Like much-criticized PayPerPost for blogs, German/UK startup Be-A-Mapgpie will pay you to insert advertisements into your Twitter stream.
Advertisers pay on a cost-per-thousand-impression basis, and the ads are promised to be delivered to relevant audiences based on keywords. That means Be-A-Magpie will analyze the content of your Twitter messages to see if there is a match to particular advertisers.
The TechCrunch Twitter account, with 31,000 followers, can earn a whopping €14,410.51 per month, it says.
The service auto-determines the number of ads to insert per legitimate Twitter message – the default is one ad for every five Tweets. The service inserts the ads automatically by storing your Twitter credentials. As for disclosure – well, there really isn’t any. A #magpie hashtag is added to each Tweet, but that’s it.
It’s not clear if Twitter will object to this. Their terms and conditions don’t specifically exclude it, but an amendment may be in order. There is a good discussion here, started by Robert Scoble, on whether it should be banned.
Users may not be so forgiving though. I imagine anyone who starts to use this will see a sudden decline in followers rather quickly.
You can tell who’s already signed up for the service – the company is using those accounts to spread word about itself virally:
Update: Credit where it’s due: Ben Kessler appears to be the first to call PayPerPost on Be-A-Magpie.