It’s a sign of the time, or possibly of the Apocalypse. Your popularity on micro-blogging service Twitter is measured by the number of followers you have – those who sign up to receive your Tweets, or messages you send.
For those distinctly lacking in charisma, Australian service uSocial will sell you followers, at $87 for 1,000, going up to a block of 100,000, according to the BBC. And they’re not short of business.
uSocial finds potential followers by searching Twitter for those with similar interests and locations. Then it messages those people to alert them about the person they might want to follow, although obviously the decision is theirs. It keeps going until the person has the number of followers that have been paid for.
So far uSocial has done work for around 150 customers, and up to 90 more have already signed up for the service.
Leon Hill, uSocial chief executive, said:
"A woman who runs yoga classes is one of our clients. So are some religious organizations including one man that just wants to get the word out about God."
"Twitter started as a way for just friends to keep in touch. As with any social media site once they get big, every business or marketer jumps on the bandwagon.”
"It's an excellent marketing medium."
uSocial estimates that each follower is worth a dime a month to whoever they follow, with money to be made on click-through ads. But really, everyone is still working out how to make money from micro-blogging.
Provided by Digital Trends
