In what may be a first a aff_link("https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160229562828","Twitter account has been put up for sale on eBay","","UK"); ?>. Andrew Baron has 1400 people following his tweets and is selling them to the highest bidder, 99p no reserve with the current high bid at $455.00
He’s offering what he describes as “an account with a pre-installed audience”, although he does point out that all his followers could jump ship the moment someone else buys the account.
The big question raised is is it worth buying friends / followers / readers from a social networking site? It’s very easy for people to unsubscribe so the value could be transient to say the least. What isn’t being offered is a hand over period where the new owner twitters concurrently with the old tweeter.
If you were a subscriber how would you feel about being sold to the highest bidder?
Via TechCrunch
12 Responses
I’d be off like a shot if the new owner didn’t tweet anything I was interested in!
I would have expected that Twitter would close the account PDQ.
Not in a million years do I believe that this scheme will work.
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The Masked Millionaire
Am I correct in assuming that Twitter is Bebo for people who are too mature to admit that they like the idea of bebo?
Not really – a grwon up Bebo would be Facebook.
Twitter is a constant stream of your latest thoughts/what you’re doing which can be sent by almost any device including PDA / Mobile phone.
I think the question about being sold to the highest bidder, is one that will provoke a lot of thought. If anything it makes me reflect on how we are well and truly embroiled in the information age. This is a trade that deals in virtual information to virtual friends, one might argue that it is virtually pointless anyway. In this instance “we”, the reader of the twitter stream, are very much the commodity, and in that case I guess that it’s no different to any marketing information a company might buy from any of the more usual market research sources etc.
Whether we/I would jump ship is wholly objective, if the purchaser of the stream follows a similar pattern and has similar interests then why would we? Unless we object in principle to the idea of being a commodity full stop. Some might stay just for the kudos, of being among the 1st electronically traded virtual friends.
The other thing is, this must be getting the twitter feed traffic and publicity. Which is a very old fashioned concept, no publicity is bad publicity and all that! ?
The internet has created a whole new level of stupidity, how utterly ridiculous.
No Whirly, the stupidity has always been there… it is just higher in our viewfinder, that’s all…. 🙄
I stand corrected 😀
a constant stream of my latest thoughts !
who on earth would want to know that!
its still utterly ridiculous
Ta Mountie.
Still scary though.
The only people I could imagine having a use for a system which instantaneously broadcasts your musings to a flock of sheep would be some kind of Supreme axis of Evil (Hitler, Osama, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O Reilly, Peter Mandleson, Simon Cowell etc.) .
I Shan’t be bidding, quelle surprise…
system which instantaneously broadcasts your musings
Never tell Bondy about the TB RSS feed…. 😯