Wildly Appropriate

I Just Got Tweeted By A Marketer...

Apr 14, 07:44 AM

I'm not sure how I feel about what happened to me just now. For some time now I've had this policy of following anybody who follows me on Twitter. Oftentimes I'll un-follow in short order, but my "default setting" for stuff like this is to embrace serendipity and give it a chance.

I think today is the day to change that policy. Moments ago, I clicked thru from the Twitter email that notifies you when somebody has signed up to follow you... and in the 2 seconds inbetween the time that the page finished loading and the time that I can move my mouse pointer to the "follow" button, I took pause. Noting that this user's Twitter handle was " fatresistance", I scanned the rest of the info on the profile page and it becomes clear that this user is selling a diet book. For the first time .. at least that I've noticed ... this thing that I enjoyed using to communicate with my friends and some random strangers is tainted by marketing, and what's weird and a little unsettling to me is that I'm mostly ok with it, and the reason why is relevance and value.

Looking at the tweetstream from this user named "fatresistance" ... what appears to be happening here is that the people who're hawking this book are trading valuable bits of their content in exchange for valuable bits of my attention. Check out this smattering of tweets - there's stuff in here that I find to be worth noticing:

Tea is loaded with powerful antioxidants that help to promote weight loss, and support overall health.
09:17 PM April 12, 2008
The powerful benefits of blueberries come from the dark blue color of the berries, which is high in flavonoids. Put a handful on your b ...
05:17 AM April 12, 2008
Arugula contains as much calcium as milk and the calcium in arugula is readily absorbed. It’s also a great source of bioflavonoids.
01:05 AM April 10, 2008
Apples contain vitamin C, fiber, and quercitin, which supports the body's detoxification.
05:40 PM April 09, 2008

This is stuff I'm glad to become aware of, and which might make a positive impact on what I order for lunch if I'm checking Twitter on my handheld before the waitperson arrives. Heck, the tweets are so compact and grockable ... I might even remember some of this stuff when I'm offline.

Unanswered question: did fatresistance start following me because they think I'm fat? And more ponderous than that: what's going to happen when some marketer who's not giving away value and being relevant starts following me on Twitter and I click thru to their page and find marketing junk? I predict Twitter will either become bigger than email in the next 12 months or it will cease to exist, the determining factor being how the swelling ranks of marketers will behave themselves in the Twittervers.

 

UPDATE: a person I know in Ann Arbor is blogging about this very issue, and doing it better than me :) Yay Mitten!