Today's Washington Post has an interesting article about some
recent Twitter phenomenon (that I of course would not have known about
had I not been reading the PAPER version of the newspaper) called
"#FridayReads."
Basically, the hashtag was thought to be a
series of tweets by famous authors and others who simply wanted to tell
their "followers" what they were reading. Eventually, though, some of
the hashtag's users realized then that the originator of the tag and
her small staff earned money off it -- that the whole thing was just a
secret commercial for publishers.
Once again, it seems the
web, which was once championed as the greatest thing for freedom of
expression since the mouth, is really just a giant tool for advertisers
to use in their relentless quest to find out what makes us tick.
From the article:
"Two weeks ago, users including New York Times best-selling author
Jennifer Weiner began to tweet that the hashtag made money off
contributors. Author Maureen Johnson wrote on Twitter: “I didn’t realize
it was a moneymaking business where publishers paid to promote books.
"Others
followed suit, surprised that what they saw as a simple communal love
of books helped a group make money. When I spoke to Johnson that day on
the phone, I wondered: What’s the difference between contributing to
#FridayReads and Twitter? The issue seems to me a microcosm of a much
larger social-media message: Companies make money selling your
conversation to advertisers."
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