I was just about to hit publish on a post titled, “WYSIWYG Twitter Badge Web Editor” but then I saw it.
Google AdWords in between my tweets with an embeddable widget.
I felt violated.
And I wasn’t just frustrated that I had written an entire post that was useless, although that was kind of stinky. It’s that it just didn’t feel right. Especially because I wasn’t making any money off of it!
This is the culprit:
Twitter Badge via bastawhiz at WidgetBox.com.
Look, I am a fan of advertising. I am not that guy that hates on bloggers for selling 125 x 125 spaces (if people would buy them from me, I would sell them as many as they wanted!).
But sometimes, ads can get in the way of the message.
Case in point. In between me telling people that I am eating lunch and just got out of a long meeting, they are bombarded with Police Badges.
Take a closer look, I am not even kidding.
I guess if the ads were relevant I would feel less repulsed, but I don’t know.
I recently read a post that John wrote about sponsored tweets but for some reason, this feels different to me.
Maybe it is because there is no spokesperson. It is like, tweet, tweet, ad, tweet. Thanks for using our widget, we just made money off of you!
Am I overreacting? In general, how do you feel about ads when it comes to social media? And how about the proposed advertisements in Twitter.com itself?
DKP says
Are you paying to use the widget?
Blane Young says
No, but it is advertised as “Free”. And I didn’t know that it had Google Ads in it, until I scrolled down to see how many tweets I had set it to display…
After I found out that, I decided not to use it and to tell others, “be careful”.
Tony Alicea says
Shady. I wouldn’t use it just on principle.
Blane Young says
Yeah, I feel you!
I was like, oh – how nice, a free customizable widget.
HOLY MOLEY!?!
Andy Darnell says
Scummy. I’m sure it was in the fineprint somewhere, but that is one of those “features” that you think they would make more known.
Blane Young says
Yeah, I am sure it was. I honestly didn’t notice it until I was about to submit a post for ChurchCrunch on how people should use it!