When Tweet-Suckers Choke

Posted on September 2nd, 2009
Written by Richard
Posted in: N/A (old archives)

Today, I get a DM on twitter from none other than StockTwits. They said:

“please stop promoting your free webinars on our stream. thanks”

Earlier in the day, I had mentioned our free webinar with Ruth Barrons Roosevelt on my twitter account.

I’ve come across this issue a lot recently. Services like this, and trading forums, have it backwards in my opinion. They put artificial value on a bunch of amateurs having endless banal conversations. “Oh no my $GOOG is under water. What now?” is a valuable contribution. “I’m hosting a free webinar with an accomplished trader, author, and psychology expert at my expense” is unwanted spam.

I understand why sites like this adopt such severe stances against promotion, but if you can’t find the baby then check the bathwater, ‘cuz I think they were thrown out together.

Not to mention, out of curiosity I went to look at their “stream,” and on the first page alone I see all kinds of promotion. Here’s three items in a row, even (click to enlarge):

Picture 1

In fact, nearly every post I see has a link to something. I’m sure they’ll all be getting similar DM’s telling them to stop, real soon. Yeah, right…

Of course, not every tweet was a promotion. Here’s a valuable entry that I’m glad I noticed:

Picture 2

But, it’s their service and their arbitrary terms of use, so I didn’t complain. Instead I asked how to opt out of their tweet-sucking service. You see, all I did was post to twitter… they pulled my message into their stream because they look for stuff with dollar signs in it. I think they started doing this the moment I ‘followed’ them on twitter. Now they want to tell me what I can and can’t say.

I guess if I posted some perl code, they’d turn around and advertise that on their stream, as well! my $var = 69, fuckers! Deal with it.

Services like this have their appeal, especially as a sort of social gathering place, and God bless ‘em for that. Check StockTwits out, if you haven’t. Maybe you’ll like it. Still, I want the free use of my ‘$’ key back. Stop sucking on my tweets! :-)

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