Do you sell a product or service online? | Hacker News Reader

Do you sell a product or service online?

customerfind.posterous.com

27 pointszackattack7 comments

Ok...maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'm having a hard time understanding what makes customerfind 1.0 different from any Twitter follow spam tool. If you're automatically following people by keyword and then unfollowing them if they don't follow you back in 2 days, you're just gaming Twitter and sending annoying spam.

As for 2.0, it doesn't really say what it does, other than that it helps you contact people who mention keywords you're tracking. Does that mean you can now auto-spam with them with an @ reply? I sure hope not. Is it a Twitter app with search built-in?

Full disclosure: I'm one of the co-founders of MightyBrand, a social media monitoring and engagement application. Early on, we made the mistake of mass-following to get followers, and I really regret it. We ended up un-following every single person and then following just a few relevant folks. It's slower, but more authentic, useful, and sustainable.

I toyed with some windows software that did what you mentioned above. Followed users based on keyword and unfollowed if they dont follow back in 48 hours. It checked every 4 hours which isnt alot but still got the @account banned.

Version 2.0 helps you find precisely relevant people, using AI techniques. And then it helps you do whatever you want with them - follow, @reply, whatever. You get a dashboard of info about them, to help you understand that they really are relevant. And if they aren't, you just hit "ignore" and move on.

It's no longer automated. It's a HUD/sales pipeline for intelligent humans.

I agree, as much as you need to be paranoid about spam, there is also the flip side: when people(twitter users) need something and your tool helps them connect with a vendor it can be magic. Not all unsolicited communication is spam. It's all about targeting and I believe that is what Zack's tool is after.

Interesting. Can you describe what kinds of AI techniques you're leveraging beyond keyword search?

Hopefully it doesn't cause you to follow spammers like your version 1.0 did. I had to unlink your app's twitter oauth account because I kept getting more and more spam from following the wrong people.

indeed, through predictive techniques, we avoid spammers, and auto-follow is now optional (a popular request..)

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