Comments on: Tweet Tornado: The Path to 1 BILLION Tweet Spam http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/ The crossroads of life and tech Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:56:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: John Kohl http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-647 John Kohl Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:48:29 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-647 <p>Software like that will be the death of Twitter as it would with any social network. Too much spam and fake-user content will draw people away from the site. That is one of the sole reasons that Myspace fell behind Facebook. Thousands of people, including myself, got sick of all the spam on Myspace and made the decision to switch to Facebook. So, if Twitter doesn't fix this then it'll become just like Myspace.</p> Software like that will be the death of Twitter as it would with any social network. Too much spam and fake-user content will draw people away from the site. That is one of the sole reasons that Myspace fell behind Facebook. Thousands of people, including myself, got sick of all the spam on Myspace and made the decision to switch to Facebook. So, if Twitter doesn’t fix this then it’ll become just like Myspace.

]]> By: Keith http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-646 Keith Thu, 14 May 2009 04:54:44 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-646 <p>The problem with crap like Tweet Tornado comes from the spam email that's sent every time someone follows you (default Twitter setting), the load of spammy marketing tweets that appear in. They also muck up the public timeline, and the ability of people to game the system by creating enough traffic on a given topic, or set of keywords to get those keywords ranked in twitter trending topics.</p> The problem with crap like Tweet Tornado comes from the spam email that’s sent every time someone follows you (default Twitter setting), the load of spammy marketing tweets that appear in. They also muck up the public timeline, and the ability of people to game the system by creating enough traffic on a given topic, or set of keywords to get those keywords ranked in twitter trending topics.

]]> By: Jerome Raymond http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-645 Jerome Raymond Tue, 12 May 2009 02:28:31 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-645 <p>This program is good for any business. it isn't spam because people actually have a choice to receive your message. If they follow you back that means that they have opted in to receive any message that you send out. So it is not spam at all. I think that the software is good but the monthly fee is insane.</p> This program is good for any business. it isn’t spam because people actually have a choice to receive your message. If they follow you back that means that they have opted in to receive any message that you send out. So it is not spam at all. I think that the software is good but the monthly fee is insane.

]]> By: Zack http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-644 Zack Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:39:48 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-644 <p>Tweet Tornado is way over priced for a simple program like this. A one time fee might be justifed but a monthly fee of $100 and rising. Give me a break, and i really doubt they would stop selling it when 500 users are reached. FAIL</p> Tweet Tornado is way over priced for a simple program like this. A one time fee might be justifed but a monthly fee of $100 and rising. Give me a break, and i really doubt they would stop selling it when 500 users are reached. FAIL

]]> By: Gabe http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-643 Gabe Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:53:11 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-643 <p>A good comparison of Tweet Tornado is to email harvesting bots.</p> A good comparison of Tweet Tornado is to email harvesting bots.

]]> By: Gabe http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-642 Gabe Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:50:11 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-642 <p>It really is interesting. The followers opted in, and they can opt out at any time. Sounds like any fair mailing list. Aren't mailing lists automated also? Yes, they are, they just sit there collecting users.</p> <p>However, tweet tornado is different in that it does this proactively, wasting the bandwidth on twitter.com. Their advertising condones falsely luring users, and then sending them unwanted messages, which is spam.</p> <p>"Using a screen-scraping technology to auto-follow pretty much anyone contributing to the public timeline".</p> <p>It isn't screen scraping, the timeline is available in their API, as well as specific keyword based queries since they acquired summize.com.</p> It really is interesting. The followers opted in, and they can opt out at any time. Sounds like any fair mailing list. Aren’t mailing lists automated also? Yes, they are, they just sit there collecting users.

However, tweet tornado is different in that it does this proactively, wasting the bandwidth on twitter.com. Their advertising condones falsely luring users, and then sending them unwanted messages, which is spam.

“Using a screen-scraping technology to auto-follow pretty much anyone contributing to the public timeline”.

It isn’t screen scraping, the timeline is available in their API, as well as specific keyword based queries since they acquired summize.com.

]]> By: Keith Murray http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-641 Keith Murray Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:13:35 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-641 <p>By adding followers indiscriminately Tweet Tornado already causes email spam. Twitter was designed so that people who were interested in what each other had to say could look at what people had to say, or read their bio and choose to follow them. Tweet Tornado, by default, follows everyone who decides to tweet publicly. Though I still wouldn't support it's use the product could make itself far more targeted by following users which meet specific conditions like certain keywords in their bio.</p> <p>In addition, your video (as I mentioned above) talks about methods to dupe people into following you. The presented in the video explicitly states that it's advantageous to use a "hot chick" as the avatar.</p> <p>Services like this will increase the number of twitter users closing their accounts to the public stream to avoid spam follows. It's sad, really, that you can't see what tools like this could do to the community.</p> By adding followers indiscriminately Tweet Tornado already causes email spam. Twitter was designed so that people who were interested in what each other had to say could look at what people had to say, or read their bio and choose to follow them. Tweet Tornado, by default, follows everyone who decides to tweet publicly. Though I still wouldn’t support it’s use the product could make itself far more targeted by following users which meet specific conditions like certain keywords in their bio.

In addition, your video (as I mentioned above) talks about methods to dupe people into following you. The presented in the video explicitly states that it’s advantageous to use a “hot chick” as the avatar.

Services like this will increase the number of twitter users closing their accounts to the public stream to avoid spam follows. It’s sad, really, that you can’t see what tools like this could do to the community.

]]> By: Tweet Tornado http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-640 Tweet Tornado Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:41:46 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-640 <p>TweetTornado only adds followers, People have to click on the page and choose to follow someone so there is no spam involved, only optin marketing. The only people who receive anything are the people who follow and give permission. Everyone needs to realize this is not like a typical spam tool. This is permission based optin marketing! And if twitter would quit shutting the accounts down for no good reason then the software wouldn't have to create unlimited accounts anymore. I don't see how this software is bad for twitter, anyone can do the same thing without software the difference is this software saves you alot of time following people.</p> <p>So to all you people who think I am wrong, ask yourself this question...</p> <p>If a person must willingly choose to follow me and it is also their choice to click on my link to see whatever I am offering to "help" them, Then how could this be considered spam?</p> <p>P.S. thanks to the blog owner for advertising my service, I'm getting lots of new customers now.</p> TweetTornado only adds followers, People have to click on the page and choose to follow someone so there is no spam involved, only optin marketing. The only people who receive anything are the people who follow and give permission. Everyone needs to realize this is not like a typical spam tool. This is permission based optin marketing! And if twitter would quit shutting the accounts down for no good reason then the software wouldn’t have to create unlimited accounts anymore. I don’t see how this software is bad for twitter, anyone can do the same thing without software the difference is this software saves you alot of time following people.

So to all you people who think I am wrong, ask yourself this question…

If a person must willingly choose to follow me and it is also their choice to click on my link to see whatever I am offering to “help” them, Then how could this be considered spam?

P.S. thanks to the blog owner for advertising my service, I’m getting lots of new customers now.

]]> By: Christopher Ross http://kdmurray.net/2009/02/01/tweet-tornado-the-path-to-1-billion-tweet-spam/comment-page-1/#comment-639 Christopher Ross Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:40:25 +0000 http://kdmurray.net/?p=548#comment-639 <p>I'm as supportive of commercializing services like this as they come but I have no patients for SPAM. Thanks for the post, I didn't really think about the opportunity for abuse before it.</p> I’m as supportive of commercializing services like this as they come but I have no patients for SPAM. Thanks for the post, I didn’t really think about the opportunity for abuse before it.

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