Ads are blurbs that are asking for your attention. If they are asking you to go somewhere (link), think about something (statement) or buy something, they are still ads.
Given that twitter is a one-to-many medium, unless your friends (real ones that you hang out with) are directly communicating with you over twitter, its pretty much a given that they are ads.
Assume that you follow P-Diddy. You read his tweets. You have never, nor shall never actually hang out with this person in real life. Every time you read anything he produces, you're consuming his ad. His comments which you receive via twitter are veiled PR/marketing - even if he is providing tangential commentary on events unrelated to himself such as the earthquake in Japan... you are consuming his content.
He is a media icon. Anything he says is designed to drive attention to his brand.
While you may not be purchasing anything he produces with your money -- you are spending your attention on anything you read.
This is the nature of programming (content/media programming, not computer programming) -- You are rewarding media content producers with your attention, eventually that will translate to an expenditure of your money -- which is really a proxy for attention/thought anyway...
EDIT: Given that your handle is 'Technomancy' I would have thought you to understand this much -- unless you dont know the meaning of your own handle...
> Ads are blurbs that are asking for your attention. If they are asking you to go somewhere (link), think about something (statement) or buy something, they are still ads.
Sure, that's why I said only 2 of the 5 ads were things for sale; the others were to things like blog posts. I do realize that I'm in the minority; I only follow about a little over a hundred users. I personally know maybe 70% of them.
I suppose his point stands he is talking about the bigger picture and Twitter in general; I'm just pointing out that if you take some care to curate your followers list it doesn't have to be that way for you.
Honestly, I posted a bit impulsively as the first read of your comment sparked my post, but upon review - you were not as rejecting to the idea as I had originally thought... so, my apologies, though I do stand by my points for others who may not think tweets are ads.
Given that twitter is a one-to-many medium, unless your friends (real ones that you hang out with) are directly communicating with you over twitter, its pretty much a given that they are ads.
Assume that you follow P-Diddy. You read his tweets. You have never, nor shall never actually hang out with this person in real life. Every time you read anything he produces, you're consuming his ad. His comments which you receive via twitter are veiled PR/marketing - even if he is providing tangential commentary on events unrelated to himself such as the earthquake in Japan... you are consuming his content.
He is a media icon. Anything he says is designed to drive attention to his brand.
While you may not be purchasing anything he produces with your money -- you are spending your attention on anything you read.
This is the nature of programming (content/media programming, not computer programming) -- You are rewarding media content producers with your attention, eventually that will translate to an expenditure of your money -- which is really a proxy for attention/thought anyway...
EDIT: Given that your handle is 'Technomancy' I would have thought you to understand this much -- unless you dont know the meaning of your own handle...