[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
Thanks for the clarification, Ryan. This distinction isn't clear in the original blog post. I also wasn't sure what the difference was between me posting a message that I love Reebok shoes and Starbucks posting they have a special on Frappuccinos. If advertising was prohibited from Tweets, it would apply to commercial accounts as well as individual ones. But you say that's not the case. At this point, I'm not sure what services DO fall under the prohibition guidelines but I guess they are ones where the users have given advertisers blanket control to post whatever they want on their Tweetstream. In effect, this sounds like advertising spam with a third party taking over individual users' accounts. Liz nwjersey...@yahoo.com
RE: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
We tweet jobs for customers to not only our accounts, but to their branded accounts as well. Companies like this because they can outsource this mechanism to a third party without getting their IT groups involved. We don't do any advertising within the tweet, other than provide a bit.ly link that takes jobseekers to more detail about the job. Are these considered ads? Is this considered a violation? In the past, the folks at Twitter have told me that we're OK, but has this changed with the new TOC? If so, there's going to be a lot of upset brand-name companies. Thanks, Gary Zukowski TweetMyJOBS.com This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error, please notify the system manager. This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee, you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this email. Please notify the sender immediately by email if you have received this email by mistake and delete this email from your system. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. -Original Message- From: Liz [mailto:nwjersey...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 6:36 AM To: Twitter Development Talk Subject: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post Thanks for the clarification, Ryan. This distinction isn't clear in the original blog post. I also wasn't sure what the difference was between me posting a message that I love Reebok shoes and Starbucks posting they have a special on Frappuccinos. If advertising was prohibited from Tweets, it would apply to commercial accounts as well as individual ones. But you say that's not the case. At this point, I'm not sure what services DO fall under the prohibition guidelines but I guess they are ones where the users have given advertisers blanket control to post whatever they want on their Tweetstream. In effect, this sounds like advertising spam with a third party taking over individual users' accounts. Liz nwjersey...@yahoo.com
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
Ryan, It's confusing to me that Dick says there will be no third party ads (8th paragraph) but under Fostering Innovation, #2, he talks apps about selling ads. Does this decision do away with services like Sponsored Tweets? I appreciate such a thoughtful blog post (and hope there are more in the future) but what is absent is any language of partnership or collaboration. Twitter's goals are stated and basically, everyone else has to deal with the consequence. Also, the language of optimizing user experience. Can you tell me what is the basis of user experience testing that occurs at Twitter? Because there is no mechanism for users to offer feedback to Twitter about their experience. How do you know whether a development enhances user experience or not? It seems like Twitter does what they think is best, regardless of what the bulk of users might want. Thanks for any answers you can provide. Liz Pullen nwjer...@yahoo.com
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
I'm not at Twitter but I read the blog post as saying that ads around the Twitter timeline (as part of the UI of an application or website) are fine but ads IN the Twitter timeline (as paid tweets) are not. Shannon Sent from my iPhone On May 24, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Liz nwjersey...@gmail.com wrote: Ryan, It's confusing to me that Dick says there will be no third party ads (8th paragraph) but under Fostering Innovation, #2, he talks apps about selling ads. Does this decision do away with services like Sponsored Tweets? I appreciate such a thoughtful blog post (and hope there are more in the future) but what is absent is any language of partnership or collaboration. Twitter's goals are stated and basically, everyone else has to deal with the consequence. Also, the language of optimizing user experience. Can you tell me what is the basis of user experience testing that occurs at Twitter? Because there is no mechanism for users to offer feedback to Twitter about their experience. How do you know whether a development enhances user experience or not? It seems like Twitter does what they think is best, regardless of what the bulk of users might want. Thanks for any answers you can provide. Liz Pullen nwjer...@yahoo.com
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
Jeepers. With one blog post Dick has killed the business of more than a few companies that have been doing what they've doing for many months, if not spanning more than a year. I fully understand Dick's rationale, but, phew, why don't you guys consider grandfathering in businesses that existed before the date of the change in the rules? I mean, it's good, it's your rules, and you can change them. But really, it is very harsh to unceremoniously pull the rug from underneath companies that were doing nothing wrong up to the point of the rule change. Just my 2cents. On May 24, 1:06 pm, Ryan Sarver rsar...@twitter.com wrote: Wanted to make sure everyone saw this post from Dick. Please let us know what questions you have. The actual Terms will be posted shortly. http://blog.twitter.com/2010/05/twitter-platform.html Best, Ryan
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
That's how I read it as well, but there's certainly some gray area there. Some twitter clients just display an ad at the top of bottom of the app, those would seem to be ok. Some I've seen recently put things in the timeline that look exactly like tweets (except for a line at the bottom that says sponsored tweet or similar. Those would seem to be obviously NOT ok. But then there are apps that insert a graphical ad in the timeline (clearly not a tweet)... are those ok? I think Tweetie for OS X used to do this. On May 24, 11:27 am, Shannon Clark shannon.cl...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not at Twitter but I read the blog post as saying that ads around the Twitter timeline (as part of the UI of an application or website) are fine but ads IN the Twitter timeline (as paid tweets) are not. Shannon Sent from my iPhone On May 24, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Liz nwjersey...@gmail.com wrote: Ryan, It's confusing to me that Dick says there will be no third party ads (8th paragraph) but under Fostering Innovation, #2, he talks apps about selling ads. Does this decision do away with services like Sponsored Tweets? I appreciate such a thoughtful blog post (and hope there are more in the future) but what is absent is any language of partnership or collaboration. Twitter's goals are stated and basically, everyone else has to deal with the consequence. Also, the language of optimizing user experience. Can you tell me what is the basis of user experience testing that occurs at Twitter? Because there is no mechanism for users to offer feedback to Twitter about their experience. How do you know whether a development enhances user experience or not? It seems like Twitter does what they think is best, regardless of what the bulk of users might want. Thanks for any answers you can provide. Liz Pullen nwjer...@yahoo.com
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
Ryan, I asked explicitly about this at the Developer meetup earlier this year, and received No Comment for an answer. Twice. Maybe there needed to be a lot of discussion about this before a decision was announced, but ... wow! To Liz's point there is no language in the blog post about partnership or cooperation based on Twitter's guidelines (which I'm sure most would be very open to). The post does mention there being opportunities to sell ads, but are those opportunities only available to Twitter? Please elaborate. On May 24, 10:01 am, Larry Wright larrywri...@gmail.com wrote: That's how I read it as well, but there's certainly some gray area there. Some twitter clients just display an ad at the top of bottom of the app, those would seem to be ok. Some I've seen recently put things in the timeline that look exactly like tweets (except for a line at the bottom that says sponsored tweet or similar. Those would seem to be obviously NOT ok. But then there are apps that insert a graphical ad in the timeline (clearly not a tweet)... are those ok? I think Tweetie for OS X used to do this. On May 24, 11:27 am, Shannon Clark shannon.cl...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not at Twitter but I read the blog post as saying that ads around the Twitter timeline (as part of the UI of an application or website) are fine but ads IN the Twitter timeline (as paid tweets) are not. Shannon Sent from my iPhone On May 24, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Liz nwjersey...@gmail.com wrote: Ryan, It's confusing to me that Dick says there will be no third party ads (8th paragraph) but under Fostering Innovation, #2, he talks apps about selling ads. Does this decision do away with services like Sponsored Tweets? I appreciate such a thoughtful blog post (and hope there are more in the future) but what is absent is any language of partnership or collaboration. Twitter's goals are stated and basically, everyone else has to deal with the consequence. Also, the language of optimizing user experience. Can you tell me what is the basis of user experience testing that occurs at Twitter? Because there is no mechanism for users to offer feedback to Twitter about their experience. How do you know whether a development enhances user experience or not? It seems like Twitter does what they think is best, regardless of what the bulk of users might want. Thanks for any answers you can provide. Liz Pullen nwjer...@yahoo.com
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
Hey Adam, I'm very confused now and it would be great if the folks over at Twitter would post a clarifying FAQ about what is allowed and what is not allowed, I just saw this recent quote on C|Net that throws a hammer into the clarity issue: Twitter confirmed to CNET that this does not have any bearing on marketers working directly with prominent Twitter users to post paid tweets--reality show star Kim Kardashian reportedly has a rate of $10,000 per sponsored tweet. From what I'm reading and seeing paying someone to POST for you does not violate TOS, but having an application that automatically posts content in another users stream that is paid content is. So It's fine that I pay 10k for Kim Kardashian to post 'Discount Drinks at JC's Tavern tonight again clarity would help on this issue. JC On May 24, 1:51 pm, Adam Fortuna adamjfort...@gmail.com wrote: Hey Ryan (and everyone else), few questions about the fine details of this I'd love to get clarification on. First and foremost - when do the new TOS go into effect? I see they're already up on the API TOS page (http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_terms ), but would like clarification. We're suddenly in violation now, so want to see what kind of timeline we have to comply. Are you'll going to start enforcing this immediately, or do you'll have a set date to comply with the new TOS by. One of the points in the post, the killer line obviously, is we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. Based on that it seems it's still within the rules if a Twitter User posts an ad themselves to Twitter manually, rather than a 3rd party doing it? Can you verify if that's a violation or not? From the blog post it would seem that is acceptable, but the one line from the new TOS might negate it: Tweets may be used in advertisements, not as advertisements.. Does this mean that even a tweet posted manually to a users timeline cannot be an advertisement? In other words, no commerce, whether it's direct relationship between a Tweeter and an Advertiser, or through an intermediary (SponsoredTweets, Ad.ly, etc) is a violation -- whether the 3rd party posts it themselves of the Twitter User does the actual posting? Thanks, hope to get clarification soon, Adam Fortuna SponsoredTweetshttp://sponsoredtweets.com
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter Platform blog post
Adam, Thanks for the email and happy to try to clear things up. 1. The TOS go into affect today and section *4. Updates* states that everyone has 30 days to comply with any changes to the ToS. If you 2. The TOS **does not** restrict the content coming from a user, whether posted through an app on the user's behalf or by the user themself on twitter.com. To be even clearer, services that pay customers to post clearly disclosed paid tweets are not affected by the changes to the TOS. Let me know if that clears things up. Best, Ryan On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 10:51 AM, Adam Fortuna adamjfort...@gmail.comwrote: Hey Ryan (and everyone else), few questions about the fine details of this I'd love to get clarification on. First and foremost - when do the new TOS go into effect? I see they're already up on the API TOS page ( http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_terms ), but would like clarification. We're suddenly in violation now, so want to see what kind of timeline we have to comply. Are you'll going to start enforcing this immediately, or do you'll have a set date to comply with the new TOS by. One of the points in the post, the killer line obviously, is we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. Based on that it seems it's still within the rules if a Twitter User posts an ad themselves to Twitter manually, rather than a 3rd party doing it? Can you verify if that's a violation or not? From the blog post it would seem that is acceptable, but the one line from the new TOS might negate it: Tweets may be used in advertisements, not as advertisements.. Does this mean that even a tweet posted manually to a users timeline cannot be an advertisement? In other words, no commerce, whether it's direct relationship between a Tweeter and an Advertiser, or through an intermediary (SponsoredTweets, Ad.ly, etc) is a violation -- whether the 3rd party posts it themselves of the Twitter User does the actual posting? Thanks, hope to get clarification soon, Adam Fortuna SponsoredTweets http://sponsoredtweets.com
