An open letter to Twitter

Hi,

Thanks for the promoted tweet from eToro. I seem to see them regularly.

I understand that you have a business. From my point of view, promoted tweets are little more than ads, or marketing junk. I’d like to be able to switch off promoted tweets from eToro. I’m just not interested.

I get the need to monetise your product. Google manages to ship me reasonably relevant advertising in my Gmail. YOu get a lot more information out me so….why do I get ads for Apple Stock?

I read a piece Hilary Mason wrote the other day about interview questions for data science questions. She said she’d ask what, based on your knowledge of bit.ly’s data, you would do that they are not doing.

Well I don’t know for bit.ly to be honest. I don’t use the service quite enough to comment. However, where Twitter is concerned, I’d do a better job on contextualising the inline advertising. Take me. It’s clear from the accounts I follow, the links I follow, the posts I make, even my description that I have certain specialised interests….photography. Surf. Kitesurf. Computer related stuff. Travel.

Nowhere in my account is any evidence that I am interested in eToro’s services. But I wouldn’t object to more relevant tasting promoted tweets, so how about it? Are you working in that area at all?

 

yours,

 

Treasa