2009/1/27 Chad Etzel <[email protected]>: > I have been contemplating sending this email for a long time, and > finally have decided to just do it, so here goes: > > I understand that we are all trying to gain large user-bases for our > twitter apps, and I know there are several tactics to go about doing > it; but I am wondering what is everbody's opinion on the tactic I > refer to as "twitter app user poaching" in which app devs tweet out to > people right after a user mentions some other app in their tweets: > > "@somebody hey, if you like <insert competitor app here> you should > try <my app>! http://link.to.my.app.com/ " > > Obviously people are monitoring their app's brand and their > competitors' brand, which is obviously a savvy business strategy in > general... but somehow to me, in the twitter ecosystem, this feels > kinda sleazy. I have consciously tried to avoid doing this because a) > the aforementioned sleaziness, and b) i don't think my followers would > appreciate a stream of constant "hey check out my app" tweets. Maybe > I am alone here, what does everyone else think? > > This would not be so bad if some of the apps that have started > poaching mine were brand new and not very well known yet. But at > least a couple have received a lot of coverage on the big social media > blogs (mashable, techcrunch, etc...). None of my apps have had such > coverage (and yes, I am willing to admit I am jealous of that fact, > but it is what it is), and despite that, I have had a lot of fun > growing my user-base organically through twitter itself and my users' > word-of-mouth recommendations. I don't really appreciate others > coming in and sniping my users away. > > So, maybe I'm just being weak and need to grow a pair and deal with it > (by either a) sucking it up, or b) engaging in poaching myself, or c) > both). Maybe all is fair in love and tweets... > > Would love to hear about others' experiences in this area.
Personally I see this as healthy competition. If you're worried about people using alternatives to your app you should probably find out why and improve your app rather than complaining about dirty tactics from the competition. My TwitApps Replies service has quite a few competitors and I keep seeing people tweeting that they're running several at the same time to see which best meets their needs. Whenever I see that I always contact them to try and get feedback, good or bad, so I can make Replies better. -Stuart -- http://stut.net/
