How I Made Money Spamming Twitter with Contextual Book Suggestions

Re:How I Made Money Spamming Twitter with Contextual Book Su... by akkartik on Friday August 13, 2010 @05:19PM (#1602320)

"Externalized the cost of commercial advertising." That's a very succinct way to put it, thanks.

But I'm not sure how you conclude that that was happening. People who clicked on the affiliate links only paid him off if they made a purchase. If no purchase was made, no money changed hands between any players. Right? An affiliate link is not like an ad.

In fact, even if an affiliate link was like an ad, there's no data on whether the users clicking on the link are poorly targeted, or that the CTR will significantly suffer.

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Re:How I Made Money Spamming Twitter with Contextual Book Su... by mike-cardwell on Tuesday August 17, 2010 @04:18AM (#1610570)

He used twitters resources against their T&C's, costing them money, to make himself money.

"Externalized the cost of commercial advertising" is a perfect way to describe what happened.

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