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Jamie Wilkinson
Evan Roth
James PowderlySelling a Twitter account: how much are my friends worth?
Last weekend Andrew Baron put his Twitter account (and its 1600 followers) for sale on eBay.
Account sales happens all the time in World of Warcraft. Selling customer lists is semi-standard practice among headhunters, and last year a Top 100 Digger attempted to sell his account. But Andrew’s Twitter account sale is stirring up a lot of discussion: about the value we place on an “authentic” account, about the value of its audience, and even questions about the value of a service where you can amass and broadcast to 20,000 “friends” just by clicking a lot. To wit: here at Famo we’ve demonstrated proof-of-concept Friend-O-Matic software that can help you on your way to this, and can assure you that many, many others have done similarly (more on this to come)
Was a Twitter account “property” he could sell? Did it belong to him since its value stems from the people who follow him? What are the ethical issues of selling access to people who have put their trust in you?
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The flurry of interest around his account has actually made Baron more interested in continuing to use it. Since the bidding started, 300 new followers have signed up to follow Baron’s account. More important, the communication through Twitter has grown much more provocative and interesting than it had been before. “At first I got a lot of responses where people were shocked,” says Baron. “But I started to communicate with them and they were laughing about the idea. That’s what I want more than anything—[better] interaction on Twitter. Now I am overwhelmed with all of this back and forth.”
More coverage: TechMeme chatter, TechCrunch
