Strange fruit
Earlier this week I had call to ask what all the #moonfruit tweets were about on Twitter. 
Turns out it was a promotion from a company of the same name that was giving away an Apple computer a day and all you had to do was add #moonfruit to your tweets.
Now, I don’t blame these guys. Smart marketing move – and as I write it’s the top trending topic on Twitter (#iranelection is 7th) so they got it right.
But people mindlessly typing in #moonfruit every few minutes?
Do you know this organisation? Do you know if they do good work? Do you care? Are you really happy to metaphorically reply uh huh okay as they yank your chain and wave Apple products under your nose?
So one free Mac a day? Just what are your chances of winning? How many #moonfruit tweets does it take hit number one in trends?
And just what wouldn’t you tweet for a freebie? How long before all tweets come to you…courtesy of #mcdonalds (tweet this and get a free quarter pounder). Where do you draw the line? Is your 140 characters for hire?
This is has got marketing bandwagon written all over it – they’re all so going to jump on this.
Before long every tweet will be squeezed up in order to hashtag another brand name at the end on the off chance of a free latte or new Barf Flavoured Coca Cola.
Hey we got a new way to talk about what *we* like for a change…oh hang on…Starbucks want me to give them a plug. Mmmm I got a mocha with extra hazelnut syrup. Ah well free speech – fun while it lasted.
This isn’t a charity. It’s people making money and fooling you into advertising their product.
Would you give these people an ad on your blog for the promise of being added to thousand to one draw for an iPod?
What is up with you people?
“Do you know this organisation? Do you know if they do good work? Do you care?
Where do you draw the line?”
Very good questions, and it saddens me to think that most people really don’t even consider them. Personally, I draw the line at giving free marketing for an organisation/company/group unless I would personally recommend their products or services. If they have dodgy business practices (that I’m aware of – none of us can know every detail) then I don’t care what they are giving away, I don’t want any part of it. If they test on animals, I don’t want any part of it.
It would be nice to see valid and worthy charities getting some ‘trending topics’ love the way this stupid Moonfruit thing has, and for the most part I find Twitter to be a pretty friendly community for that sort of thing – when I did a charity zipline jump from the Baltic last year I got more donations from Twitter folks who’d never even met me, than I did from family and friends! All we can do on our part is to try and ignore the rubbish, and spread the word about good products, people and charity work
Well said. I think it’s a sorry state of affairs for the Twitterverse, especially as it kept #MrsSlocombesPussy in the number two spot…
Really it’s just another example of Twitter’s explosion into commercial inanity, and its inability to deal with garbage. I’m getting so many spammers in my follower list at the moment that I’m starting to ignore it completely, which is a shame because there are still so many great contacts to be made there.
Fortunately, I’ve not seen a single tweet containing that hashtag all day, which says a lot about the integrity of people in my network, and the respect they have for the medium and their followers.
I’m tempted to find out what Moonfruit actually do, but I’m loathed to give them another unique hit on their website. Spamming b*stards.
It’s interesting to see how a platform like Twitter, which seems like it was built to minimise spam with its separate follower and followee networks, is still susceptible. Whether that’s by spambots, hacks, or hijacking trending topics (does that even have any value now?).
Ultimately, I guess, to borrow a phrase from Jurassic Park, “spam will find a way”
A fair point – even if the “What is up with you people?” insults my intelligence. I’ve tweeted the #moonfruit thing like a lot of other people. I need a MacBook Pro – I have a specific project I need a laptop for, editing video footage from a student project in Cambodia which I have spectacularly failed to do on a PC so far, I’m skint, and MacBooks are not raining from the skies. Yes, it is a clever marketing move, now you’ve blogged about it, they may even give you a MacBook, and you know full well you wouldn’t stamp on it when you could sell it or give it away. I’ll have it.
As it happens, I do know who Moonfruit are – I used them almost ten years ago when I was getting into web development as they provided a more aesthetically pleasing alternative to other online site builders like Geocities and Tripod. They’ve evolved quite gracefully and give people an opportunity to build simple web content with a low barrier to entry.
Apart from Moonfruit, I have also tweeted codes for free food from Graze.com, recommended web apps and sites, films, music, and not least tweeted a lot of the more interesting content I’ve read on Cambodia, development, environment and whatever else – including your content. You recommend a lot of good stuff yourself, and I look out for your recommendations even if I don’t always follow them up.
The issue is not whether Moonfruit ‘does good work’, as, last time I checked, that isn’t a prerequisite for being promoted on Twitter. Good for Moonfruit for what appears to have been a very successful campaign for them, but I suspect they may break the mould in doing this. People will tire of it quickly enough. Maybe McDonalds, Starbucks and whoever else will start to follow Moonfruit’s example and offer up prizes left, right and centre in exchange for people ‘mindlessly’ tweeting hashtags promoting them. Maybe you just unfollow anyone that’s pissing you off enough by doing it, or maybe the people you follow won’t be daft enough to fall for every hashtag marketing campaign going.
I’ve got my own issues with Twitter. Endless tweets about Mollie Sugden’s pussy. The same links being repeated ad nauseam by people who don’t bother to check for duplication. Tedious memes. Gullible masses who thought Jeff Goldblum was dead when it was so obviously a scam. Unfollowing repeat offenders fixes a lot of that. What is at once enjoyable and frustrating about Twitter is that it never stays put, and I even notice my behaviour on Twitter is different depending upon my mood. Like today, when I’m feeling arsey and intolerant, so I just don’t tweet much.
If this moronic hashtag apocalypse you’re predicting happens, I’ll probably walk away and curse the whole thing, but Twitter’s still far too useful, far too enjoyable for that.
It’s not Facebook, for crying out loud.
Firstly apoogies to Nathan – never meant to insult anyone’s intelligent and you’re probably right – that phrase was uncalled for.
And yes..if I win a Macbook it’s yours.
I take your points but also think all this is – as a couple of people have pointed out today is spam. It’s a clever way around it but spam none the less. I’ve seen a few people on Twitter start to get grouchy with it today and although no doubt Moonfruit will be delighted with their publicity the next people who try it won’t be as successful.
There are plenty of people on Twitter whose intelligent I would gladly insult – but no one I follow and certainly not your own.
(still think it’s a pain in the arse campaign though ;op )
Dan – I still think there is tremendous value in Twitter and hopefully those at Twitter HQ will find new ways to control spam. I think most people who retweeted Moonfruit didn’t really think about it from a marketing point of view – they a) wanted a free Mac and b) thought it was fun. As I said earlier – if people start to get grouchy about it now then perhaps we can stop it becoming a feature – at least in our own networks.
minxlj – I think Twitter people are good people. I think the culture of it has always been about supporting each other – swapping favours etc and, in particular, in the NFP offering advice and support and retweets for free.
I have a small issue with being told by charities to – for every retweet we give 10p – or whatever so when it comes to corporates using the same tactics. Ick.
It has the potential to get way out of control – although I guess you just have to police who you follow and unfollow.
Anyway, just wanted to make a point (and yes I was grouchy today – sorry).
I feel a little bit sheepish after leaping to the defence of Moonfruit because ironically, after commending Moonfruit yesterday for their campaign, I have unfollowed the @moontweet account. Turns out that while I wasn’t so fussed about seeing the occasional reference to #Moonfruit from others, I got sick of them retweeting entries and other banalities.
Rory Cellan-Jones has just blogged about the Moonfruit thing as well – http://is.gd/1mdJP.
They’re only into the third of ten days of the campaign, and it might be safe to say that people will be sick of the sight of #moonfruit tweets by the time it’s done. What gives me some hope is that other ‘innovative’ campaigns in the past have only proved to be successful with the benefit of novelty. The Facebook Burger King promotion where people removed friends in exchange for Burgers was shut down by Facebook, presumably when they realised that it was damaging the network or jeopardising retention, and hasn’t been run again in any other form since. It’s a distinct possibility that if Twitter is clever enough about the use of the service for marketing, that they’ll police it.
I can see Twitter moving to a paid model where subscribers get ad-free tweet streams, while basic members get tweet streams with messages from Coca-Cola and whoever else. Serious users who don’t want all the fluff will happily stump up a monthly fee – well, I know I would.
You’re absolutely right to raise your concerns about this and I do essentially agree with them – hey, guess who else was grouchy yesterday. I suppose I have some faith that Twitter doesn’t have to make quite the mess of advertising and marketing that other services have, and that as you said, personal policing of who you follow can make a lot of difference.
Like you said:
“I think most people who retweeted Moonfruit didn’t really think about it from a marketing point of view – they a) wanted a free Mac and b) thought it was fun”
Which pretty much answers the questions raised in your post:
“Do you know this organisation? Do you know if they do good work? Do you care? Are you really happy to metaphorically reply uh huh okay as they yank your chain and wave Apple products under your nose?”
Most people act based on a ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality (that’s human nature, not selfishness). They’re not bothered about whether or not they’re marketing some brand off their own Twitter accounts, only that they have a shot at winning a MacBook Pro. If the trade off is a minimal investment of time and costs nothing to Twitterers, what’s a few #moonfruit tweets when they tweet about things like what they’re having for breakfast? Twitterers probably attribute the same level of importance for both these kind of tweets – something mentioned in passing that will be forgotten by the next update.
I’d like to think most Twitterers are intelligent enough to tell the difference between personal endorsements and jumping on the marketing bandwagon, so there’s no danger of the majority being misled by all the hashtags and retweets.
I also wouldn’t worry about the prospect of every tweet having a marketing hashtag on it. Any benefits for the Twitterer have to be as desirable as the MacBook Pro, otherwise it’s really not worth the effort. Besides, people will get sick of it after a while and unfollow these overzealous hashtag marketing Twitterers, or stop using Twitter altogether.
On my part, I try not to spam others with too many #moonfruit tweets and maybe get a little creative with the hashtag use, when my brain permits.
As far as the chances of winning goes, it’s the same reason why people play the lottery. It doesn’t matter what the odds are, as long as you’re the person who goes home with the prize. The odds, are looking pretty good to me.
@Rebekah Hah
“Most people act based on a ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality (that’s human nature, not selfishness)”
No – that’s both. If you’re continually tweeting #moonfruit then you don’t care at all about clogging people’s feed – you do care about winning the Mac.
“I’d like to think most Twitterers are intelligent enough to tell the difference between personal endorsements and jumping on the marketing bandwagon”
But you did jump on the marketing bandwagon by continually tweeting moonfruit.
I think you are mixing up endorsements with simple brand and name awareness. You and others have been happily tweeting the name and promoting the brand in return for a very slight chance of winning.
“Besides, people will get sick of it after a while and unfollow these overzealous hashtag marketing Twitterers, or stop using Twitter altogether.”
Exactly – you are doing something you know will eventually sicken people to a point whereby they unfollow and yet you defend it?
“On my part, I try not to spam others with too many #moonfruit tweets and maybe get a little creative with the hashtag use, when my brain permits.”
I don’t want the people I follow to get creative with marketing a product for somebody else. Just how creative and entertaining can you be just repeating a word? I want to learn something via Twitter or see or read something interesting.
Repeating a single word is never going to give that.
A quick look at your feed – as I write this- and you have tweeted it five times in the last half an hour. It may be your 140 characters to fill but it’s our twitter feeds.
We can always unfollow but that’d be a shame.
Each to their own but I’d prefer if it my feed wasn’t so easily bought. If companies want to come up with something creative in their own Twitter feed then good luck. But I just don’t want my Twitter feed sponsored. Sorry.
Twitter tweets are 40% babble:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8204842.stm