Thursday, June 02, 2011

Why Using TrueTwit is a Mistake

There's a service on Twitter designed to keep you from getting notified when you're followed by bots. It's called TrueTwit and it's just awful. Here's why:

Actual TrueTwit Captcha
When you follow someone who uses TrueTwit, you're directed to a page with a captcha code you are required to type. These are almost never decipherable. You have to hit refresh 4-5 times to get a readable code. That's a lot of trouble to go through to follow someone.

Why are TrueTwit's captchas so much harder to read than those from other sites? It's their way of twisting your arm to get you to sign up for the service. Because once you register with TrueTwit, you no longer have to jump through the pain-in-the-ass captcha code hoop. And then, of course, all your followers get redirected to TrueTwit.

Actual TrueTwit Captchas
So it's not only viral, but despicable. Don't like using our pain-in-the-ass service? Sign up and we won't bother you anymore!
I call that blackmail.

Between the unethical nature of the service and the fact that I resent being forced to click and click and click and click just to get a readable captcha, I take a stand against this service by refusing to use it. And I think you should, too.

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I promise you won't be directed to TrueTwit.

10 comments:

DawnG said...

I used this "service" (and I use the term loosely) for about 1 day and opted out. It is a total pain in the butt. They don't explain what their numbers mean, for one thing. And ppl I KNOW are not bots (moi, for instance) come up as such.

No thank you.

Brian Ellis said...

TrueTwit is supposed to cut down on spam. Well, it doesn't. Sure it may catch some bots but it won't catch the human spammers. Aside from that, your time is expensive. You shouldn't have to jump through hoops to follow someone. That takes away from the social media experience and those who use it, simply don't get it.

Heath said...

Thank you for validating what I have been feeling about TruTwit myself. I have considered signing up to avoid the pain in the but it causes, but I wondered if it would then force my followers to jump through the hoops. You just confirmed my suspicions and I will avoid it like the plague! Thanks.

Tim Griffin said...

Thanks for your helpful words and just the title of this post. I find the DM's I get from people using the service more than frustrating.

I used to think it was worth filling in the little form each time... but I have now made a habit of ignoring people using truetwit - I want to spend my time connecting, not filling in a truetwit form that was auto DM'd to me!

Anonymous said...

Besides being annoying it's really bad for marketing. To start off a 'relationship' with mistrust is not a smart choice. Luckily I only had a few of those. Don't they trust their own judgment? Anyone with normal intelligence can easily single out spammers/bots. Either you want to follow someone or you don't. Simple as that. No need to 'force' peeps thru some annoying validation process that won't help much anyway. I clicked the last TrueTwit link this morning!

Anonymous said...

The paragraphs below are from their blog faq. So basically you do not need to sign up and can just ignore the messages. You can follow the person anyway.

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Help!! If someone doesn’t complete the validation request, they won’t be able to follow me!!

Nope. Not at all. TrueTwit doesn’t prevent you from following anyone, nor do we stop anyone from following you. If someone doesn’t complete the validation request, they can still follow you.

In fact, if you follow someone first, and they follow you back, they’re not even sent a validation request.

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Ellen said...

Anon, if you ignore the messages the person you're following does not get notified that you followed them.

It's an utterly useless service with no redeeming features.

Fortunately, it's practically moot at this point, as True Twit is withering away. Good riddance.

Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention or you were unaware that when TrueTwit DM’s a potential follower and said follower complies and validates, Truetwit then leaves cookies in your computer. They have no reason to do that because your asked to validate each time a different truetwit user sends out a DM. The first time that you are validated should be the last time and any subsequent requests should have the next truetwit user get a message advising them that this account has already been validated, you would think that should happen since they leave cookies. So let me say I am alleging that truetwit is spamming you, I deleted all the truetwit cookies in my computer, then I posted in my bio No To TrueTwit. I allege it to be a scam, and I am filing a formal complaint against them with Twitter. I also think when you reach out to follow an account and instead of receiving a thank you, the first thing they send back to you is I think your a spammer validate yourself. I say to myself how insulting so #$%^ you and I automatically unfollow. I am also trying to develop an app that will automatically unfollow any account that sends you that stupid insult.

Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention or you were unaware that when TrueTwit DM’s a potential follower and said follower complies and validates, Truetwit then leaves cookies in your computer. They have no reason to do that because your asked to validate each time a different truetwit user sends out a DM. The first time that you are validated should be the last time and any subsequent requests should have the next truetwit user get a message advising them that this account has already been validated, you would think that should happen since they leave cookies. So let me say I am alleging that truetwit is spamming you, I deleted all the truetwit cookies in my computer, then I posted in my bio No To TrueTwit. I allege it to be a scam, and I am filing a formal complaint against them with Twitter. I also think when you reach out to follow an account and instead of receiving a thank you, the first thing they send back to you is I think your a spammer validate yourself. I say to myself how insulting so #$%^ you and I automatically unfollow. I am also trying to develop an app that will automatically unfollow any account that sends you that stupid insult.

Ellen said...

Anonymous, thanks for that info. TrueTwit is even worse than I thought!

I'm glad you're reporting it to Twitter. Please let us know what happens.