Two essential Twitter tools to fight spam and find followers

By | April 5, 2010

I was playing phone tag with Chris Pirillo today when I started thinking about Gnomedex this year. I love SXSW to death, but Gnomedex is my favorite technology conference.

To be sure I’m not missing out on any of the pre-Gnomedex chatter on Twitter, I decided to give TweepML a try. It’s a free service that lets you choose a Twitter List and auto follow the members.

How to find and follow interesting people on Twitter

I visited the site and searched for Gnomedex and found a Gnomedex 9 Twitter list. What’s cool is you can follow all of the members in one click. These are obviously people I have a genuine interest in following. TweepML indicates who you were already following as it subscribes to the list members. It’s a great way to find and follow interesting people!

As I did this I received an instant direct message, which is one of the most annoying things about Twitter these days. I can’t stand auto direct messages. Auto DMs suck, except in the case of TrueTwit.

How to get rid of Twitter auto DM spam

Fight Twitter Spam with TrueTwit

The Auto DM was from John Darrow. It read:

@jdarrow uses TrueTwit validation service. Please follow this link to validate your profile.

Upon clicking the link it took me a TrueTwit page with a captcha. I entered the correct captcha and the thank you page read:

Thank you for taking the time to verify yourself with our service.

Just a reminder: if you sign up for TrueTwit Basic, you will no longer have to validate for any other Twitter user.

You can also sign up for our free 30-day, no-obligation trial of TrueTwit Premium. This means you not only avoid having to validate for any twitter user, but you will enjoy these additional features:

  1. No direct messaging of any followers.
  2. Auto-follow new followers that pass our follower analysis.
  3. Access to our Follower Analysis page which summarizes the status of your followers.
  4. Free 30-day, no obligation trial.
Thanks again!!

No, no TrueTwit – thank you! Could this be the end of Twitter auto DM spam?


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  • http://uber.la jmacofearth

    Dave, I like the TweepML service very much, thanks for that.

    On TrueTwit, while I support you using any tool that makes your Tweetstream more manageable, I cannot say I am a fan of TrueTwit. In fact, when I tweet @ a new person, and I get the DM from TrueTwit that I need to VALIDATE myself so the tweet can go through… Well, I'm done. No need to do that.

    Remember Plaxo? This type of double validation service is what turned that legit service into a spam-like tool.

    So I am all for Twitter Tools. But not for TrueTwit.

    Cheers,

    JMac @jmacofearth | uber.la

  • http://www.davemadethat.com Dave Delaney

    Thanks for the feedback.

    My understanding is that when you have entered the captcha once, you
    are cleared to DM any user using the service.

    I'm not convinced this is a major annoyance, but I guess time will tell.

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