilize it more often. I tend to base my follow on a. job field b. amount of tweets c. value added and d. blog/website/company they are affiliated with.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:29:56 -0000

Amount of followers to a person who has been using Twitter for awhile=worthless. Amount of followers to a person who is new to Twitter=Very Important. I'm just worried about people taking the advice of someone who has more perceived authority then they actually do... No money. But lots of jobs, business knowledge and important info gets passed around Twitter. In fact I've been concentrating on Twitter as one of my main sources for trying to find both consulting work and a marketing job.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:27:50 -0000

Glad I could help you see what was up!

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:26:11 -0000

No problem, I was in the dark about it up until recently as well. I'm definitely glad I've gotten the word out though!

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Stuart Foster — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:24:50 -0000

Wow, great response! Getting to all the questions now :)

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Molly Bermea — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:23:48 -0000

.... oh yes, sorry, got carried away. Thank you for the detailed explanation too. Great to be in-the-know.

http://twitter.com/mollybermea

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Jesse Stay — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:22:10 -0000

1stAngel, that's Greasemonkey itself. I'm looking for the actual script
these people are using on top of Greasemonkey to do this.

Re: Twitter Shenanigans

Molly Bermea — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:21:25 -0000

Realistically these people aren't really going to last out there in the Twittersphere. I have never been concerned with amounts of followers for others or for myself, although I know for a great number of Tweeters it is a daily goal it seems rather than gaining something from the actual experience.

Anyway, I go through EACH and EVERY new Tweeter that follows me, check out their short profile, scan their most recent page of tweets to see if they've tweeted something valuable, visit their link and review their site (if they have one. annoying if they don't sometimes). I make my judgment mainly based on their site, BUT if they have failed to make ANY kind of valuable (to me) Tweet in the past 30-50 posts then I strongly consider not following.

On the flip side, I myself might not even be that great a person to follow bc I can probably blast out 20+ lame tweets some days and others I try to post good content mixed in. So .... guess that's just how it goes. :)

Anyway... I don't really get the stupid "How many ppl are following me" obsession anyway... using script to cheat is really lame. But who are they cheating.