A Tweet flashed across the timeline – 16,000 followers in 90 days. At times like this it pays to be a native of New York City, a former journalist, and political hack for a decade, my BS meter is extremely sensitive. However, my curiosity radar draws me in to see what’s up with that!

So I watch the Twitter Traffic Machine video. In the video, Bill Crobsy, the founder of the Twitter Traffic Machine system, is thrilled about two qualities of his system, 1) it gets 16,000 targeted people to follow you in 90 days and 2) at any time it can get two percent of them to click on a link to content that is automatically generated. The outcome of all these numbers is companies will pay you to drive traffic to their content. The sample of Crosby tweets shows its a feed of captions and links.

Since I’ve spent 25 years in marketing, I’m hearing this and thinking – Twitter is green direct mail. Yeah, that’s got something going for it right?

At first, maybe second glance to some, this is a hijacking of Twitter relationship paradigm. Perhaps it’s the “Infomercial-esque” style of marketing that generates a visceral reaction. However, if Twitter is a relationship machine isn’t it then what each party in the relationship wants it to be. When there is agreement that’s a good relationship – when not, it ceases to be a relationship.

In 2007, I raised the issue of Twitter being a 100% opt-in ad network using Dell Outlet as an example. When I am in the computer market I follow Dell Outlet because the profile sets the expectations about what I’m getting. It’s a classic case of good relationship management, set clear expectations by communicating.

However, when you take the human factor out by automating the discovery and communication, can that be called a relationship? Do I introduce you to my imaginary Twitter friend Write4cash at the local tweet up? Dharmesh Shah raises the Twitter Spam Bot question last week in Mashable.

The extremely fast product lifecycles as we move through the early adopter phase of social web tools is creating interesting questions about the proper use of the new medium. What was created for a certain purpose at the start is viewed as something very different as more people evaluate its use. The issue being grappled with here is age-old. Twitter, which is a versatile communications platform, is being use for quantity by some, and quality for others. Where they clash there will be a bit of friction.

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