Magpie - Something to Twitter or Squawk about?

Some compare Magpie’s interest-based, contextual advertising to Adsense, noting that Magpie advertisements can benefit their followers or at the least not diminish the value of their Twitterings (or tweets).

Others say Magpie’s chattering doesn’t belong in the brief message stream of Twitter. Magpie tweets look the same as Twitter tweets, raising even more hackles. Including magpie ads in your tweets could get you some unfollows, but many of those with loyal followings say they’re not worried.

Here’s how it works: Advertisers bid on keywords, just like Adsense. As a Magpie Twitterer, you allow Magpie to post ads among your tweets. When there’s a match with your message content, the winning Advertiser’s ad gets in your tweet. As a Twitterer, you can pre-approve magpie ads and you can set the ratio of ads per number of tweets.

The hotter the keyword you use and the more followers you have, the greater your earnings potential. Compensation models vary with advertising campaigns (revealed before you decide whether to approve an ad) and include paypay-per-sale, pay-per-view, pay-per-lead or pay-per-click.

Potential for abuse includes following others for no other reason than the hope they’ll follow you and click on your ads, writing tweets based solely on keywords, and excessive tweeting. These are the same abuses we already see at Twitter in regards to product and service promotion. Thank goodness for the "unfollow" button.

The best practices for magpie advertising are the same that apply to social networking and contextual advertising in general: Provide quality content that is of value in itself and keep the ads relevant and at a reasonable ratio.

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