Lately I’ve been sensing this trend with Twitter, illustrated in the pie chart below. Yes, I’m being somewhat facetious in regards to the actual percentages; but as it is with all good things, even Twitter is not impervious to those who feel that rather than trying to engage in meaningful conversations, and create valued relationships, they would prefer to cut to the chase and try and sell you something. I could give you 5 sites that are gaming twitter but why give them props? Does this sound familiar? Following-880, Followers- 7 Tweets-1
Direct Marketing Observations 
Wow. Really? But you have a great network on twitter. Are you indicating that perhaps much of even your own network is gaming? Do tell. And to what extent are they gaming? Maybe we’re all gaming in some way or another.
Hi Angela, I had to clarify. Whats happening is as my network grows so does the bandwidth of spammers/gamers.Here is a great example of that: Tweetergetter.com
OMG, Marc. I checked out the site. Sounds a lot like MLM. Move over Amway, now there’s Tweetgetter. How lame, and Unauthentic. Geez.
It’s unfortunate that this is often the way these trends seem to play out in the Internets short history. Opportunists smell blood and come running. I remember a piece of software mentioned within the blogosphere recently — created specifically to “game” Twitter. I’m sure there are others.
However, I know a lot of people on our site using it to keep their friends updated…so there ARE good, honest people using it for good reason.
Seriously. It’s very MLM’ish! except now your following and being followed by utter strangers
The thing is that unlike spam email where they send millions of unwanted emails, these people follow about 1,000 people. If you are looking for raw impressions and promotional value, then twitter isn’t the place to go. I wonder if eventually the scammers and get rich quick types will figure this out and go away.
It’s a great way of randomly claiming a slice of the public stream as your own.
I’ve noticed a new trend in regards to my own Twitter account. I regularly have about 10 variants of the same (often well known marketer’s) name start following me. When you click on their pages a few days later they are normally all removed. Just seems like a massive waste of time and a short-cut to no-where. Why trade of someone else’s name when the long lasting effects of building up your own reputation is much more rewarding in the long run.
Thanks for posting.