Twitter battles for humanity: Not all social media robots are evil… Yet.
According to the Terminator franchise, by 2018 an army of killer robots will be tasked with hunting down and killing every last member of the human race. In the meantime, Twitter has been doing its part battling our robot brethren and retaining control.
- It applies limits to any person who reaches 1,000 total updates per day;
- It limits users to 250 total direct messages per day;
- It prohibits more than 70 API requests per hour; and
- It enforces a maximum number of follow attempts in a day.
Twitter prevents a user’s friend base from growing (after reaching 2,000 friends) too much faster than their follower base.
Newsbots aren’t Evil. These robots automatically publish content produced elsewhere. These are OK. Although I tend to prefer newsfeeds with real people behind the keyboard such as @CapTimes, its not the norm. Newsbots act much like an RSS Feed, using 120 characters and tinyurls. Examples of newsbots include @NYTimes @CNN @CSMonitor and @Newsweek.
Blogbots aren’t evil. These robots automatically publish blog content to Twitter (variant of the newsbot). Bloggers using WordPress, for example, can use plugins such as Twitter Updater or WP to Twitter to automatically update their Twitter status with your most recent blog post.
RSSBots aren’t evil. These robots automatically reformat and republish RSS feeds to Twitter. Sites like Twitterfeed help broadcast RSS feeds to Twitter. In the most docile way, RSSbots are used to broadcast an RSS feed you already own. More aggressively, they can be used to pull someone else’s RSS feed into your own Twitter account.
Listening bots aren’t evil. These robots monitor the Twitter stream for conversations on specific topics or brands and share comments with their owner. Many companies recognize the value of identifying negative comments about their brands early and following up with disgruntled customers.
Retweet bots aren’t evil. These robots monitor the Twitter stream for conversations on specific topics or brands and retweet them through a Twitter account to anyone else who’s interested in the topic. Retweet bots allow everyone to follow the same conversations by following a single, Retweet bot account…rather than conducting their own keyword ongoing searches via search.twitter.com or using TweetDeck.
AutoFollow bots aren’t evil. These robots automatically follow other Twitterers. The most benign of these robots (tweetbots.com or SocialToo) are used by Twitterers who want to automatically follow everyone who follows them. The more nefarious of these robots (twollow.com) follow individuals based on keywords that appear in their posting. For example, a company can choose to autofollow anyone who Tweets about their brand. These bots can also be used to find Twitter users will similar interests.
AutoUnfollow bots aren’t evil. These robots automatically stop following other Twitterers — typically, because they stop following your account first. Or, (in the case of SocialToo) because a Twitterer has shown ‘spammy’ behavior.
AutoDM bots are evil. These robots automatically send direct messages to followers. In the early days, AutoDM bots were typically used to send an automated “Thanks for following me” message to new followers. Although services such as Twitter DMer still allow Twitterers to send auto-responses to followers, the practice is now discouraged due to abused by spammers and direct marketers.
At present, we have little to fear from Twitter robots – at least on Twitter.
Credits: Image courtesy of Doctor Popular. This is a page from Robots Don’t Know Anything About Twitter, a 24-page comic created in 24 hours.
Robots in ‘Action!’
Robots that break through and make an impact with social media — and missiles, once the invasion starts. In the spirit of the post, I created this short excerpt of the post via xtranormal.com.