Just because you can monetize tweets doesn’t mean you should.

Just to clarify one thing right off the bat so we don’t get started off on the wrong foot. I see nothing wrong at all with bloggers wanting to monetize their work, even to the point of using properly demarked sponsored posts. While other’s might factiously refer to this as evil and soulless while the very blog they work for does just that I think it should be left up to the individual blogger and his/her readers as to how evil it is.

That said I don’t agree with monetizing things like one’s Twitter stream. I have never been a fan of Magpie and I am even less of a fan of the soon to be launched Sponsored Tweets ad platform from Izea. Under the new program Twitter users who sign up for the ad network will get paid either on the number of clicks a sponsored link gets or by a flat fee per tweet.

The program is a natural extension of the company’s effort to find new ways for advertisers to connect with customers, he said. Izea has run “sponsored conversations” for many brands, including a recent campaign for Sea World and another for Kmart. In those instances, Izea advertisers pay for bloggers to create content about a product or service

Source: AdWeek

Now from a purely personal point of view I don’t think that stream of consciousness micro-blogging services should be used as an income generator. We are already seeing enough bastardization of the Twitterstream with the misuse of things like hashtags and Twitter-based games, we don’t need to have to start pulling our hair out over having to deal with sponsored tweets.

While it is inevitable that things like Magpie and the upcoming ad network from Izea happen it doesn’t mean that we have to like it, or agree with it. I think the whole idea stinks and like I said just because we can monetize out Twitterstreams it doesn’t mean that we should.