Are you a Magpie?
by GeekGirl, under Twittering Tweets
Magpie is a unique advertising for Twitter users. If you tweet frequently, it might be a monetization option that you’re interested in looking into. If you’re an advertiser looking to spread the word about your new website or service and build links at the same time, then it might be something to try out for you too.
I decided to sign up with a twitter account to give it a try. Here’s an example of a magpie tweet that came through on that account.
I think that they are monitoring the adverts as they go through, I haven’t seen anything gross, offensive, or otherwise a turn off going through #magpie yet. If you want to get a feel for the type of advertisers that are using the service so far you can go to http://search.twitter.com and search for the hashtag #magpie.
As a twitterer I like that you can set the frequency of #magpie tweets in your account. You can set it to be every other tweet, every 3rd tweet, every 5th tweet, etc… However, it is only setup to have one Twitter account per magpie account. Now, that is both a blessing and a curse. It’s good because people can’t take advantage and have 50 Twitter accounts hogging up all of the ad que.
However, if you’ve got multiple twitter accounts, then I suppose it’s bad for you too because you have to pick just one to use with Magpie. Although, I suppose you could open additional Magpie accounts to match your Twitter accounts, I don’t know if anyone has tried that yet. As long as they all had unique email addresses (Which they’d have to for Twitter anyhow,) then you should be okay.
So far I find the Magpie service interesting and unique. But, to use it I think it depends on how you are using Twitter. If you’re using Twitter to be social, hang out with your friends and chit chat throughout the day, then having ads go by in your Twitter stream is probably not for you. Take some time and think about your Twitter goals and expectations before you sign up as a user.
I haven’t tested out the system as an advertiser yet, but I’m looking forward to doing so. Almost forgot, you can take the money you earn as a Magpie and set up your own ads and pay for them that way. Using it that way makes it more like a tweet swap than an ad platform, but it’s not a bad idea if you’re just sticking your toe in the water.
[tags]Twitter, Magpie[/tags]
