Twply Two-Timing

January 1, 2009

Starting off 2009 on a dubious note, recently launched Twply, a service set to send Twitter @replies directly to your e-mail. The notion sounded good until Twply decided to mass tweet anyone who signed up to the service an auto-response to try out the service:

Just started using http://twply.com/ to get my @replies via email. Neat stuff!

Not so neat, though. Numerous users complained directly to Twply’s Twitter account, accusing them of spamming and password theft. And in less than 24 hours after being created, Twply was just sold for $1,200 bucks according to Sitepoint. And with that sale goes over 800 Twitter account credentials (and e-mail addresses). If you recently signed up for the service, you might want to change that Twitter password ASAP.

I think it’s safe to say that Twply is the first social media epic fail of 2009.

More than that though, this shows how social media can be usurped for filthy lucre. With so many startups and bloggers clamoring for coins in this arena, these entities will need to keep their API presence as transparent as possible to ensure trusted sites and third-party applications using them will not just try to gather user information for monetary gain. Granted, users may not read the fine print until something has went wrong first, but not having a privacy policy or some documentation at all is deceptive. Wrapping it in the package of a needed service just makes it doubly specious.

[Hat-tip to Brandon Sheats, who alerted me of the Sitepoint Marketplace listing.]

Category: Launches, web 2.0 | Tags: social media, twiply, twittter

Maurice Cherry

Why so defensive, Liz? All you have to do is conduct a quick Twitter search for Twply to see the buzz from people asserting Twply is a spam service. Aside from our early coverage, there's links on Mashable, CenterNetworks, and TechCrunch concerning this. But your comments clearly belies you know more about Twply than the average bear. How do you know the author had a site on a shared service? How do you know the crew behind it (their Twitter replies suggest it's a crew of people) was a young start-up junkie, especially if there's no privacy policy or terms of service? How do you know that sole person was a male? You're talking about the site being able to run 24/7, but it didn't even last a full 24 hours.

Given Twitter's huge popularity and open API, pretty much any service offering Twitter interoperability or bridging the gap of a feature set not offered by Twitter themselves will spark initial buzz, so that's something a start-up attaching the Twitter name to themselves has to know. It's common sense.

You can't please everyone -- particularly when you sell their e-mail addresses to the highest bidder no less than a day after launching your service. More than just selling the addresses, the Twply brand (if there is one) is now tainted because of the sale. If anything, this should build the case for similar services in the future to be more transparent and scalable. Cloud computing services are affordable, and even for a new service that was probably Dugg, Slashdotted and BoingBoinged all in the same day, that should be expected. I'd be shocked if they released it and didn't expect a huge user base.

Personally, I think selling the addresses made it spam. The team could have just closed the site down with a reason saying way, at least offering more of a transparent effort as to what was going on that to go silent then sell it off while explicitly stating and showing the number of acquired e-mail addresses. That's what crossed the line.

Maurice Cherry

JaWar, I saw one of your tweets earlier about that to Twply. I think the major assumption for this comes from the fact that there are so many other third-party sites and software clients which use the available Twitter API, and it's just another one of the latest new toys to pop-up on the web. Out of these, Twitter only endorses a handful of them, so I think that's the best route to go.

Elizabeth

What evidence do you have to support your theory that Twply author(s) are spammers? I mean, aside from hopping on the bandwagon of idiots, you have no logical proof that this is the case here.

The issue on selling is quite obvious. The author had their site on a shared service, which clearly has its limits. This just shows poor execution on the owner as he didn't anticipate the amount of usage that the site was going to receive. The author is a young start-up junkie, that isn't looking to put more money into a project that isn't going to bring him any money, so it is understandable that he sold the site so that someone who has the financial means to do so, can keep Twply up and running.

The only thing the original owner is guilty of is not realizing the key elements to his site are missing (eg: Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, et. al.) which I'm sure will teach him a lesson in the future when he decides to release another application.

I see no harm in his application, given that the idea was clever, just poorly executed. God forbid that it wasn't a perfect launch. But hey, you obviously can't please everyone. It's obvious that people are going to be so quick to pollute the waves with false accusations that have no legitimate proof of their claims. Sure you have the fact it was a new startup and sold immediately, but there was evidence as to WHY it was sold immediately.

If you can't support it to keep it running 24/7, then you do what it takes to allow it to survive, and if that's selling it, then hey, that's what you have to do.

Ananda Leeke

Thanks for the heads up. I will be twitter careful. Happy New Year.

JaWar

I've been asking/tweeting the question is anyone concerned about giving up their Twitter password to all the sites that seemingly pop up overnight that claim there in no way affiliated with Twitter yet look like some official Twitter site. No, one has yet to reply.

While there are a number of third-party Twitter applications that are not directly endorsed by Twitter, I've made it a point to stay away from those sites that require my Twitter password. Case and point is what recently happened with Twply.