My Twitter Experiment -or- I am not Jeff Molander

Hi David,

Similar to Me, Myself and Irene this was both funny and really screwed up. Like that film I'm still trying to figure out what I think about it. Kind of depends on whether Jeff finds it funny.

It also leads me to the realization that I don't recall seeing you and Jeff Molander in the same room…are you really one and the same?

I'm not sure about that either. It seems that someone had taken @jeffmolander when Jeff originally signed up and that's why he took @jeffreymolander.

Really messed up would have been had I taken over Jeff's persona and gotten into debates. Now *that* would have been fun… and very wrong.

As for being the same person / split personality, we can't address that.

I am proud of you for trying Twitter out. I tell people when they don't get it that one day they will understand. Oh and btw it's the Twittersphere.

Love it …

I think Jeff will too.

Jeff who?

Glad to see you on the Twitter after all these years

Sam

Actually who is Jeff?

This argument is straight out of 2007.

Today, bobody but Sam and Jeff talk about or complain about how other people "use" Twitter. It's pointless.

Use it how you wish, or don't use it. It's your choice. It's part of my business plan, I'm open about it. Sam's my friend regardless of whether or not he follows me or not. Same with everyone.

That's completely missing my point, Jim. Thanks for your unfair dismissal.

That's what I do, miss the point. Not being coy, just being honest.

Queue Wayne with a comment that I won't get either. lol.

Sam, you hate marketing and I revel in it. Because of that, you see everything in the world as blue when I see yellow.

Wrong. I love marketing. I hate how most marketers do their marketing, though.

I can't believe you dragged me back into Revenews. haha. Angel, the site looks great.

Happy to see Sam, Jim and Wayne all on. Glad David stirred it up. Thanks for the compliment Jim, been trying hard to keep things lively.

David, sorry to see they converted you. I figure they must have slipped something into your drink.

I'm still surprised to see experienced marketers cling to faddish things and talk circularly about things like ROI and Isms (pronounced izzims). And by cling, I don't mean grabbing on, I mean being sucked in by static.

Twitter clowns, look at each hour of your day as an investment in your business – are you saying that twittering for an hour is a good investment? Compared to what, cruising the Internet for porn? I get that it's fun (for some modalities), but peeps, can we be a little more honest with each others about the difference between entertainment (ie distraction) and business?

Pat, in general I think you have a great point.

However, in my business, for what I do/sell, I can tell you that "being on Twitter" is a top 3 method of building my brand and getting new customers. So I see direct ROI from it every single day. Not just new customers, but press mentions, leads, direct sales, etc…

It's 150% quantifiable to my biz and that's a fact.

To a person running an affiliate site? Perhaps not so much. The tail is too long.

Jim, there's some Pat-math I'd like to share, to show I'm not calling your type of use clownish.

Marketing Products + Twitter = Spammy

Marketing Yourself + Twitter = Smart

Socializing + Twitter = Handy

That was so awesome Pat I retweeted it! Although I have a correction in your math:

Evangilizing Products + Twitter = Smart

Shilling Products + Twitter = Spammy

And a few additions:

News + Twitter = Timely

Gossip + Twitter = Soup

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read from you, Pat.

Twitter is a tool…and a great tool if you're interested in how the web is developing (more instantaneous interactions, more mobile, etc).

That's fine if you don't understand it or don't want to, but don't resort to calling users "clowns" or implying that it's all a waste of time because it doesn't fit into your well defined paradigms for how someone should be using the web.

Sam

Pat, I like your math. I noticed that you think that Twitter is 2/3 useful. I only partly agree about the spammy part. There are ways to properly and improperly market a product (similar to what Angel added).

I agree with Sam calling you out on the use of "clowns". I thoroughly enjoy the quick break by the Twitter water cooler with distant friends and acquaintances. Given my lack of time in general, I get a lot more information with links to good artciles if I have time to read them.

As I stated above, don't knock it until you dive in and really try it. Of course, like everything, it's not for everyone… and most people who use it want to keep it that way.

@Pat/Whoever-

Elmo made a great point on Sesame St this morning… a clarinet can be an incredibly noisy and annoying instrument or it can make beautiful music. Regardless, it's a simple little tube with holes that you blow air into. If my daughter is playing it, I'll think it's beautiful music no matter what. If Molander is playing it, I'll think it sounds terrible.

These things are tools. It's not the tool, but the person. There is no static math for figuring out the ROI on these things.

I've always found it interesting that folks who knock Twitter (going back to '07 when I started raving about it) are the same folks who spend hours writing or commenting on blog posts here or talking about their cats on ABW. Those tools aren't for me, but I'm not going to say it's a waste of time as a result. I'm going to use the tools that fit in my belt. Like Twitter.

Sam,

Ashton Kutcher is definitely clownish. And from a non-user perspective, which Pat is, Ashton represents Twitter. His topping CNN stunt and similar junk by folks like Shaq is how Twitter is seen by everyone not on the platform. And it can appear clownish.

This is too bad since there is a lot of real value there. From business and personal angles not to mention from a sociological point of view.

David's right Pat should try it because to some extent he is missing out on a great experiment. But David is also right that it's not for everyone…and we want to keep it that way.

@Angel-

If that's the case, Pat should scratch a little deeper. That's like arguing that eBates represents all of affiliate marketing because of its earnings report.

Fred Wilson discusses how Etsy has successfully used Twitter and Facebook to sell products: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/07/how-etsy-uses-twi…

Gossip + Twitter = Soup

Loved that! Funny and true!

Twitter is hugely polluted with garbage. I hear what you guys are saying, and you sound like the people who talked about how useful telemarketing was before it was curtailed by legislation. Same thing with spam. I get that this is different since it's completely permissioned, but you're way over hyping it – which does make some of you look like clowns, in my opinion. Sorry if you don't like that label, but you've earned it.

"I thoroughly enjoy the quick break by the Twitter water cooler with distant friends and acquaintances."

Perfect use of this tool.

"I’ve always found it interesting that folks who knock Twitter are the same folks who spend hours writing or commenting on blog posts here or talking about their cats on ABW"

Again, clownish. I knock it, so I'm a troll posting meaningless muck.

Twitter's signal-to-noise ratio is akin to a de-tuned AM radio – call it hi fidelity stereophonic bliss if you'd like, but saying something (or tweeting it) doesn't mean everyone automatically agrees with you. In fact, the more you misconstrue the obvious truth, the brighter your clown makeup glows.

"Twitter’s signal-to-noise ratio is akin to a de-tuned AM radio – call it hi fidelity stereophonic bliss if you’d like, but saying something (or tweeting it) doesn’t mean everyone automatically agrees with you. In fact, the more you misconstrue the obvious truth, the brighter your clown makeup glows."

Miscontrue the obvious truth? What is the obvious truth? Must have missed the memo. Maybe it was posted on ABW.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Call Twitter or its users clownish or whatever all you'd like (which seems pretty immature for a person of your intelligence… but whatever), but there are lots of bright and interesting marketers and non-marketers who will continue to use the service and gain from it.

Sam

"That’s like arguing that eBates represents all of affiliate marketing because of its earnings report."

I think this is a very flawed analogy, but I do respect your intellect. If you'd care to explain it further, I'm all ears and promise to take my time and full mental focus to try to understand your point here, as long as it's deeper than we disagree.

"Call Twitter or its users clownish"

I didn't say Twitter users aren't clowns, I said Twitter hype-sters pumping it's glorious, unquestionable value are.

As David keenly pointed out, I "think that Twitter is 2/3 useful." In fact, it's way beyond 2/3 in volume because most twitter traffic is not promotional.

I am addressing only its relative value as a marketing tool. Of course it has value, so do bumper stickers, billboards, celebrity spokespeeps, PPC, SEO, Email… It's just a question of how much value. And it seems to me that we've got a nice range of opinions here on that. I think time will teach us its rightful value better than each other. So we are just making noise here on this subject – quick, somebody twitter it.

How can you say it's a flawed analogy when you haven't even taken the time to explore Twitter and base your (pretty insulting) judgments around how a celebrity uses the service?

Here's my last ditch hail-mary effort… Twitter is a fantastic tool for observing the real-time web. It's not a social network or chat room for me and lots of other folks who are deriving a great ROI with not very much I involved.

By using it as a listening device, you can tap into the river of content and news that is being generated and filter out the signals that you describe above with the AM analogy. My Twitter stream is incredibly highly tuned and I have things set up in such a way that Twitter is not a time-sink or work-avoidance device. Instead, I interact through Twitter through my GMail, on my iPhone and with tools that I already use for work in such a way that things just flow (in and out).

Find 10 interesting folks you might want to consider following, set up an app like Tweetie or Twitterific on your desktop and do a few searches for ideas/products/services/networks etc you might be interested in and observe those… if you try that for a couple of weeks and don't find any value then fair enough. But to wholesale deride a service and its users as clownish because of some obvious truth you've found doesn't sit well with me.

Sam

"I am addressing only its relative value as a marketing tool."

Again, it's a tool. If you're using a hammer to 2/3 of its efficiency, you might need to try a different grip. Or 2/3 might work for you. The problem is with how you're using the hammer… not the hammer itself. There's no intrinsic "ROI" factor to the hammer because each user will use it individually.

Same thing with Twitter. It's all in how you use it as a tool. That's all I'm trying to say here.

"Twitter as a listening device" is the way I mainly use it. The reason being that people usually fail to censor themselves on Twitter. Their posts are a good gauge of opinion and trends because there is an immediacy to it, unlike for example logging into WordPress.

Putting aside the sometimes prevelant "herd" mentality that is on Twitter, there plenty of useful insights to what people are thinking on business, entertainment, personal topics…heck even science.

I'm not going to add anything here just yet, but I do want to just say that I think this back-and-forth, primarily between Pat and Sam, is brilliant. Keep up the comments guys, because I honestly think it's a great insight into how people of similar interests and backgrounds (on a business/professional level at least) can view Twitter so differently.

You should have heard the phone conversation, Daniel. We should have taped it for posterity.

“Must have missed the memo. Maybe it was posted on ABW.”

Sam, the last time I visited ABW was January. I guess I should have tweeted you that info back then when I left.

Back at RN again- look forward to the hate mail…

@Jim "Queue Wayne with a comment that I won’t get either. lol."

I love you Jim. Fret not, most people don't "get me" until three years later…I am used to it. You should trust your peers who have been baptized by fire.

@Angel "Ashton Kutcher is definitely clownish. And from a non-user perspective, which Pat is, Ashton represents Twitter."

Perhaps for the transient masses…I have a few celeb clients who think Ashton is the moron that he is…but they realize what micro-chunking means. Pat is smart and wise enough that he deserves to be punished. Do I need to remind you to read Snowcrash?

@Pat I love and respect your intellect and razor wit, but you need to abandon the radio analogy and move a bit forward…Twitter is kind of like SETI…all about listening and forward thinking…

"I didn’t say Twitter users aren’t clowns, I said Twitter hype-sters pumping it’s glorious, unquestionable value are."

Pat- They are merely social media wannabes trying to morph into something relevant. There is no such thing as social media…media has always been social…try thinking of it as "personal media". The real experts were there two years ago.

Perhaps Sam didn't delete the Stainless Steel Rats Podcast (I mean we laid it ALL out- even how to game Alexa). Marketers were warned two years ago…I would know, these are many of the people who threw rotten cabbage at Sam and I at the time, because they saw "no use" in the platform. For the record Sam was truly prescient, I was merely astute enough to recognize it.

Does Twitter provide great ROI? I can only speak for myself- I know I don't have to take lop-sided CPA deals.

-Wayne

@Sam I love you…and I really hate you at the same time. Really. Yes- I know Twitter should, and perhaps will be, a goddamn protocol.

Opps, Forgot to HatTip David Lewis.

I plan, tenatively, on building a post on your historical, and mostly accurate, history.

But….Sorry David, you embraced S.E. CPC deals so far ahead of the pack that you will surely will not pass go and end up in hell…and, I think, occupy a cubicle with Molander.

I can only hope that Sam (I hate you Sam) and I will be adjacent so we can fling flaming coprolite at you…

Yes Angel, I hope you end up there too…It wouldn't be a party without your wit and understanding about how we screwed up by missing the singularity due to faulty genes.

Now if Steve Messer is there, which he should be, I truly hope he is withing slinging distance.

@Wayne: Welcome back!

@JeffMolander or @JeffreyMoldander: Where are you?!? It's your name at the top and this is YOUR fight? You should be giving Pat a hand.

@Pat: I think my point has been made. Try it out for a few weeks just to understand what all those @ # RT's are all about. Just make sure it's on your phone. At the end, you may just find that it's as useless to you as you think it is. Then again, you might not.

@Sam: Can you just hook a webcam to your head? I want to follow you around for a week. I'd ask you to write a book but it would be out-of-date before you got to the end. Please keep blogging about all of the tools you are using. Please add more detail in your blog posts. [@Pat: Follow Sam and read his blog to get good research on tools, apps and services.]

@Daniel: Dive in. No toes in the water.

I've had an interesting experiment lately. My brother doesn't get any of this. I was at his house at 2am a few weeks ago and the topic of Facebook came up. I really wanted to see how he interacted with it. Well, it was 2am (and we had just seen the new "Star Trek" movie) so I offered to pay him for 3 months to use Facebook. The only requirements were status updates 6 days a week and "normal usage" (which we never quite defined). He keeps telling me that no one cares about [fill in the blank] but they do! His updates are gems and his 22 FB friends comment regularly. I don't know if he'll keep it up after this summer but it sure has been worth my money.

Oh, and someone has to point out that Ashton Kutcher got Demi Moore!

Wayne, I think your last comment is on the wrong post.

If you want to place me in a ring of Hell I will drop all modesty (although I think Vanity only landed one in Dante's Purgatory). Simply put, we saved the Internet with CPC and the business development deals that we had cut and recut. When all of the stupid VC money as spent by 2000, it was smart entrepreneurs who then came in and used CPC for advertising and income to keep the Web going so that all that you enjoy today online could be created.

LOL…

"Simply put, we saved the Internet with CPC and the business development deals that we had cut and recut."

If it were not for your sliced CPC deals I could have returned to a pure Internet of Mosaic (Cool, but being CLI trained I could have dismissed), Gopher, Veronica, Archie etc…all which I could access via Vax…oh the sweet, pure days of the BBS (lovely warez at 14.4) with a NET Gateway (how i met my wife)….Thus you fucked Utopia up…oh well, bound to happen.

You didn't SAVE anything, your forward thinking accelerated fucking it up. Although I have to also blame Canada…ooops. sorry…Bezos @Amazon.

You did not save the internet- it was there before You, or I, were born ( ARPA sux).

OK I was going to rant about how moronic ABW was, and still is, but hopefully marketers will revisit history and explore the nascent http://WWW...

BTW Haiko, I hope you read this, and realize how bright and really how completely fucking stupid you are. ABW'ers sell themselves so short…

I look forward to the hate mail….

I will bill you for this Angel.

Wayne, you just jumped the forum (that would be to ABW). You just wrote that the bad trumps the good. That is the argument of clowns on Twitter making Twitter useless for all.

You like SL. You like Twitter. You like blogging. You like many of the cool tools Sam shares with us. You absolutely love hunting down and outing all of the people who screw things up online. None of that would have been possible without the evil (as you see it) that my cohorts and I perpetrated in the late 90's and early oughts. [Note: I played but a small part in it all. I am happy to give credit where credit is due and will list the many.]

"Wayne, you just jumped the forum (that would be to ABW). You just wrote that the bad trumps the good. That is the argument of clowns on Twitter making Twitter useless for all."

WTF? Unlike forums full of morons, Twitter is very manageable.

"You like SL."

I refuse to give my ROI from SL…but it is enough that I can make fun of most marketers.

Two words: Augmented Reality…any more and I have to charge…

"You like Twitter."

Did you not read my hat tip to Sam? Twitter could be a protocol…even if it doesn't the real time info, combined with some proprietary think opens up all kinds of opps. Twitter is not for DM (cue Molander regurgitating what i said two years ago.) in most cases. Sure ROI is nebulous…ROI on TV was nebulous 60 yrs ago

"You like blogging."

Hmmm…I think I said most blogging efforts were dead over a year ago and they would become historical "canons" for micro-chunked information.

"You like many of the cool tools Sam shares with us."

The hell I do…Sam is like a stainless steel rat on speed…I study every move Sam makes, and I make my own selections…he is like a high speed slot machine in a mine field. Did i mention that I hate Sam? (OK I love/hate him at the same time.)…Sam and I resonate around the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson. (wink)

"You absolutely love hunting down and outing all of the people who screw things up online."

Yes I do or did…takes alot out of a person…ask Kelly Stevens…but yes…I have zero qualms about confronting outright BS. Death threats are like junk mail….hate mail is hysterical. I have paid my dues David…and they were not cheap.

"None of that would have been possible without the evil (as you see it) that my cohorts and I perpetrated in the late 90’s and early oughts."

David! Can't you detect my snarky humor?

"[Note: I played but a small part in it all. I am happy to give credit where credit is due and will list the many.]"

David- you have my respect, truly, my jibes are metaphorical…lighten up a bit…I know you are a bright and forward thinker…

That is what I LOVE about affiliates…they push the envelope….I relish that quality…

If there are new affiliate peeps out there- do not be taken aback by my ruthless attempts at humor…I really love you all, but I want you to think ahead and realize what you can really do…THINK BIG…really- it's ok… follow your heart's passion and cool things will come.

Wayne, those were examples. Maybe we both should lighten up on this one (and get some sleep).

There are affiliates doing interesting things. A few. And there are many doing much of the same. That is how it is in the rest of the world so we shouldn't expect any difference. Note that that is exactly the point that Jason Calacanis made in his Affiliate Summit keynote. People just took it the wrong way.

Early this week at the GAN Summit, Avinash Kaushik gave an amazing presentation in which he ripped into the sites of members of the audience similar to Jason tearing into Zac and Shoemoney. The difference is that the world sees Jason as pompous and Avinash is a funny, likable guy. Sometimes the message gets lost in the messenger. Of course, Molander is a completely different story.

Sheesh 5am….here I am giving away free consulting…

@Pat- Get over crunching the ROI on Twitter and look at that hour as R&D. Forget followers, ratios of T to F, and DM…look for the diamonds in the rough. You are astute enough to realize the value of R&D. If you aren't I have to sadly relegate you to the scrap category- which I don't wanna do…you are smarter than that. BTW I spend 65% of my time on R&D…yep…very, very risky, but, as you know, it can pay off in spades. Yes- it scares me at times.

@David- from the first day you, Molander, and I had lunch in N.Y. I knew you were "in the know". I am not indicting you, capitalism marches on. You didn't get your proper place in the books of e-commerce history. (cough-satan-wink) I know you are a good guy, and hell- I would know. You have my sincere respect.

@Sam- did I mention that I really fucking hate you? O.K. Kids- follow what Sam does, not all of it sticks, but he has an uncanny ability to find things that are important. It is up to you decide what that is (called business R&D), but he is like a freeware consultant- pay attention. He can really be a total bastard…just realize that he is a *real* teacher that is loyal to his best students- respect that.

@Angel I know what you are doing with RN, and (wink) you are doing the smart thing. Again Kids pay attention to people like Angel. He is not only well read (another post), but has solid clients. He is not afraid to experiment and he has great ideas.

If you guys need pragmatic examples- check out the Connie Bergs, Anne Fognanos, and Tim Storm's of the world. I know them all and they are the real deal, the real legends…

This is why conferences are important- you have the chance to get the real deal from folks who have been there and done that and happy to teach. Affiliate marketing is all about relationships, ideas and passion. Can't afford enough to go to a conference? you aren't trying hard enough- you will probably NOT make the cut. Find it…talk to people, make it happen. If you want it- it can and will happen. Beat the crap out of @ShawnCollins until you can…display your fire.

BTW: My first conference relationship was with Lisa Riolo and Todd Crawford from CJ…and they opened up doors for me…If I stayed home in my pajamas, as pleasant as it sounds, all would have stalled. I was terrified of flying to L.A., my wife made me go…but I did it, it is normal to be nervous.

I am not pitching an e-book, consulting, advertising, etc. Frankly I don't need anything from the affiliate world, but I love what it promises, the freedom and the talent that comes out of it…It is my roots…it is where I grew up. I am harsh on the industry because I demand quality and risk taking thinkers…don't give me any crap. I grew up dirt poor and dropped out of college. If I can do it- ANYONE can.

I am not going to spend any more resources trying to validate why you should listen to anything I say- I don't need too. Frankly- there is nothing in it for me, and I really don't give a fuck whether you hate me or love me.

I really do want the adventurous and curious to succeed and affiliate marketing holds a lot of promise for the intrepid. Stop listening to forums, experts, pundits, people like me and do not buy stupid templates.

Find your passion, embrace the idea and do it…do it…the money comes later…but it will come if your idea is on target and ahead of the pack. If it isn't- you will garner enough wisdom to pass on to your kids and you tried.

In the end it is up to you…I could go one for hours, but I have kids, and a fishing date to make…

PS- Don't be offended by comment "Kids" I know many, many CEOs, veterans, and smart, experienced peeps read Revenews (as they should)…but I have been shot, flipped more cars than 3rd rate search engines best CTR, traveled around the world- hell they threw me in jail once (case dismissed)….. I won't go on…my hair and my beard are now totally gray. Young at heart…but I am old.

Go for it…

LOL David…I am preparing for the comment I always wanted to make. Gimme 45 mins. After reading the RTARD SEO comments on @mattcutts blog- I am obligated.

BTW You really are going to (metaphorically speaking) hell.

@Wayne,

You know out of everyone here I am going to defend Haiko. The hat tip feels a bit Cyrano as if you are spoiling for a good row and testing to see if your wit is still razor sharp.

So let me use an analogy that I know you will understand, those who need a Wayne dictionary look under Stephenson, ABW is bit like the Raft or perhaps a super-massive Orbital. It was built as a place apart to give affiliates who don't have a "voice" among networks, a place to pull together their collective efforts.

Like it or not ABW has achieved its goal quite admirably. Want proof, the CJ's LMI fiasco might have seen the light of day if not for some tactically well laid out efforts.

Frankly the longevity and consistent activity of ABW is proof Haiko's Raft was built well. There are many facets of this Orbital, you can't tell all by the bars at the docking bay.

Speaking of taverns, let me return to Cyrano. You have certainly earned the right to test your foil against whom you wish but perhaps it would be best to do so when you are not chin deep in a tankard. Even if it is virtual.

Better yet enforce a mandatory hour in the Lost Gardens of Apollo before you tip your hat or wave your rapier.

ROTFL…touche! touche!

Yes- mostly I just want a good fight.

"Same thing with Twitter. It’s all in how you use it as a tool. That’s all I’m trying to say here."

Me too.

Sam has an interesting post at AffiliateHack, his new blog, which expands on his view: http://www.affiliatehack.com/2009/07/31/affiliate…

"@Pat I love and respect your intellect and razor wit, but you need to abandon the radio analogy and move a bit forward…Twitter is kind of like SETI…all about listening and forward thinking…"

Wayne, this is hysterical to me. SETI is the search for the tiniest hint of intelligent life among the uncountable "voices" found in the universe. Your analogy is absolutely PERFECT!!!

@pat (Wink)

I have been swamped today and haven't been able to keep up with the comments here. I did have a minute or two to comment at Jeff Molander's blog regarding Twitter. One of Jeff's replies had an interesting quote.

it’s not difficult to measure the effect of any one program on a brand’s success. You do it every day with your own brand. Yes, social media does have a direct way to measure (we agree) but it’s not being used enough.

I hope that Jeff will join the conversation here. I can use some entertainment for the weekend.

Me too. My subscription to Archie & Jughead ran out…

I just wanted to come back and disagree with Sam just because, whatever he says. Ok? Great. Maybe that's the airport margaritas talking/typing. Sam needs to come to Summit.

@Jim Jerk

I'll know about ASE over the weekend. Stay tuned.

And how fun is this thread? I mean damn… Pat, Kurkal, Lewis, Porter, Angel, pseudo-Molander… it's like a ReveNews Elks Club meeting or something. We just need more scotch.

Scotch? Sam…I get my Plutoniam Nyborg from @Angel…try it in transit. (BTW: Sam as I explained in a BHS E-mail- I am actually Molander…) (Watches @Angel cringe…)

@Jim Keep tossing back those margaritas bud…it's Friday, we're all tired but by midnight we can jack this up to a 100 comment thread.

Back in the MovableType days, 50 comments initiated the self-destruct sequence here. I blame Jim for that crappy redesign he did. Glad to see things are more stable now. Good job, Angel

Um, did you see the site before I took it over Sam? My upgrade was greater than your upgrade, please! Just because you're sloppy seconds as RN publisher…

Truly though Angel kills us both, especially you! Ha! Please come to Summit. It's not as fun to make fun of you when you're not there.

You Ohio people have no sense of history. This was my design. Angel is just riding coattails here.

Thanks for all the love @Jim and @Sam, really trying hard here. On the topic of coattails…actually paying the designers helps @Sam

ha! We both know who to blame for that #fail.

Glad to see I could be the butt of a Jeff Molander joke!

As for Twitter, I can attest that it can be profitable for affiliate sites. Pat, I'll explain my logic and maybe convert you at Summit, without slipping anything in your drink.

I look forward to hearing about it Kim.

I once heard a great twitter story from Michael Nunez, I don't remember whether it was his idea or one he was retelling to me, but I thought it was a really fantastic business marketing use of twitter. Someone owns a hair salon and gets cancellations, they send out a tweet to their followers letting them know a spot came open and it's available at a discount. A scheme like this, to keep stylists more fully engaged (they're there, ready to work!), and to give consumers a real savings opportunity and alternative scheduling chances on a fully permissioned basis, is really a terrific thing! So it's not at all that I'm opposed to twitter, it's that like anything else, it has limits – it's no panacea and it surely is being trashed my most people trying to use it to market things. One more reason I talked positively about Kukral's use of it is, as a biz coach, I think he's getting people to think and devise clever effective uses of it, versus shouting and spamming into their twitter megaphone – gawd we need more of that!

It's extremely unlikely that anyone will convert me to be a twitter user. Not a reflection on twitter, but on me. I am a very poor multitasker and I know it. People who know me very, very well (Angel, you're gonna laugh at this), know that if you try to talk to me when my mind is engaged elsewhere, you get a series of yeahs and yeps and very little feedback and you feel shorted, like where's that brain that usually helps me sort through the details with something brilliant, it seems so completely vacuous this pat-encounter? Well, chances are you caught me when I've already started thinking about something complex and there's no prying my brain off it's prey.

Very poor multi-taskers need to be very aware of the relative distraction capability of things – in order to be productive, some things need to be avoided entirely. For me, twitter is, by it's nature, one such thing. It is exactly the type of activity that has the capability to drastically reduce my effectiveness in my business work day.

Those of you who are easily capable of multitasking seem to have no inkling of my ilk. You take my opinions as some kind of insult or attack. Like all opinions, they are just me sharing (and sometimes projecting) my own thoughts on certain aspects of things. And for the life of me, I can't imagine why anyone would willingly subject themselves to the noise pipe called twitter – it blows my mind that anyone would do that.

Personally, I'd rather be waterboarded than join twitter.

(again, if you do know me very well, you know that i'm terminally curious and my waterboard preference above wasn't a figure of speech – shall we bring some saran wrap to NYC and have some real fun at Affiliate Summit?)

I was happy to see that @Patrick_Grady was following me on Twitter…I clicked to follow back and I found an impostor! Pat you finally got on Facebook now if you are a bad multitasker as I am don't worry Twitter is even easier than Facebook. You will love it. Come to the darkside and don't let this other Pat Grady give your friends false hopes.

Pat, I think that you, Sam and I all agree. You proved a few points in your comments:

1) Twitter is not for everyone and we are all happy about that.

2) It is about the message and not the medium. HEAD ON! Have you ever seen bad TV commercials? HEAD ON! Have you ever seen good TV commercials? HEAD ON! Do you judge everyone in TV for bad TV commercials? HEAD ON! Do you ever get SPAM on e-mail? I WANT TO SEND YOU $17MM! Do you find e-mail effective for your personal and business lives? Just because it is abused by some doesn't make it useless.

3) You need to use it to understand it. You don't use it. You don't get it. I use personally but not much professionally. I get it for personal use. If I tried, it professionally I might get it. Of course, I did use it professionally for this article and look what happened! Oh, and Sam, Jim and Wayne have it hardwired to their brains.

Here are 62 ways to Use Twitter for Business to help get you started, David:

http://bit.ly/3gl3H7

Please explain to me how i proved that i need to use it to "get it". Puhleeze, use your head. And the "get it" argument makes you look like a clown, to about half the population. Try to use your big boy words.

I have a very thorough understanding of what it is, what is does, how people use, how some people abuse it, how some people tend to misunderstand concepts like utility, effectiveness, metoologanism and more regarding communications, success stories, pumping, fad hysteria, and so much more.

Can we cut with the "he just doesn't get it cuz he doesn't use it" stuff. How disconnected from the universe do you think I am? Cuz if we go down this road, I'm gonna run out of time trying to experience everything first hand… I sell lingerie for overweight women, do I have to wear it for a few weeks to "get it"? Do I need to gain some more weight and have a sex change too? Do I then need to try to seduce some dudes to "get it"?

I get twitter, it isn't for me, because I'm horrible at handling noise in my environment while trying to be productive. I understand most people are not like me and can handle a much higher signal-to-noise ratio. Though I also understand that many of our mutual marketing peers would very likely benefit (from a business perspective) to reduce their own environment's signal-to-noise ratio some.

Asynchronously yours,

Pat.

Pat, it is difficult to carry on a discussion with someone who falls back on insults. I haven't read an insult here from anyone but you. You said you left ABW in January but you seem to be trying to bring the worst of ABW to Revenews.

It looks like you prefer "to use your big boy words" like "clowns" and "metoologanism". Interesting.

As for your suggestion of your wearing women's lingerie, I do think that it would help you learn humility but probably won't help your business. I can make other suggestions of the uses of lingerie that might help your business. Gaining weight probably would not be healthy so I don't recommend that.

It is nice that you recognize some of your own weaknesses. That's a good start.

It is fine for you to reject my arguments out of hand. Insults don't help your argument. I base my findings on empirical evidence both from myself and others. I have found that very few people who don't "get it" have tried it. I find that some people who have tried it still don't get it or find that it isn't for them (as you now claim about yourself so it's good that we could help you recognize this). You can write that off speaking for 50% of the population and assuming that they will think it is clownish, but I would assume few of those people have given it a try.

Sam, thanks for the constructive input! I'll give it a good read after #ASE09.

Pat, you're officially an ass. Why even participate in conversations if all you are willing to do is use name calling. You should be ashamed of yourself and I officially take back any mention of you as a decent fellow.

Thank goodness our legislators in NC don't use your line of reasoning regarding affiliate marketing and the affiliate tax.

Oh, wait.

Sam

I asked for analogy explanations, and got none. I asked for sound reasoning, and got childish gobbledygook. I entertain discussing the uses of this tool, and get back arguments like "you don't get it", which aren't arguments at all – they cannot be reasoned with. If you want to be persuasive with me (or others), then you do need to present your case with some degree of mental acuity. I left ABW in January never to return, mentioned that here already, yet I am accused of being their representative of sorts here – again, nicely constructed argument that I cannot confront reasonably, because it isn't based on facts or even honest feelings, but instead on baseless associations. Tangents like the legislators thing, repeated ABW references, stating that I proved a case (when no such thing happened) leaves me feeling like this place suffers from an unwillingness to constructively discuss this subject. Yes, I did insult a few people here, but only after hearing ridiculous input from them. I reply to ridiculousness with the same and my character is assailed. I did ridicule people's arguments here, but did not level any character accusations – but now a few of you have. That said, I am still listening for signs of intelligent discussion. If it comes in the form of baseless, imagined reasoning to support your biased case, out comes the clown label. If that makes me an ass in your view, I'm very comfy wearing that label – because if your opinions (and arguments to support your "ass" case) are emotional outbursts of irrationality, it means nothing to me at all.

Pat, I seem to be the one not getting it. I have answered everything you have thrown out, including your insults. The only analogy you used was about plus-sized lingerie. That was covered. Do you really want to go on about that.

I brought up ABW only because it was discussed above and because of your behavior here. Again, empirical evidence has shown that it is the ABW crowd that throws insults and argues in the bizarre ways that you do. If you feel that your character has been assailed, it is only because your bad actions are being called out for what they are. You may not be used to that. You are the one who threw insults for no apparent reason. No one else has. Please stop.

I understand that you have weaknesses, you recognize them and work around them. I think that you and I approach similar issues from different sides. You like analogies so here's one for you.

Poker players often play with their chips in one repetitive way. They do so to hide tells. This is a way to hide nervous/extra/whatever energy. This gives them focus. I find that having a quick outlet keeps me focused on the task at hand. You find the opposite to be true. Congratulations for that.

I haven't judged you for choosing not to use Twitter. I do think that you will never find it useful if you don't use it. I also know that even if you do use it, it might not be useful to you. I know that many creative uses have not been tried by anyone yet. You won't ever know about them. And that is fine. We each have a finite amount of time in our lives and need to choose where to spend it. You choose not to spend it on Twitter. I choose to no longer address this issue with you.

Getting back to constructive issues…

Have you ever wondered who uses Twitter? Sysomos did and has a great report about it.

http://om.ly/?EAeC

David-

Don't forget those are stats for the "top users" meaning celebs and folks that have six digit follower numbers, etc. Those numbers aren't terribly predictive for the rest of us.

What I find interesting is the demographic information that keeps coming out about Twitter such as the new data yesterday that only 16% of the user base is composed of folks under age 25. That says some interesting things about the service, but I do think those numbers will shift in the future (good explanation here http://bit.ly/XUxbW).

"I know that many creative uses have not been tried by anyone yet. You won’t ever know about them."

The "you have to use it to know about it" argument sounds familiar. And if I say it's silly, I'm bizarre. Revealing insights into my personal antithetical feelings towards something you happen to champion get labeled by you as weaknesses that limit me, yet I'm the sole insulter. I understand a couple of voices here don't like to hear any view that's contrary to theirs, but we are each here to share. So when I see you say you're unwilling to discuss it with me further here, I understand exactly how your construct of social media is framed. And David, it ain't very social at all.

I wish you were on Twitter so that I could block you, Pat

[SIGH] OK, Pat, you are begging to have this explained more simply…

Again, I am willing to have a conversation with anyone who discusses the issues, does not needlessly hurl insults and isn't just looking for a fight. You obviously have a chip on your shoulder about Twitter.

Reread my last comment. I didn't say that you don't get it. It sounds like you have given your non-usage of Twitter a lot of thought. I did say that you won't find any creative ways to use it by sitting on the sidelines. You won't get good at golf sitting at home. You need to play. [Note that I think you won't get golf without playing. I think it takes being on the middle of a course with silence around you to get it... especially if you live in a big city.] Your suggestion of wearing women's clothing shows that you don't get it. You are not good at modeling lingerie. You are good at marketing, specifically marketing plus-size lingerie. You got good at it by, dare I say, trying it out. I'm sure you tried many forms of marketing before you got good at it. That's how you "got it" for your business.

What I referred to as a weakness is what you mentioned several times. In fact, you discussed it in such a way as you recognize it and control it. "I am a very poor multitasker and I know it." "I’m horrible at handling noise in my environment while trying to be productive." I labeled nothing as your weakness, you did.

Again, the way that you insult people, ignore the arguments, keep falling back on your agenda (in this case to defend your non-use of Twitter) and twist what has been written by others are reminiscent of ABW. Conversation and debate are welcome here but not that style.

Sam, yes it was about the top users. I didn't realize that there were so many bots out there. Of course, just today I received an @ offering me auto insurance #BLOCK

Not giving it up at all, just using it differently.

I know, I was just giving you a hard time.

Wow, I can’t believe I missed all of this back and forth, I just noticed all of the comments on the sidebar of the front page and decided to check it out. I think it all comes down to an argument like you say tomato I say tomato (that certainly loses something when reading it and not saying it outloud), I have several twitter accounts but I don’t really USE the service and have posted as much in the past that I don’t get it.

@Pat I have the same problem as you, (not a great multi tasker), except that I am easily distracted by something else. So, even though I am focused on something, if I go do something else or something jumps in front of me, it takes me awhile to get back to where I was. I couldn’t tell you the times I have an idea that I thought would work great on my websites in the past, then replied to an email, read something on the internet, answered the phone, etc., and because I hadn’t written anything down or started to work on the new idea, when I’ve come back to think about the idea, it is gone from my mind forever. Heck, I’ve probably already forgotten why I started this comment. I think twitter and facebook both suck, too much noise depending on who you are friends with/follow.

@Sam Still I see great usefulness in Twitter, for one of my websites, I get between 50 and 100 visitors a day, but have almost 2500 followers on twitter because it is about a sport. Another twitter account, about a sports team, has over 1000 followers and lots of clickers, so I have earned a bit with both accounts and will probably experiment with sponsored tweets on both. All of my twitter accounts are obvious about what they are and as long as that subject is what is talked about, I don’t think the ads or affiliate links posted are spammy. Oh, and I just saw the latest post on your new blog about giving up on twitter for friendfeed, are you going to start sounding like Scoble now?

Did anyone see Shoemoneys post on his sponsored tweeting? http://www.shoemoney.com/2009/07/30/how-do-i-make-money-with-twitter-past-present-future/ For some folks 1100 in a day is big, big money, although I’m sure he was earning more than that, as the 1100 was for 4 tweets about a search engine. But, anybody who follows Shoe knows how he is and knows he is trying to make money, ie, they wouldn’t think he is spammy, they just know thats how he is.

@Wayne You are the one that has continually dragged me into stuff, you should be blogging, you should try twitter, you should try facebook, you should try second life, etc, etc. So, I hope I am within throwing distance of you in hell as well. While most I have had fun or been succesful with, twitter and facebook are more annoying to use. But that won’t keep me from trying to make money on twitter, while facebook I think is just going to be for friends as most of the affiliates I have friended on facebook just post links to their blog posts, twitter updates and those get hid pretty quickly.

I wonder now, after answering five emails, two phone calls and checking some stats, if I actually said what I wanted to when I started this comment.

in the useful versus not debate points, strike a big one for "useful". these hackers attacking twitter is proof, in my opinion, that something important is happening there. i read something that hinted of the attack being aimed at a georgian blogger and we all saw what twitter was doing in iran of late. no doubt it has very important activity nested within it, especially in politics and global affairs. i'm still no fan of marketing goods there, and the noise is deafening to me personally, but i am again saying there's no shortage of excellent examples of important and useful communication going on there. i am curious what message, if what i heard is true, the georgian blogger was trying to get out. so here's a case where a twitter happening does keenly interest me, but i still feel signing up to listen to the noise pipe, for me, still wouldn't be an effective way to scratch this particular itch.

looking forward to seeing many of you in NYC for Affiliate Summit over the next few days.

a (likely to be biased) study that purports to have measured the amount of pointless babble on twitter:

Study: Twitter At Least 40 Percent Pointless
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/08/13/stud…

Having seen my friends twitter streams as well as other twitter sources, I'd have guessed 80-90%.

Perhaps my friends just exchange more babble than average.

Social babble or peripheral awareness?

"I challenge each and every one of you to record every utterance that comes out of your mouth (and that of everyone you interact with) for an entire day. And then record every facial expression and gesture. You will most likely find what communications scholars found long ago – people are social creatures and a whole lot of what they express is phatic communication. (Phatic expressions do social work rather than conveying information… think "Hi" or "Thank you".)"

http://bit.ly/pFbur

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/614…

Facebook enhances intelligence but Twitter diminishes it, claims psychologist.

On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it's also very succinct, said Dr Alloway. You don't have to process that information.

Your attention span is being reduced and you're not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections.

extensive texting was associated with lower IQ scores.

[...] As a Twitter neophyte I wrote about my first impressions upon tweeting and why I think you should try Twitter for two [...]

Hey guys, tks for the validation. I'm unfollowing Shaq.

think my IQ just recovered a couple of points.