If you follow Twitter co-founder Ev Williams you might have seen a few tweets from him tonight related to their anti-spam efforts and the new Twitter limits. There wasn’t really any new news here but it was nice to see Ev reaching out to the Twitter community and keeping people up-to-date on this sticky subject. While there are still a lot of complaints about Twitter Spam, I’m getting the sense that Twitter has turned a corner and is starting to gain the upper hand in this battle.

Here are the questions and answers in chronological order:

One thing that you’ll notice about spammers on Twitter is that they have horrible content. In many cases, their tweets are nothing but a repetitive series of links loaded with tinyurl’s that point to their splog or affiliate marketing site. Other spammers will scrape the public timeline and use a script to re-purpose (a.k.a. re-tweet) other people’s tweets as their own. This isn’t just annoying - it’s stealing other people’s content.

The Send Chocolate blog recently did an excellent, detailed post about this nasty trend. Take a look at this screenshot of Re-Tweet Spammer @jennyvalley’s timeline.

If you do a Summize search on some of the phrases from @jennyvalley’s tweets - for example: “precious quiet morning alone” - you’ll see that these tweets are not original. They were stolen from other people without their knowledge or consent.

So why do I bring this up? Well, it turns out that Twitter is aggressively going after spammers on Twitter who re-tweet other people’s content. The other day, Twitter employee Crystal provided this update on the Get Satisfaction site (thanks to @mdy for the tip on this):

Hi Guys,

We are actively ridding the system of spammers, it’s true. A large number of “re-tweet” accounts have been removed in the last 24 hours. (A “re-tweet account” is an account that is following many people, and simply duplicating messages from the public timeline instead of posting original updates.)

If your follower number drops, this may be why. If you notice that you’re missing numerous followers and you’re absolutely sure they are not spammers, please send a request to support with the user names of the people in question, and we’ll check it out for you.

And just today, Twitter co-founder / Obvious CEO Ev Williams provided this update in response to a question about Twitter Spammers:

So if you’ve seen a drop in your Twitter Followers over the past few days, don’t worry. It’s not something that you did or said. It’s just Twitter doing a little house-cleaning. And I’m happy to report that @jennyvalley appears to have been one of the spammers that was included in this clean-up. That account no longer exists.

I’ve come across a screencast by an internet marketer that introduces micro-blogging as a new frontier for marketing. In this video he talks about Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku but the primary focus is on Twitter. I’ve said before that I’m not against using Twitter for marketing purposes. So why does this video bother me?

1) The video was produced on March 17th (notice the St. Patrick’s Day logo on the Google page at the start of the video). This is a couple of weeks before I started to notice a big increase in spam followers on Twitter (I started this blog on March 31st). I’m not sure how many people attended the seminar where this demonstration was given but based on the timing of it, it appears to have some connection to the escalation of spam on Twitter.

2) It’s clear from the video that this marketer is not using micro-blogging services to communicate with other people. The primary goal is to get indexed by Google and drive clicks to affiliate sites and make money. That’s it. There is literally no mention of using Twitter to engage with customers, listen to what they are saying, and all of the other “soft sell” techniques that companies like Zappos, Comcast, Pandora, and many other companies are using very effectively.

3) There are several references in this video to using automation tools to generate tweets and follow other people on Twitter. Biz Stone from Twitter recently referred to these types of tools as a contributor to their stability issues.

The good news is that Twitter has recently taken steps to detect spam accounts on Twitter and terminate accounts that have been determined to be spammers. It remains to be seen how effective Twitter’s anti-spam tactics will be.

The video runs for about 17 minutes. Below are some highlights in case you want to skip around.

2:35 - Talks about how Google indexes content from Twitter and other micro-blogging sites. “The spiders follow, your sites will get indexed, your properties will rank, and you’re just going to make more money.”

3:38 - Compares following people on Twitter to friending people on MySpace.

4:29 - Talks about how he made all of his money on MySpace before a friend adding tool was available.

5:00 - Talks about how you can get a competitive advantage by getting into Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce early.

5:20 - Shows how he set up the infamous @BarackObama4 twitter profile on Twitter (a well known spam account)

5:48 - Makes a reference to an automated tool to create almost 6,800 updates on @BarackObama4

6:40 - Shows how he set up the HillaryClinton5 (another well known spam account)

7:20 - Talks about Email marketing is almost dead because of spam filters and how micro-blogging is a new opportunity.

7:55 - Talks about pinging RSS feeds to get more attention from search engines

8:39 - Shows how he set up @toshibalcd to “drop links” to an affiliate page selling Toshiba televisions.

10:00 - Another reference to automated tools

10:12 - Shows Tumblr

11:15 - Shows Pownce

12:24 - Shows how search engines are indexing micro-blogging content

13:45 - Shows an affiliate tracking tool that shows how many clicks he has gotten for the various micro-blogging campaigns that he has “niched out”

14:50 - Another reference to automated tools

15:05 - Call to action to get involved today and “take over this traffic”.

15:15 - Another reference to automated tools

15:40 - Gives a sales pitch for automation tools

15:55 - In reference to using automated tools, says that you have to “get your hands a little dirty”

Here is a screenshot from the video:

Twitter user mdy spotted a new Twitter Help page called 4.6 Following and Update Limits. The specifics of these new limits are intentionally vague but it’s clear that they are targeted directly to spammers who mass-follow other Twitter users in a short amount of time or blast out updates every few seconds.

I think this is great news. Matt Cutts (Google) recently spoke about anti-spam measures at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. He says that one of the best countermeasures against spammers is to frustrate them and cost them time. This latest move by Twitter is sure to do that. But like any anti-spam technique there are sure to be some false positives. If you feel like you have been unfairly shackled with these new limits you can contact Twitter support and plead your case.

Here is the complete text of the new Help page as of June 8, 2008:

4.6. Following and Update Limits

It is possible to get into a state with your Twitter account where you are not able to perform some action (at least for some period of time) because you’ve hit a limit. There are multiple types of Twitter system limits, ranging from the number of updates in a given time period to the number of requests to follow other accounts. There may be other types of limits in the future.

Why do these limits exist?

Twitter has always embraced the idea that constraint inspires creativity. The service has thrived because of limits–most notably, that of 140 characters per update. In general, we encourage experimenting with new uses for Twitter. However, without system limitations in place it becomes possible for some activities to place excessive strain on the system to the detriment of others.

What are the limits, specifically?

The limits are based on multiple parameters–not a single metric. Because the limits are in part meant to curtail nefarious behavior, we are not revealing the specifics of how they are reached. Please note that these limits are sure to change as we figure out what works. We’ve taken a best guess to get started, but Twitter is still evolving and new uses are being invented all the time.

How will I be affected?

The good news is, it’s highly unlikely you will be affected. The limits were designed to not affect the vast majority of people. If you got to this page from somewhere other than a message in Twitter that says you hit a limit, chances are you’ll never have to think about it again. On the flip side, you probably will be effected (unbeknownst to you) in positive ways by having a better-working Twitter.

Did you reach the limit in error?

If you think you’re hitting the limits unfairly or you have a legitimate need to go over please contact Twitter support and explain your situation.

Twitter provided another update on their developer blog today. In this latest update, Twitter answered questions about their recent stability issues. One of the questions asked if there is anything that Twitter users can do to lighten the load.

Twitter’s response:

The events that hit our system the hardest are generally when “popular” users - that is, users with large numbers of followers and people they’re following - perform a number of actions in rapid succession. This usually results in a number of big queries that pile up in our database(s). Not running scripts to follow thousands of users at a time would be a help, but that’s behavior we have to limit on our side.

So who are the people who are running scripts to follow thousands of people at a time? I’m willing to bet that most of these people are spammers or over-zealous marketers who are trying to follow as many people as possible in a short amount of time. It’s not really clear from the blog post what Twitter is doing to limit these scripts but it’s good news that they are taking steps to limit this type of behavior.

Looking back on this, it looks like one of the key features that triggered Twitter’s massive growth over the past year - their open API - has also bitten them in the ass because it enabled things like the mass-follow scripts, which have caused stability problems. This left their platform wide open for abuse by “black hat” marketers who have been treating the Twitter user base like a free mass mailing list. And the Twitter community paid the price with frequent downtime. It’s pretty clear that whatever throttles and checkpoints Twitter had in place to limit their exposure to rogue applications was not enough. They learned this lesson the hard way.

This is a critical time for Twitter. Many users are moving over to other tools like FriendFeed, Jaiku, and Pownce while Twitter sorts out their technical problems. Is this a temporary move or are these users gone for good? I’m really hoping that this turns out to be a temporary glitch and not a repeat of what Friendster went through a few years ago.

Update:

Below is a screenshot of a tool that is designed to follow massive amounts of Twitter users. There are other many other tools similar to this one.