Using CAPTCHAs to get more followers on twitter.

[Amir Michail]

Hi,

I'm thinking of building this service using the twitter API:

* you submit a selection of your tweets that you are particularly
proud of

* you also submit a CAPTCHA to check whether someone looking at your
selection really looked at it carefully

Example: such a CAPTCHA might ask the user to select the tweet in your
selection that satisfies a particular criterion.

Your tweet selection will be shown to k people provided that you
correctly answer the CAPTCHAs in ~ k selections.

You could have people use tags to facilitate search/browsing of tweet
selections. Moreover, these tags could be used to improve a service
such as http://b4utweet.com.

Amir

[Andrew Badera]

... and then?

I'm thinking of jumping off the Empire State Building tomorrow with Jeb Corliss ...

Beside the apparent randomness of your post, was there an underlying question?

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 2:52 PM, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
> ... and then?
>
> I'm thinking of jumping off the Empire State Building tomorrow with Jeb
> Corliss ...
>
> Beside the apparent randomness of your post, was there an underlying
> question?
>

Do you think it would work? Is it worth building to try it out?

Amir

>
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Amir Michail <amic...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm thinking of building this service using the twitter API:
>>
>> * you submit a selection of your tweets that you are particularly
>> proud of
>>
>> * you also submit a CAPTCHA to check whether someone looking at your
>> selection really looked at it carefully
>>
>> Example: such a CAPTCHA might ask the user to select the tweet in your
>> selection that satisfies a particular criterion.
>>
>> Your tweet selection will be shown to k people provided that you
>> correctly answer the CAPTCHAs in ~ k selections.
>>
>> You could have people use tags to facilitate search/browsing of tweet
>> selections. Moreover, these tags could be used to improve a service
>> such as http://b4utweet.com.
>>
>> Amir
>>
>
>
> >
>

--
http://b4utweet.com
http://chatbotgame.com
http://numbrosia.com
http://twitter.com/amichail

[Andrew Badera]

How would that get you MORE followers -- you're asking people to read your tweets, then you check to see if they did?

[Alex Payne]

You might look at Amazon's Mechanical Turk if you're interesting in
experimenting with human ratings of content.

--
Alex Payne - API Lead, Twitter, Inc.
http://twitter.com/al3x

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 2:56 PM, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
> How would that get you MORE followers -- you're asking people to read your
> tweets, then you check to see if they did?
>

If they like your tweet selection, they might consider following you.

[Andrew Badera]

But then what are you enforcing with the CAPTCHA? Aren't you just making it more difficult, more hurdles to leap, for people to engage with you?

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 3:03 PM, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
> But then what are you enforcing with the CAPTCHA? Aren't you just making it
> more difficult, more hurdles to leap, for people to engage with you?
>

The CAPTCHA is used to get people to look at your tweet selection
carefully. Without it, people could just post their tweet selection
and use a script to automatically look at other people's tweet
selections.

[Andrew Badera]

But what would be the motivation for someone to script this to begin with? I guess I'm having a hard time understanding the value proposition.

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
> But what would be the motivation for someone to script this to begin with? I
> guess I'm having a hard time understanding the value proposition.
>

In order for your tweet selection to be shown to k people, you need to
correctly answer the CAPTCHA for ~k tweet selections.

This is all a mechanism to get people to look at each other's tweet selections.

[Andrew Badera]

Isn't that the point of Twitter to begin with?

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
> Isn't that the point of Twitter to begin with?
>

Maybe the people you know. But I suspect that many users are thinking
mostly about their followers. They want to advertise something.

This mechanism allows you to advertise but for a price -- namely, that
you look at other people's tweets as well.

[Julio Biason]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 7:05 AM, Amir Michail <amic...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The CAPTCHA is used to get people to look at your tweet selection
> carefully. Without it, people could just post their tweet selection
> and use a script to automatically look at other people's tweet
> selections.

And how would you make people look at the tweet instead of the captcha?

Honestly, my opinion about it is: If you want do build it, do it. No
one here will stop you.

--
Julio Biason <julio....@gmail.com>
Twitter: http://twitter.com/juliobiason

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 4:02 PM, Julio Biason <julio....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 7:05 AM, Amir Michail <amic...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The CAPTCHA is used to get people to look at your tweet selection
>> carefully. Without it, people could just post their tweet selection
>> and use a script to automatically look at other people's tweet
>> selections.
>
> And how would you make people look at the tweet instead of the captcha?

The idea is to have people submit a CAPTCHA that is directly connected
to their tweet selection. For example, it might ask you to select the
tweet that is most connected with a certain area of study. Or it
might ask you to name the dominant theme in the tweet selection, etc.

Amir

>
> Honestly, my opinion about it is: If you want do build it, do it. No
> one here will stop you.
>
> --
> Julio Biason <julio....@gmail.com>
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/juliobiason
>
> >
>

[Waitman Gobble]

hmmm, i don't understand how a Turing exam based on comprehension
would get "more followers". it would likely get less. But maybe higher
IQ followers? ;-)

Waitman

[Amir Michail]

This would not be intended as an obstacle, but rather, as a way to
"force" people into actually looking at the tweet selection.

[Steve Ng Ming Yeow]

Hi Amir, 

  I would like to salute your initiative in posting up  ideas here, and getting feedback. 

I personally do not think that this is workable, but feel free to contact me for ideas as well. :)

M

--
Discovery - Going Beyond Engagement: http://is.gd/op2 (My Current Pet Project)
What I do: http://v3.mingyeow.com/?page_id=5

[Waitman Gobble]

sheesh, sorry. I posted this before noon (california time). not sure
why it took like four hours to appear. SAMF. I guess. I live like 15
minutes from google, figure it would be faster. (ok, teasing.)





On Dec 8, 4:09 pm, "Amir Michail" <amich...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Cameron Kaiser]

> sheesh, sorry. I posted this before noon (california time). not sure
> why it took like four hours to appear. SAMF. I guess. I live like 15
> minutes from google, figure it would be faster. (ok, teasing.)

It's because people who are new, or considered new due to few posts, are
automatically put in the moderation queue. There are several of us, but
obviously this is a fairly busy group and we might not get to a message
immediately as it arrives (or be immediately able to promote a subscriber
to non-moderated). This group gets a lot of spam, which I'm sure people are
delighted not to be seeing anymore.

--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- #include <std_disclaimer.h> ------------------------------------------------

[Anthony Papillion]

Personally, I think this would be worth building out to test. I don't
think you'd get *more* followers but there might be a higher
engagement rate with the people who do follow you. After all, they had
to go through extra trouble to follow you so they definately see value
in your tweets.

The question I have is how you would enforce this?

Anthony

--
Sent from my mobile device

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:13 PM, Anthony Papillion <papi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Personally, I think this would be worth building out to test. I don't
> think you'd get *more* followers but there might be a higher
> engagement rate with the people who do follow you. After all, they had
> to go through extra trouble to follow you so they definately see value
> in your tweets.

They don't have to go through extra trouble to follow you.

But those who would like more followers would use this service, thus
giving you more followers if you participate as well.

>
> The question I have is how you would enforce this?
>

What do you mean?

Amir

> Anthony
>
> On 12/8/08, Amir Michail <amic...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm thinking of building this service using the twitter API:
>>
>> * you submit a selection of your tweets that you are particularly
>> proud of
>>
>> * you also submit a CAPTCHA to check whether someone looking at your
>> selection really looked at it carefully
>>
>> Example: such a CAPTCHA might ask the user to select the tweet in your
>> selection that satisfies a particular criterion.
>>
>> Your tweet selection will be shown to k people provided that you
>> correctly answer the CAPTCHAs in ~ k selections.
>>
>> You could have people use tags to facilitate search/browsing of tweet
>> selections. Moreover, these tags could be used to improve a service
>> such as http://b4utweet.com.
>>
>> Amir
>>
>>
>
> --
> Sent from my mobile device
>
> >
>

[Waitman Gobble]

oh whoopso- i wasn't complaining really. it just seemed like my issue
was already pondered so i was alarmed to get the message so late. ;-)

yeah i understand about the SPAM. i remember those days, and didn't
really mind getting SPAM, actually. in the course of a day I
personally receive about 5,000 email messages, only get a couple of
actual real-life SPAM day. About 3,000 are just CRAP. which isn't
truly, or perhaps truly isn't SPAM. Not only are the senders not
selling anything, there's no way anyone would actually buy anything
they claim to sell. Even if the recipient could actually make sense
out of the message. The other email I get is mostly NOISE, which keeps
me sane and let's me know that the world is in order. When there's no
NOISE, something is clearly broken and I have to find and fix it.

I think solicitors mostly gave up sending SPAM around 2003. Which is
too bad, I used to enjoy getting some of the more interesting
messages. I actually felt like buying some stuff I'd never considered.
It's like an elaborate fictional conspiracy theory where the powers
that be inject CRAP into the network for the very reason that there is
so little SPAM in SMS. I'm sure you understand. So it cuts way down on
competition in the money making schemes, and makes it quite
challenging to roll out new products that actually generate revenue.
Break even, even. You know the spiel.

Anyways, back to the original topic.

I don't understand WHERE these "Them" are going to submit. (re:
original post). I guess that's what I'm missing.

Waitman

On Dec 8, 5:54 pm, Cameron Kaiser <spec...@floodgap.com> wrote:
> It's because people who are new, or considered new due to few posts, are
> automatically put in the moderation queue.

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:20 PM, Waitman Gobble <avai...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...

>
> Anyways, back to the original topic.
>
> I don't understand WHERE these "Them" are going to submit. (re:
> original post). I guess that's what I'm missing.
>
> Waitman
>

At the service using the twitter API that I'm thinking of building. I
didn't realize this idea was so difficult to understand though. Maybe
I shouldn't even try...

Amir

>
>
>
> On Dec 8, 5:54 pm, Cameron Kaiser <spec...@floodgap.com> wrote:
>> It's because people who are new, or considered new due to few posts, are
>> automatically put in the moderation queue.
>> spam, which I'm sure
>
> >
>

[Waitman Gobble]

Well, if you're like me you don't really need any cheerleaders to
fluff you up and get you going. I mean they're nice and all, but
stubborn persistence regardless.

And besides, we'd not have much of this stuff if it weren't for some
renegades with stubborn idears. You know, the Internet Cowboys. Guys
who would crowbar their ways onto the rooftops of bank hi-rises just
to set up satellite dishes and offer wireless internet when most
people never even heard of broadband. Or rent a back hoe and chaw
through public streets without permit to run copper. Back in the
1990's. Those types. Where would we be now?

The thing I'm missing in your proposal - I can't see the nookie. I
mean, are users getting a higher quality of selection of tweets
because you do the Turing exam? Or are they going to get more
followers because you have a pool of twitters at the other end waiting
for them? (because of the quality of feed).

Not cutting, just trying to understand.

Waitman




On Dec 8, 7:11 pm, "Amir Michail" <amich...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:20 PM, Waitman Gobble <avail4...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > ...
>
> > Anyways, back to the original topic.
>
> > I don't understand WHERE these "Them" are going to submit. (re:
> > original post). I guess that's what I'm missing.
>
> > Waitman
>
> At the service using the twitter API that I'm thinking of building. I
> didn't realize this idea was so difficult to understand though. Maybe
> I shouldn't even try...
>
> Amir
>
>
>
> > On Dec 8, 5:54 pm, Cameron Kaiser <spec...@floodgap.com> wrote:
> >> It's because people who are new, or considered new due to few posts, are
> >> automatically put in the moderation queue.
> >> spam, which I'm sure
>

[Amir Michail]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 10:31 PM, Waitman Gobble <avai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, if you're like me you don't really need any cheerleaders to
> fluff you up and get you going. I mean they're nice and all, but
> stubborn persistence regardless.
>
> And besides, we'd not have much of this stuff if it weren't for some
> renegades with stubborn idears. You know, the Internet Cowboys. Guys
> who would crowbar their ways onto the rooftops of bank hi-rises just
> to set up satellite dishes and offer wireless internet when most
> people never even heard of broadband. Or rent a back hoe and chaw
> through public streets without permit to run copper. Back in the
> 1990's. Those types. Where would we be now?
>
> The thing I'm missing in your proposal - I can't see the nookie. I
> mean, are users getting a higher quality of selection of tweets
> because you do the Turing exam? Or are they going to get more
> followers because you have a pool of twitters at the other end waiting
> for them? (because of the quality of feed).

Suppose you have two twitter users who are each working on a web 2.0
startup and would like to increase the number of their twitter
followers to better their chances of startup success.

They could go to this service to increase their followers.

So in using this service, they find each other. Even though they
don't necessarily want to increase the number of people they follow,
they might discover cool tweets that they would like to see anyway.

And so they end up following each other, even though it was not their
intent to follow more people.

Amir

>
> Not cutting, just trying to understand.
>
> Waitman
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 8, 7:11 pm, "Amir Michail" <amich...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:20 PM, Waitman Gobble <avail4...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > ...
>>
>> > Anyways, back to the original topic.
>>
>> > I don't understand WHERE these "Them" are going to submit. (re:
>> > original post). I guess that's what I'm missing.
>>
>> > Waitman
>>
>> At the service using the twitter API that I'm thinking of building. I
>> didn't realize this idea was so difficult to understand though. Maybe
>> I shouldn't even try...
>>
>> Amir
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Dec 8, 5:54 pm, Cameron Kaiser <spec...@floodgap.com> wrote:
>> >> It's because people who are new, or considered new due to few posts, are
>> >> automatically put in the moderation queue.
>> >> spam, which I'm sure
>>
>> --http://b4utweet.comhttp://chatbotgame.comhttp://numbrosia.comhttp://twitter.com/amichail
>
> >
>

[Amir Michail]

Of course, you could try following a huge number of people on twitter
in the hope that some of them would follow you in return. But that
might be seen as spamming. Moreover, these people probably won't look
at your tweets seriously anyway (as there is no CAPTCHA), so they are
unlikely to follow you.

Amir

[Waitman Gobble]

very true. I did a 'god mode' experiment for about a week (did you
ever play the game Doom years ago?) followed about 45,000 and had
roughly 3,000 followers. i didn't tweet much of anything, it was all
fiercely automated. and i certainly didn't read all of those posts.
It's truly not really that interesting to have so many followers
artificially, as i couldn't possibly think of anything useful to tell
them all, and it was really just a big 'whirly gig' in the ethers. But
a curious experiment anyway.

> >>> --http://b4utweet.comhttp://chatbotgame.comhttp://numbrosia.comhttp://t...

[Waitman Gobble]

ok. So suppose one guy is working at Slide, and is about to gag on the
python, or css, and is contemplating going to the fridge and getting
yet another Seagrams Berry Blast Cooler, or go downstairs and around
the corner check out that hot chick who works at Subway, or maybe just
go sit in his car at the parking lot across the street and listen to
Metallica Demagnetized, at full volume, or maybe DTP. And on the way
down the stairs the thought occurs to him that Max will dump his
girlfriend, and maybe he'll even start dating an Amish girl, for who
knows, he might just lose all interest whatsoever in shoes and decide
to walk in unannounced and pull the plug to "the server", and a
billion people will lose their amazing flashy image shows on their
myspace profiles.

And the other guy is hanging out in an even smaller office, working on
the Vuvox project. And he starts considering the possibility that
John won't sign off and bless the deal, the ebay thing isn't sealed.

so they come to b4utweet.com and meet like strangers in the night. or
something like that.

I think there is some value in slagger-sales. People aren't there to
buy your stuff, but they accidentally decide they might try it,
because it had not occurred to them before. Sort of like sitting on a
flight to Frankfurt and you're tired of watching the GPS coordinates
animated on the front screens, and your ipod is depleted, and you
don't read novels, and you've already looked up and down all the
luftansa chicks more than once - so you start thumbing through the in-
flight magazine and see some really cool pogo sticks from the guy who
originally started sharper image, so you make a decision to take up
pogo bouncing at the park.

I think as long as you have a clear idea about what the user will get
in the end, your project will be successful. But you know what, it
could still be really good anyway, even if you don't know. So go for
it.

Waitman




On Dec 8, 7:51 pm, "Amir Michail" <amich...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> --http://b4utweet.comhttp://chatbotgame.comhttp://numbrosia.comhttp://t...

[jstrellner]

To me, this sounds like MLM, based off of twitter, just slightly
modified. If you want to go this route, why not just say, "if you
follow me, I'll follow you and we'll both get higher numbers. Maybe
you'll like what I have to say too."

Honestly though, this completely misses the whole point of Twitter.

On Dec 8, 7:51 pm, "Amir Michail" <amich...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> --http://b4utweet.comhttp://chatbotgame.comhttp://numbrosia.comhttp://t...

[Amir Michail]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 11:32 AM, jstrellner <jstre...@urltrends.com> wrote:
>
> To me, this sounds like MLM, based off of twitter, just slightly
> modified. If you want to go this route, why not just say, "if you
> follow me, I'll follow you and we'll both get higher numbers. Maybe
> you'll like what I have to say too."

How do you do this without spamming a huge number of people? Why do
you think many people would look at your twitter page to read such a
message?

Amir

[Stut]

On 9 Dec 2008, at 18:04, Amir Michail wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 11:32 AM, jstrellner
> <jstre...@urltrends.com> wrote:
>>
>> To me, this sounds like MLM, based off of twitter, just slightly
>> modified. If you want to go this route, why not just say, "if you
>> follow me, I'll follow you and we'll both get higher numbers. Maybe
>> you'll like what I have to say too."
>
> How do you do this without spamming a huge number of people? Why do
> you think many people would look at your twitter page to read such a
> message?

In my experience the best way to get new followers is not to ask for
them, either directly or through using any service with the sole
purpose of allowing you to pimp yourself as worth following. If you're
worth following people will follow. It's then up to you whether you
reciprocate or not. Personally I look their last few pages and base my
decision on that. If I'm not interested in that then there's no value
in my following them.

But that's just the way I see it.

-Stut

--
http://stut.net/
http://twitter.com/stut

[Amir Michail]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Stut <stu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9 Dec 2008, at 18:04, Amir Michail wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 11:32 AM, jstrellner
>> <jstre...@urltrends.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> To me, this sounds like MLM, based off of twitter, just slightly
>>> modified. If you want to go this route, why not just say, "if you
>>> follow me, I'll follow you and we'll both get higher numbers. Maybe
>>> you'll like what I have to say too."
>>
>> How do you do this without spamming a huge number of people? Why do
>> you think many people would look at your twitter page to read such a
>> message?
>
> In my experience the best way to get new followers is not to ask for
> them, either directly or through using any service with the sole
> purpose of allowing you to pimp yourself as worth following. If you're
> worth following people will follow. It's then up to you whether you
> reciprocate or not. Personally I look their last few pages and base my
> decision on that. If I'm not interested in that then there's no value
> in my following them.

How many people has this worked for? From what I understand, people
with a huge number of followers on twitter were already famous before
using twitter.

Amir

[Andrew Badera]

define huge.

I'm not famous, but have almost 2000 followers.

early adopters probably have an easier time accruing large numbers of followers, as do celebrities, but fame is certainly not a requirement.

[Chad Etzel]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:38 PM, Amir Michail <amic...@gmail.com> wrote:

How many people has this worked for?  From what I understand, people
with a huge number of followers on twitter were already famous before
using twitter.

Is the goal here to win at twitter?  Do you win by getting the most followers?  As my good friend says: "it's not who follows you, it's who you follow."  That's how to get the most value out of twitter (in his opinion, and in mine).

As for being famous and having a ton of followers... That's how celebrity works.  Also, I don't consider myself remotely famous, but I just crossed 600 followers, which is quite a bit more than the average joe has... so it is possible to grow your followers with time and hard work to engage others to give them value.

That said, you are still welcome to build this service.  I'm not sure most of us understand it exactly, but maybe once it is implemented we will "get it."  That, and let the net decide.  If people want to use it, they will... if not, they won't.  Either way, it would probably be a fun exercise in programming and learning the API.

-Chad
p.s. This whole thread has been very entertaining, I must say.

 

[Amir Michail]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Andrew Badera <and...@badera.us> wrote:
> define huge.
>
> I'm not famous, but have almost 2000 followers.

How did you accumulate this number? How many of them already knew
you? How many people did you follow (without taking away subsequent
"unfollows")?

Amir

[Andrew Badera]

how did I accumulate them? by being a participatory member of the community. by tying twitter into my blog and vice versa. by tying twitter into various other social media accounts.

I grew it organically.

[Stut]

On 9 Dec 2008, at 18:41, Andrew Badera wrote:
> define huge.
>
> I'm not famous, but have almost 2000 followers.
>
> early adopters probably have an easier time accruing large numbers
> of followers, as do celebrities, but fame is certainly not a
> requirement.

Absolutely. Be interesting, that's all it takes. And since everyone
deems interesting as something different it's not as hard as it
sounds. And huge is what you define it to be. If you're using Twitter
purely to get followers, IMHO you're not worth following. It's not a
popularity contest.

If you feel the need to force it, are you really providing value to
others?

Speaking of popularity contests, my latest Twitter-based project is
currently in private(ish) beta. To check it out sign up to the
following Google Group for access details: http://groups.google.com/group/twitorfit
- launching publicly at Twinterval on Monday.

-Stut

[Amir Michail]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Stut <stu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9 Dec 2008, at 18:41, Andrew Badera wrote:
>> define huge.
>>
>> I'm not famous, but have almost 2000 followers.
>>
>> early adopters probably have an easier time accruing large numbers
>> of followers, as do celebrities, but fame is certainly not a
>> requirement.
>
> Absolutely. Be interesting, that's all it takes. And since everyone
> deems interesting as something different it's not as hard as it
> sounds. And huge is what you define it to be. If you're using Twitter
> purely to get followers, IMHO you're not worth following. It's not a
> popularity contest.
>
> If you feel the need to force it, are you really providing value to
> others?
>

I think many of the "serious" twitter users are tweeting frequently
because it is part of their job. They really do need the traffic that
twitter drives to their web site.

And so I think there's a real need for a service that helps you
increase followers, especially ones who might actually find your
tweets interesting.

Amir

[Andrew Badera]

It sounds/feels like you're trying to force it, like you're imposing an artificial, redundant structure on top of Twitter ...

But why don't you go ahead and implement it and show us all how it works, how effective it is?

Less talk, more do.

[Ed Finkler]

> And so I think there's a real need for a service that helps you
> increase followers, especially ones who might actually find your
> tweets interesting.

"Need" seems like a strong word.

--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
AIM: funka7ron
ICQ: 3922133
Skype: funka7ron

[Emma Persky]

The easiest way to "get your message out" (i.e. have people that read
your tweets) on twitter is to use twitter. That is to say that if you
start interacting with people who are relevant to what you are
interested you will start conversations, and ultimately have more
people to spread your message to.

eg.

I use search.twitter.com or look in the public feed or look for people
my friends are following who are saying interesting things to me. I
@reply to one of their tweets. They @reply back to me because I said
something interesting and worthwhile. Their followers see the @reply,
wonder what it was a reply to, find me, then start following and
@replying me.

And thus twitter expands exponentially (well, sort of).

Start using twitter to have the conversations you are interesting in.
If you engage with interested people, they will listen.

Emma.

[Stut]

On 9 Dec 2008, at 18:55, Amir Michail wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Stut <stu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 9 Dec 2008, at 18:41, Andrew Badera wrote:
>>> define huge.
>>>
>>> I'm not famous, but have almost 2000 followers.
>>>
>>> early adopters probably have an easier time accruing large numbers
>>> of followers, as do celebrities, but fame is certainly not a
>>> requirement.
>>
>> Absolutely. Be interesting, that's all it takes. And since everyone
>> deems interesting as something different it's not as hard as it
>> sounds. And huge is what you define it to be. If you're using Twitter
>> purely to get followers, IMHO you're not worth following. It's not a
>> popularity contest.
>>
>> If you feel the need to force it, are you really providing value to
>> others?
>>
>
> I think many of the "serious" twitter users are tweeting frequently
> because it is part of their job. They really do need the traffic that
> twitter drives to their web site.
>
> And so I think there's a real need for a service that helps you
> increase followers, especially ones who might actually find your
> tweets interesting.

As with other people on the list I encourage you to develop something
if you believe it will add value to the Twitter ecosystem. However,
based on your description of what you're thinking I think you would
benefit from reversing the PR pitch to helping users find people to
follow rather than helping users get followers. It's a much better
proposition.

-Stut

[Anthony Papillion]

Amir,

I think I'm *kind of* getting why/how this might be useful to a certain segment of Twitter users. Personally, I think the best route would be to implement it so we could all 'get it' and that might help us all see the light.

It does sound interesting...

Warmly,
Anthony Papillion
Twitter: www.twitter.com/cajuntechie

   http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx?Domain=ULOOP.COM

[Chad Etzel]

Well, I think the problem of getting more followers has been creatively solved here:
http://twitter.com/GetFollowed

keep clicking the "Web" link in the bios to see a whole chain of accounts that will auto-follow you... lmao.

note: i did not have anything to do with this... @GetFollowed just happened to follow one of my accounts just now, and it reminded me of this thread.

-Chad

[DustyReagan]

The way I understand it, you want to create a CAPTCHA that uses the
twitter API. The CAPTCHA itself would be used anywhere someone needs a
CAPTCHA. Like my websites email newsletter signup. So the point of the
thing is to be and function as CAPTCHA. But instead of picking out
kittens, or reading letters, people would see a few of my tweets. So,
it's just one more spot to expose the user to my brand.

Did I get that right Amir?

If so, it sounds cool. If I, as a developer, need to setup a CAPTCHA
for whatever site I'm working on. It might as well be one that could
help my brand. (Aka possibly gain my Twitter account more followers.)

Dusty

On Dec 8, 9:51 pm, "Amir Michail" <amich...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> --http://b4utweet.comhttp://chatbotgame.comhttp://numbrosia.comhttp://t...

[Chad Etzel]

Now *that* could be interesting... creating an CAPTCHA API that uses twitter's API... not exactly what Amir is proposing (I don't think...), but that would be a cool use of tweets, perhaps...
-Chad

[Amir Michail]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 3:26 PM, DustyReagan <dusty...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> The way I understand it, you want to create a CAPTCHA that uses the
> twitter API. The CAPTCHA itself would be used anywhere someone needs a
> CAPTCHA. Like my websites email newsletter signup. So the point of the
> thing is to be and function as CAPTCHA. But instead of picking out
> kittens, or reading letters, people would see a few of my tweets. So,
> it's just one more spot to expose the user to my brand.
>
> Did I get that right Amir?

I wasn't thinking of using it that way. I was thinking of this as
being a different use of CAPTCHAs that has nothing to do with
security.

But sure, you can combine (security) CAPTCHAs with advertising.

Amir

[Amir Michail]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 3:33 PM, Amir Michail <amic...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 3:26 PM, DustyReagan <dusty...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> The way I understand it, you want to create a CAPTCHA that uses the
>> twitter API. The CAPTCHA itself would be used anywhere someone needs a
>> CAPTCHA. Like my websites email newsletter signup. So the point of the
>> thing is to be and function as CAPTCHA. But instead of picking out
>> kittens, or reading letters, people would see a few of my tweets. So,
>> it's just one more spot to expose the user to my brand.
>>
>> Did I get that right Amir?
>
> I wasn't thinking of using it that way. I was thinking of this as
> being a different use of CAPTCHAs that has nothing to do with
> security.
>
> But sure, you can combine (security) CAPTCHAs with advertising.
>
> Amir

BTW, I've been using the term "CAPTCHA" incorrectly. It stands for
"Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans
Apart."

What I describe here isn't automated. Users must submit a question to
test comprehension of their tweet selection.

But like a CAPTCHA, we want to make sure this is not a computer (or
mindless clicking by a human).