Jaisen Mathai
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09:06:39 am on November 19, 2009 | # |
Direct messaging is a controversial topic amongst Twitter users. To understand the controversy we have to first understand why people oppose it. The majority of users who dislike direct messaging tend to generalize it’s typical use case as being spam. Unfortunately, they’re right. Spammers flocked to Twitter the instant they realized it was free and they might be able to generate traffic or money.
The baby and the bath water
This doesn’t mean we should remove direct messaging altogether from Twitter. Just because spammers flocked to email didn’t keep it from becoming the single most successful communication tool since the Internet. Spammers created plenty of problems which cost a lot of companies millions of dollars. Nonetheless the benefits far outweighed the headaches and we pressed forward. I believe the same will happen for Twitter.How we’re dealing with the spam issue
We realize that PubliciTweet could be used by spammers but it’s a battle we’re willing to fight because we know there is tremendous value to be had. We’ve taken several steps to combat spam and have an arsenal of tools planned. We don’t believe it’s difficult to remove incentive from spammers. The most successful safeguard we’ve taken is to remove the option to send a direct message to all of your followers. That feels spammy just typing it. We had to learn the hard way though. But it wasn’t rocket science. It was obvious that more spam than good would come of it and it really makes the most sense to focus on targeting groups of users to send a message to. By removing the spam all followers feature we were able to focus on enhancing the group management features.The never ending fight
If there is one thing spammers are then it’s persistent. Our immediate plans are to continue to focus on creating incentive for people to send high quality content to people that are interested in it. This is, by definition, the anti-spam. We plan on adding a feature so Twitter users can join groups in an opt-in manner. Further down the road we’re going to limit free accounts and decrease the value of using our service for spam by making it too expensive. Of course we’ll keep the service extremely affordable (and as free as possible) for users that are creating value for others. But it’s no secret that even low costs are high barriers of entry for spammers.Group messaging on Twitter is inevitable. Help us make it as painless as possible! If you have suggestions on how we can help win this fight then leave a comment or join us at the PubliciTweet Get Satisfaction page.
