sending DM to all followers?

[Alex]

I'm wondering if there is a way - or if you would consider adding a
way - to send a DM to all followers via the API?

Obviously we could grab the followers list and iterate over it to send
the DM to all, though that could require thousands of API calls
depending on the user. (And could therefore take hours to do with the
100 API query/hour limit.)

[Chad Etzel]

I believe that's called "Tweeting"
-Chad

[Jesse Stay]

Please don't.

@Jesse

[Doug Williams]

Alex,
That sounds very spamish although there are certainly some use cases where it is acceptable. Proceed with caution when sending mass DMs.  Ensure the messages you are sending are relevant and of value to your followers.

Doug Williams
Twitter API Support
http://twitter.com/dougw

[Cameron Kaiser]

> > I'm wondering if there is a way - or if you would consider adding a
> > way - to send a DM to all followers via the API?
>

> I believe that's called "Tweeting"

Indeed. Mass DMs are bad manners IMHO.

--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- "Endian Little Hate We" -- credits from Connectix Virtual PC 6 for Mac -----

[Alex]

I understand the negative implications of doing this. The main reason
I ask is that I've had my users ask me.

There are other sites offering such features, and their web sites
imply they have some kind of special relationship with Twitter that
allows them to do this. I'm not sure if that's true or not?

On Apr 14, 7:46 pm, Doug Williams <d...@twitter.com> wrote:
> Alex,
> That sounds very spamish although there are certainly some use cases where
> it is acceptable. Proceed with caution when sending mass DMs. Ensure the
> messages you are sending are relevant and of value to your followers.
>
> Doug Williams

> Twitter API Supporthttp://twitter.com/dougw

>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Chad Etzel <jazzyc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I believe that's called "Tweeting"
> > -Chad
>

[Doug Williams]

No,
There is no special arrangement needed to send DMs through the API.

Doug Williams
Twitter API Support

http://twitter.com/dougw

[Dossy Shiobara]

It's one way of pruning your followers ... :-)

------Original Message------
From: Cameron Kaiser
Sender: twitter-deve...@googlegroups.com
To: twitter-deve...@googlegroups.com
ReplyTo: twitter-deve...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [twitter-dev] Re: sending DM to all followers?
Sent: Apr 14, 2009 7:49 PM

> > I'm wondering if there is a way - or if you would consider adding a
> > way - to send a DM to all followers via the API?
>

> I believe that's called "Tweeting"

Indeed. Mass DMs are bad manners IMHO.

--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- "Endian Little Hate We" -- credits from Connectix Virtual PC 6 for Mac -----

--
Dossy Shiobara
do...@panoptic.com

[Carlos Crosetti]

Your timeline update is doing that already, what is the scenario you are thinking of?

--
Carlos Crosetti

[Jesse Stay]

Please, if you do this, provide an opt-out so those that don't want to receive the mass dms don't have to receive them.  I wish more apps would do this, for both mass-dm and auto-dm.

@Jesse

[Dossy Shiobara]

On 4/15/09 5:31 AM, Jesse Stay wrote:
> Please, if you do this, provide an opt-out so those that don't want to
> receive the mass dms don't have to receive them. I wish more apps would
> do this, for both mass-dm and auto-dm.

Opt-out = unfollow. Twitter's already provided the mechanism.

--
Dossy Shiobara | do...@panoptic.com | http://dossy.org/
Panoptic Computer Network | http://panoptic.com/
"He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)

[Jesse Stay]

Uh, no - I can't opt to unfollow every person that auto-dms or mass dms me.  I don't have time to manually unfollow all these people.  Please give me the option to not receive these and save me the time.

Jesse

[stevenic]

Jesse, so what is it about mass DMs that bugs you? Just curious? You
would only recieve one DM and it would look like any other DM. So
what's the issue?

I agree with Chad though... There's already a way to do this....
Update your status... I know where you're going with this feature
though and what you really want is groups. But that's just not the
Twitter way...

-steve

[Jesse Stay]

stevenic, after so many followers, that one DM cascades into hundreds.  I don't want my DM box filled with people wanting to sell me stuff.  I want the choice to control that - I don't want the marketers controlling that. I'm surprised there aren't more people here speaking out against this.

Jesse

[ray]

I'm with Jesse on this one

[emergingtech]

There are plenty of available media sources that support mass
advertising and there is no need to add Twitter to the list.

Please bury this idea.
@emergingtech

[Peter Denton]

Dont follow the person, they can DM you. Dossy already said this. Twitter has built in preventative controls called un follow.
The cost of losing a followers is greater the gain of DM'ing them. If someone wants to DM all of their followers, their should be a relative value to the user. I have done it when everyone was getting something specific to them.  If they dont like it, they can un-follow me.

--
Peter M. Denton
www.twibs.com
in...@twibs.com

Twibs makes Top 20 apps on Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/bopu6c

[Nicole Simon]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:12 PM, ray <ray.p...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm with Jesse on this one

This is like giving somebody the key to the house and then complain
that people can 'just' get into the house.

If you don't want to be DMed by certain people, dont follow them.
If you do get something from them, unfollow.

Use Optout lists from Services who offer them like tweetlater.

write a skript which will unfollow everyone who dm's you.

Choose not to receive dm.

Or set up a filter in your email programm to spam certain DM automatically.

At the end of the day it all boils down to: If you follow people, they can
DM you, period. If you dont like it, be more selective about who you
follow.

Nicole

[Abraham Williams]

For me Twitter is a *person* to *person* communication service. Mass DMs don't fit into that model in a useful way. To stray from this would in my view be the beginning of the end.

Abraham

--
Abraham Williams | http://the.hackerconundrum.com
Hacker | http://abrah.am | http://twitter.com/abraham
Web608 | Community Evangelist | http://web608.org
This email is: [ ] blogable [x] ask first [ ] private.

[Ed Costello]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Nicole Simon <nee...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you don't want to be DMed by certain people, dont follow them.
If you do get something from them, unfollow.

I'm fine with getting DM'd by *people* I follow.  But I don't expect to get DM'd by @cnnbrk or @jetblue unless I'm directly engaging them.  There's no granularity to separate getting DM'd by a friend I follow from DM'd by a bot powering a corporate account.

Alternately, if you want the ability to spam DM everyone who follows a given account, then there must be a corresponding feature to block DMs from accounts one follows.

--
-ed costello
@epc

[Nicole Simon]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:42 PM, Ed Costello <epcos...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm fine with getting DM'd by *people* I follow.  But I don't expect to get DM'd by @cnnbrk or @jetblue unless I'm directly engaging them.  There's no granularity to separate getting DM'd by a friend I follow from DM'd by a bot powering a corporate account.

Then why are you following those 'bots powered by corporate account' so that they can DM you?
Especially since every twitter account is also available by RSS?

Alternately, if you want the ability to spam DM everyone who follows a given account, then there must be a corresponding feature to block DMs from accounts one follows.

It is called don't follow but read the content elsewhere. 

You can't have the cake and eat it.

Do you really think twitter as a company should spend their dev time in making separation which are down to each person to decide rather than keeping the system running?

If you want that feature, build a system which retrieves all your DMS and allows you to set them as 'friends' and 'bad bots' and only let those through which you want to see.

Again: this is not a twitter problem, but a usage tool.

Nicole

[Chad Etzel]

While I don't condone mass DMs (disclosure: i have a "twitter groups"
site that actually allows ppl to DM to groups of people, but not all
of their followers), I'm kind of on the other side of the fence here.

I wish there was a mechanism that would allow people to DM me that I
*don't* follow.

I want people to be able to reach me via DM w/o having to add them to
my "following" and clutter up my timeline. Having a public
back-and-forth

userA: "@jazzychad can you follow me so i can DM you?"
me: "@userA i'd rather you email me instead"
userA: "@jazzychad ok, what's your email?"
me: "@userA if you weren't an idiot you could find it in the bio link
on my twitter profile"

Dunno, maybe it's just me, but I don't want to have to follow a
billion people to make it easy for them to ask me something privately.

At any rate, if you don't want auto-DMs from somebody, just unfollow
them. If you're too busy to unfollow somebody, you should just quit
the internet entirely.

-Chad

[jmoline]

Yeah, I have to agree with the above post by Nicole.

Believe it or not, the fact that some people don't want this is an
argument for it, because it demonstrates that there is a difference
between simply "updating your status" (as others have suggested as an
alternative) and DMing all followers.

As for it being unpractical to unfollow them because you have so many
users, well, that's a cost of the approach to twitter that advocates
following a bunch of people to build up your own follower list (for
the record, there's nothing wrong with that approach, I'm just
saying).

James

On Apr 16, 2:35 pm, Nicole Simon <nee...@gmail.com> wrote:

[guruvan]

Doug,

What kind of use case do you think that would be acceptable in? I
simply can't imagine one that's not going to be spam.

On Apr 14, 7:46 pm, Doug Williams <d...@twitter.com> wrote:

> Alex,
> That sounds very spamish although there are certainly some use cases where
> it is acceptable. Proceed with caution when sending mass DMs.  Ensure the
> messages you are sending are relevant and of value to your followers.
>
> Doug Williams

> Twitter API Supporthttp://twitter.com/dougw

>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Chad Etzel <jazzyc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I believe that's called "Tweeting"
> > -Chad
>

[mrboilermaker]

Even as a marketer, and someone who uses social media in marketing
efforts I am not in favor of mass DMing. If people are actively
interested in what I have to say they will follow me (or my company) -
if I have an event, webinar, product release, whatever to promote I
update my status and it is in my time line - as soon as we marketers
start pushing things down peoples throats we could possibly kill a
great tool like twitter.

just my .02

@mrboilermaker

[guruvan]

Stevenic,

If I received one, just one tiny little DM from each one of my
followers, every day, I would get more than 30 times the amount of
spam that my email gets. And I've had that same email account (not
this one) for over 10years. Why should I be subjected to every
"twitter secrets" marketing message under the sun?

[guruvan]

Dossy, not this doesn't work for me. I don't really a) have time or b)
want to unfollow a new follower (and likely new user of twitter)
because of poor first judgement. I would like to simply opt-out of
those types of messages. At even just a couple thousand followers, I
get so many of those a day I can't see my "real" DMs from people I
wish to talk to.

Unfollow is the wrong choice.

[guruvan]

Please don't do this in any way shape or form. It's bad manners, bad
form, and straight up spamming.

[guruvan]

I use services to block auto-DMs. If I receive unsolicited links, I
not only unfollow the user, I block them. I will encourage EVERYONE I
know to do the same. IIRC the twitter spam policy say thatif enough
users block you you will have your account suspended.

I will be suggesting to people that they actively start blocking
anyone and everyone who sends them unsolicited marketing messages
and / or links via DM.

That's obviously the only way to combat spammers.

It's amazing to see that you people somehow think that because it's a
DM on twitter it's not spam just like the same junk would be in my
email.

Mass DMing is one of the things that is dropping the value of a)
followers and b) bothering with an account on twitter.

> i...@twibs.com

[Jesse Stay]

Apps that provide this capability have the responsibility to let us opt-out. I don't see the problem here. If people don't want to receive DMs from your app, why should they have to. Plain and simple.  I follow people not to receive marketing DMs from them, but rather so they can communicate with me, real communication.  If I had to unfollow every single person that did this, I wouldn't have any time to get anything else done - it's annoying, and making Twitter worthless to me as a user.

Apps have an ethical responsibility to provide opt-out, plain and simple if they're going to enable the sending of mass-DMs in any way.  I didn't opt-into getting sales advertisements from the people I follow when I joined Twitter.

I don't see what the problem is here - what's so wrong with providing an opt-out feature?  Is there any way we can get this in the Terms of Use Alex (Payne)?

Jesse

[Dossy Shiobara]

On 4/16/09 5:34 PM, guruvan wrote:
> Unfollow is the wrong choice.

True. "Block" is more appropriate, but "unfollow" was my more gentle
suggestion.

[Nicole Simon]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:34 PM, guruvan <gur...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dossy, not this doesn't work for me. I don't really a) have time or b)
want to unfollow a new follower (and likely new user of twitter)
because of poor first judgement. I would like to simply opt-out of
those types of messages. At even just a couple thousand followers, I
get so many of those a day I can't see my "real" DMs from people I
wish to talk to.

If you don't have the time to do it, then hire somebody to do it.

Or don't follow people and make better judegement.

And again; You can switch off receiving DMs.

You can provide a link to a contact form with your website.

You can even put up your email address in your profile
as the picture.

You have all the tools but you want somebody else to do the
work for you.

btw I am in no way saying that I do agree with Mass DM or anything.
It is just that you do blame the wrong part of the equation for it.

Nicole

[bmoreslumwatch]

Please don't mess with Twitter and turn it into "just another"
communication tool. We don't want to mass DM our followers, and we
certainly don't want them mass DM-ing us. If they can't say what they
want to say to us in 140 characters or less, they can go to the
website and contact us that way.

PLEASE don't create a mass DM feature. We can't imagine anything
worse.

BSLW

[Nicole Simon]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:59 PM, Jesse Stay <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:

Apps have an ethical responsibility to provide opt-out, plain and simple if they're going to enable the sending of mass-DMs in any way.  I didn't opt-into getting sales advertisements from the people I follow when I joined Twitter.

It is never about the responsible ones, it is always about the stupid ones.

Even if opt out is required, then people will pay people to write the DM per hand as there is money to make.
DM is like email and should be handled the same way.

And btw why it is okay for you to have a gazillion apps with an optout but you cannot set up filters to filter out those messages?

Nicole

[Jesse Stay]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 4:00 PM, Nicole Simon <nee...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:34 PM, guruvan <gur...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dossy, not this doesn't work for me. I don't really a) have time or b)
want to unfollow a new follower (and likely new user of twitter)
because of poor first judgement. I would like to simply opt-out of
those types of messages. At even just a couple thousand followers, I
get so many of those a day I can't see my "real" DMs from people I
wish to talk to.

If you don't have the time to do it, then hire somebody to do it.

Am I really hearing this right?  So now *I* have to lose money because I'm getting spam??? Yeah right.

 

Or don't follow people and make better judegement.

I have my own way of using Twitter - why should the spammers dictate this for me? The minute I lose this control is the minute Twitter loses its value for me.

 

And again; You can switch off receiving DMs.

How do I switch off receiving DMs?  I get DMs no matter what.  I can turn off notifications, but not DMs.

btw I am in no way saying that I do agree with Mass DM or anything.
It is just that you do blame the wrong part of the equation for it.

It certainly sounds like you do.  What auto-DM or mass-DM service are you running again?

Jesse

[TjL]

@TwitReport has, until today, auto-followed anyone who followed it,
for functionality of the app (basically, being able to get a DM with
some basic information about your new follower).

In the last few days apparently it ended up on some "list" of
auto-followers, and I saw about 50 new followers, about half of whom
sent some spammy bull-patty nonsense to me via DM in the guise of a
"Hey, thanks for the follow WANT TO MAKE MONEY" etc.

I don't think most of them were even using the service, they just
wanted to be able to get their message out by any means necessary.

So now @TwitReport doesn't auto-follow, and the usefulness is
decreased, all because some people have to piss all over everything by
turning it into some marketing tool.

For what it's worth.

TjL

[Chad Etzel]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Jesse Stay <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:
>  I didn't opt-into getting sales advertisements from the
> people I follow when I joined Twitter.

Uh, yes you did. Following somebody = opt-in to receive *whatever*
they want to send you. If the value of the crap they DM or tweet at
you decreases, unfollow them. You can also follow people through RSS,
or Search, or on TweetGrid in a group, all w/o officially following
them on twitter....

-Chad

[Jesse Stay]

That's a separate issue. Twitter needs to provide more data to allow filters and people will write them (and my service, SocialToo, is very much working on this).  Forcing the source field and the ability to tell what app sent a DM is one of those steps I'd like to see.  Categorization of users is another.

Regardless, it's an ethical responsibility for apps to provide opt-out if they're going to submit us users to this.  I already know users stopping their use of Twitter because of this type of activity.

Jesse

[Nicole Simon]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Jesse Stay <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you don't have the time to do it, then hire somebody to do it.

Am I really hearing this right?  So now *I* have to lose money because I'm getting spam??? Yeah right.

If you do not know how to use the tools, then please use a manual. There are enough
basic twitter books around.

How do I switch off receiving DMs?  I get DMs no matter what.  I can turn off notifications, but not DMs.

Twitter really has not a lot of options. If you do not know how to do that, you obviously never looked.

http://twitter.com/account/notifications 

May I ask what you do on the _developper_ list if you do not even know this much?

btw I am in no way saying that I do agree with Mass DM or anything.
It is just that you do blame the wrong part of the equation for it.

It certainly sounds like you do.  What auto-DM or mass-DM service are you running again?

None. As a matter of fact, as the author of the German twitter book it specifically
states that you are stupid to use such DM and the best way to loose your followers,
get banned by twitter, and pointed out by people in other systems like blogs.

also it is one of the things every single customer of mine gets to hear from me
if they want or not (in the greater scheme of how to do intelligent social media).

Every single time I do collect twitter users (like for example for the lists I do
host about twitter users from certain areas in Germany) I do ask specifically
for an email address which is then processed by double opt in, clearly marked
as "do you understand that if you click 'inform me about updates you will
receive such notice".

Of course there will always eb people who then complain about getting
such information like yourself, but for people like you there is the "this
is where you unsubscribe from the information you actually requested".

Nicole

--
Jetzt im Buchhandel:
"Twitter - Mit 140 Zeichen zum Web 2.0"
Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/6at9c5

http://mit140zeichen.de - http://twitter.com/m140z

Kontakt:
http://twitter.com/NicoleSimon
https://www.xing.com/profile/Nicole_Simon

skype: nicole.simon / mailto:nicole...@mit140zeichen.de
phone: +49 451 899 75 03 / mobile: +49 179 499 7076

[Jesse Stay]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Nicole Simon <nee...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Jesse Stay <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you don't have the time to do it, then hire somebody to do it.

Am I really hearing this right?  So now *I* have to lose money because I'm getting spam??? Yeah right.

If you do not know how to use the tools, then please use a manual. There are enough
basic twitter books around.

What does that have to do with me paying to stop receiving spam? Oh, you mean purchase your book.

 

How do I switch off receiving DMs?  I get DMs no matter what.  I can turn off notifications, but not DMs.

Twitter really has not a lot of options. If you do not know how to do that, you obviously never looked.

http://twitter.com/account/notifications 

I don't see anywhere on there that says "turn off my DMs".  I see plenty of "don't send me e-mail or SMS when I receive DM".  Nothing turns off my DMs.

May I ask what you do on the _developper_ list if you do not even know this much?

Careful taking this argument personal - see my comment above.

Jesse

[Chad Etzel]

Jesse,

If I may ask (and I promise I'm not trying to make this personal, I
really am just curious), what is the value of following 14,000 people?
Surely you know anyone of them could send you a DM at any time? How
do you keep up with them all?

Basically, what is your reason for following a large number of people?
(I have heard answers from other people following large volumes, but I
am curious about your use-case).

-Chad

[Abraham Williams]

I think this thread has run its course.

--
Abraham Williams | http://the.hackerconundrum.com
Hacker | http://abrah.am | http://twitter.com/abraham
Web608 | Community Evangelist | http://web608.org

This email is: [ ] blogable [x] ask first [ ] private.
Sent from Madison, Wisconsin, United States

[Jesse Stay]

Chad, the value is 1) I get to show a token of appreciation for them following me - even if I can't listen to everyone I am at least willing to give them the opportunity to be discovered, and most importantly, 2) I want them to have the ability to communicate with me via DM if they want to.  Note that this does not mean I want Sales or marketing messages from them.  I can't tell you the number of people I've heard get mad because someone with x number of followers won't follow them back.  I'm just giving them that good feeling inside that at least I'm willing to try.

However, as we've all said, the downside is the marketers and sales people and scammers are all taking advantage of this now.  Yes, I unfollow and block the people that do it, but doing so up to hundreds of times daily is a huge waste of time!  This is just one way of using Twitter. I chose to use it this way because I can.  Apps should take this into consideration, be considerate, and let me (and hundreds of thousands of others) keep using it this way if I want to by providing opt-out on DMs I don't want to receive.

@Jesse

[Chad Etzel]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 6:53 PM, Jesse Stay <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Chad, the value is 1) I get to show a token of appreciation for them
> following me - even if I can't listen to everyone I am at least willing to
> give them the opportunity to be discovered, and most importantly, 2) I want
> them to have the ability to communicate with me via DM if they want to.

Yes, this is the case where I would like to receive DMs from people
that I am not following. I do appreciate the people that follow
everyone back so they can be DM'd, but I imagine it doesn't help those
people (or you) really follow the core group of people you'd like to
very closely (tho there are tools for that, which I'm sure you use),
and I'm sure it puts a hurt on Twitters servers by having to connect
all those edges on the graph.

Thank you for your explanation. I think we're all on the same side of
the argument here, it's just the implementation/practice we're worried
about.

-Chad

[Jesse Stay]

Unfortunately, until Twitter fixes this, I think applications need to have a responsibility to fix this flaw by offering opt-out for those that don't want to receive the DMs their apps send out.

Jesse

[Cameron Kaiser]

> I think this thread has run its course.

We should take it to DM.

--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- Once used rectally, [it] should not be used orally. --Real thermometer label

[Marco Kaiser]

2009/4/17 Nicole Simon <nee...@gmail.com>

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Jesse Stay <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:

How do I switch off receiving DMs?  I get DMs no matter what.  I can turn off notifications, but not DMs.

Twitter really has not a lot of options. If you do not know how to do that, you obviously never looked.

http://twitter.com/account/notifications 

Uhm... I think you got this completely wrong, as Jesse already pointed out. These settings only control offline notifications via SMS or Email, but they don't make your account stop receiving DMs. It's just plain false what you say here.
 

May I ask what you do on the _developper_ list if you do not even know this much?

Hold on - this is an open group, for everyone to share with little or much knowledge about the Twiter API. In fact, one of its main purposes is to give beginners a chance to learn about twitter development. What kind of attitude is it to say you shouldn't be on this list if you don't know about it. It's not a closed circle of professionals, and even if it would be - Jesse would definitely belong in here, as he is a long-time participant and very active developer. I think no one wants to see such behavior here, it's a place to discuss questions about twitter, and not to start flaming other group members.

Marco