I was reading a article over at SEOconsultants written by Edward Lewis from PageOneResults about TweepMe, a new service that looks like it’s part of giant human viral campaign.
Registration
Anytime registration on a site begins with my real Twitter account information (username and password), I’m a little hesitant. Let’s take a look around, read some reviews and see what this site is all about.
So, I did a little research. From what I can tell -
The owner of the domain name has many domain names (likely a nerd like me), is using a college email address (my guess, because he still has it and colleges block spam well). The developer’s site Bobbr.com is throwing an asp error though. I would have left it up and added in some Adwords personally. I can’t speak for the owner of the domain name (or developer) just theories. Enough about him (or her), let’s get to the program.
After registration you get a page that has three options:
- #TweepMe – http://www.tweepme.com – the first 5,000 members receive free lifetime subscriptions
- #TweepMe – http://www.tweepme.com – automatically get thousands of twitter followers
- No Thanks, I don’t want to tweet this. (This one made me think that I would only get a free lifetime membership if I chose 1 of the 2 options above)
It may be weighing down the Twitter service with all the TweepMe hash tags.
- TweepMe messages are:
TweepMe – http://www.tweepme.com – the first 1,000 members receive free lifetime subscriptions #TweepMe - (your @username) – http://www.tweepme.com – the first 5,000 members receive free lifetime subscriptions #TweepMe
And from what I understand Twitter banned their first account @TweepMe, but I can’t verify that, but it defintely doesn’t exist. They are now using @Tweet_Me and the developer’s personal Twitter @bobbr usernames. (update – @bobbr has now been suspended).
GoDaddy SSL certificate
If you look at the bottom of the TweepMe index page you will see what look like a combination lock. That image is actually a GoDaddy SSL certificate for using secure pages. You don’t have to use SSL pages to own a certificate and if you know where to look you can buy one for $12.99 USD.
After reading through some of the posts by @Tweet_Me it looks like Edward from @pageoneresults goes on a questioning tyrant to get the answers (I can respect that), and @Tweet_Me responds with some answers:
- We use SSL to process paypal subscriptions and for Paypal IPN connectivity. Since accounts are free, no SSL yet.
- you CAN change your password on Twitter without coming to TweepMe.com, if you do so, the system will skip you.
- We are working on OAuth support for logins (coming soon). We use Encrypted Form Authentication Ticketing for PWs…
Now, I can only speculate the questions but it looks like an effort on @Tweep_Me to atleast offer answers. Not sure if that’s good or a stall technique.
What you can do, as of Mar. 18, 2009 1:00 pm Pacific -
You can register, login, view account and delete an account (well, it appears that way).
From what it looks like to me, “Bobby” as @AlohaArleen from Twitter is calling the “TweepMe developer”, is trying to go live with a new business idea. Not all applications are good, but most are developed to help users with their daily tasks and to also help those users with producing more income for their own businesses. I would guess “Bobby” is offering a free service to get the product rolling just like Ad-Aware and many other software and application companies do. From what I understand that TweepMe site will give you a few Twitter followers every day or every hour. This may be because when the site starts offering a paid service, customers will want to become a monthly subscribers because the longer you have the account the more members you will receive. Makes good business sense to me. Still not sure if it will be a monthly subscription or not.
So, is it a scam?
I guess we will all find out soon enough (and I’ll update it here). I think the concept is good if it works correctly and it doesn’t get everyone banned. It is a human viral network, and if you think about it, so is social media. If it’s not a scam, Twitter could still ban the Tweep_Me account and somehow block TweepMe.com service if TweepMe begins taking up too much server space on Twitter. I know Google has banned software in the past that was a paid service because they took too much of Google’s server space away (and that’s some big servers). Keep you posted!
More News about TweepMe:
Just saw this short post by Nikki Pilkington about the @TweepMe account being banned.
Update Mar 21. It appears to be a legitimate company, so many of you can rest easier. I have setup an account that is a member of TweepMe. It hasn’t received any extra followers but we will see what happens. Sent an email to the developer of TweepMe to write an article about his company. Still waiting on a response, if any.
Glad to see a representative of TweepMe (I guess that’s who wrote in), came by and left a message. Good luck on the project.
That Sphinn title says alot about the article it points to. It automatically assumes we use our members’ info for identity fraud- which is false, so you can basically discredit anything else you read there.
SEOWebHelp, I think that you took the responsible approach in doing your own research… actually, just doing ANY research puts you leaps ahead of those guys. But I appreciate any author who takes the time to actually provide value to their readers, rather than scare the shit out of them
Hi all
I was interested in the concept of tweetme from when I first saw it – its an interesting idea.
However like many start-ups it appears to have made a few mistakes. Not uncommon when someone it trying to be innovative.
Your comments about the @tweepme account are incorrect – I understand the account went into a ‘cooling off’ period.
There appears to be one person PageOneResults – that appears to have a personal vendetta against this provider.
I have no association other than being one of the first 1000 prepared to ‘take a punt’.
Before making judgements it is best to let any new venture ‘get its feet under the table’ and out of beta test mode – for that is exactly how I interpreted the first announcements.
I have received a few followers – but many of the ‘early adopters’ seem to be SEO professionals that wait for the follow and then unfollow – that is not just cricket with this model.
If you like the idea – opt in – if you don’t – walk away Twitter is truly free speech.
There’s talk about this subject there, but not really the same in my opinion. Good to read all sorts though.
been covered extensively http://sphinn.com/story/105518