Will Amazon Affiliate Twitter posting tool increase spam?
Amazon has introduced a new feature for its Affiliate members, making it easy to post a link to any product on the site to Twitter.
It’s another step in making it easy to promote Amazon’s products, after the introduction of cut-and-paste widgets and “link to this page” for bloggers and website owners.
Yet Twitter is already flooded with spam and promotional messages, and Amazon has just made it a whole lot easier for casual spammers to flood the service with affiliate links.
Additionally, because the links are effectively cloaked (a side effect of having a limited character count on Twitter) it’s not easy to know what will directly benefit the Twitter account holder if the link is clicked and a purchase is made.
Of course, seasoned spammers will already have automated systems in place to create and publish tweets, but now anyone can do it with just a few clicks.
I don’t deny that the service is useful. If you have a loyal Twitter following and are genuinely recommending products, and providing disclosure, then the occasional link is fine. This new tool will save you time.
Unfortunately, I can also see it adding to the stream of rubbish flowing through Twitter, and an increase in the number of account blocks I’ll be having to do on a regular basis.
What do you think?
11.10.09
Before this move by Amazon, I used to send some affiliate links @ Twitter. But that was not just 2-3 clicks process.
Now, this is a big step for Amazon (and its users), but as you said, the spam will be increased.
11.10.09
Well, as if there isn’t enough spam already, but I guess another opportunity to make money tweeting will become SPAM sooner or later…
Igor
11.13.09
spamming is inevitable coz spammers are flooding the whole place and it is just a matter of time before twitter becomes a spam.