Web site company Moonfruit is having a contest on Twitter where people are encouraged to include #moonfruit in their tweets, with each such tweet being an entry into their random daily drawing. Problem is, Twitter’s search index is not properly tracking everyone. For example, my tweets (those with #moonfruit or without) have not shown up in Twitter’s search index for almost ten days. So is Moonfruit using that faulty index from which to find their pool of #moonfruit contest entries? My attempts to find out (by tweeting questions to @moontweet, who seems to be answering other questions freely) have been unsuccessful. So I went to their website and sent the following message using their contact form:
Hi,
Your @moontweet person seems to be ignoring my inquiries, and I’m just wondering if you have figured out some way to deal with the fact that unknown thousands of people’s tweets are not currently indexed by Twitter search. (See: http://ow.ly/gnUE)
Perhaps you are using some other index for your #moonfruit contest; again, no one has replied to my many queries. But if you are using’s Twitter’s own search index, then you are essentially defrauding a huge number of people, who are being told by your contest page that their #moonfruit tweets are entries in the contest, when actually they are not.
If you are using Twitter’s search index, and if there is a known problem with that index, then you are unfairly taking advantage of the many people who are promoting your company with no possibility of winning a prize for their efforts. I believe that is something that should be addressed by you. And if not by you, then maybe the Twitterverse can decide what to do about it for you.
Given how quickly your @moontweet person has chosen to reply to others’ tweeted questions, I have concluded that I am being ignored by them. And of course I don’t show up in Twitter search, so my protests and queries are unheard by most. But if I don’t hear back from you on this issue, I am going to take measures to bring it to very public light. I really don’t like the idea that you have all these people tweeting ads for you 24/7, and a big chunk of them aren’t being tracked and don’t even know it.
Please tell me I’m wrong; tell me your contest index shows the #moonfruit tweets that I posted as @FreelanceLance. That’s all I want to know, that mine and others’ entries are actually being treated as entries, as your contest promises.
I would appreciate a reply to this email as soon as possible. Thank you.
-Lance Brown
lance@lancebrown.org
I will update this post if I hear back from them. [Edit: see Moonfruit's Joe White's response in comments, and subsequent discussion.] Until then, beware – you may be pimping #moonfruit without having any chance of winning the promised MacBooks. (Or at the least, you may be participating in a wicked unfair contest.)
If you can shed any light on this issue, please post a comment. Thanks!
-Lance Brown
@FreelanceLance
19 Comments until now
Hi Lance,
Don’t worry we’re not ignoring you, just very busy ;-). You are right we are using the Twitter simple search results as the basis for the comp entries.
We are also looking at the Twitter streams, though these are described as extreme Alpha by Twitter and can be ‘turned off’. Comparing the number of entries via the search and via the stream shows the search has more.
So on balance we decided that the simple search is the most complete and fairest way to gather the results.
We’re also quite clear in our comp T&Cs (see http://www.moonfruit.com/macbook-pro.html point 9) that we cannot be liable for technical issues that may affect the comp that are outside of our control.
We have tried to be completely transparent about the rules and the processes and we’re certainly using all the data that we have that is provided to us by Twitter.
The whole thing is supposed to be a bit of fun, and doesn’t cost people to enter. The customer response has been extraordinary and it seems to have catch the imaginations of people all over the world.
I hope that gives you a better idea of where we are coming from. Many thanks,
Joe
Oo, just had a thought. You could create a new temporary twitter account to make your entries and check that those are appearing in the public stream, as this seems to be an issue with some users. Anyone else affected can do the same.
Many thanks,
Joe
I’m not 100% I get the issue. So some people are being excluded from the results?
To me this is like if 1000 people signed up for something, but 100 of the sign ups were trashed. As long as this was done blindly, people statistically still stand the same chance of winning in the end. Sure, it’s only possible for the 900 who are still in the running, but all have the same chances.
Or am I missing the obvious. And nice letter, Lance!
It’s one thing if there are technical problems that are UNKNOWN and surface later.
But in this case it is a KNOWN fact that millions of postings do not show up on twitter search yet you continue to run your contest.
Wouldn’t it be best to stop it your contest until you’ve received word from twitter that they were able to fix this bug?
Sorry, but writing this off as ‘it’s supposed to be fun’ doesn’t do it in this particular situtaion.
I just check my submissions too. All no shows!
Christopher,
First, thanks for the kind words. The problem with your analogy as I see it is that the people whose entries are being “trashed” in this case never had a chance to win. They are pre-disqualified from the contest, but no one has told them so. So they are unwitting marketing stooges, essentially. And culled before the fact, not after.
And it’s not clear it’s entirely random; if you read the 30-page support thread at Twitter, one pattern seems to be that people who use high-volume or long hashtags may be getting hit harder. My own public stream dried up during #coolbandsmadeuncool, others cite that they were using other popular hashtags when they disappeared too. So ironically, heavier adopters of Twitter and more active “twittizens” may be disproportionately locked out of the public stream (and the Moonfruit contest).
I think James here makes the central point of the problem, which is that Moonfruit knew (or at least knows now) that untold gazillions of #moonfruit tweets aren’t actually being counted as entries, but never disclosed that up front. Joe White’s revelations above, and his half-assed suggestion of making a new account just for the contest are coming 5 days too late, and in an obscure blog comment, rather than on the contest page or as a @moontweet tweet. (Not to mention that it could be argued that making a separate account simply for that purpose would be a violation of Twitters T.O.S..)
Mr. White, I will answer your comments more fully later today. But did you seriously try and claim that you folks have been too busy to answer a Yes or No tweet question? Or do you just have an odd sense of humor? Are you not following @moontweet’s tweets? Or should I put it in Twitter-speak: #answerFAIL.
Another question for Joe White (I’m addressing you here, since this seems to be where you’re choosing to respond to me, rather than on Twitter or via email)…
You say this is all in fun and it doesn’t cost anything to enter. Question: If you were to cover your car in an advertisement for some other company, and drive around like that for 10 days, would that “cost you” anything? If it wouldn’t, can I sign up to display 10 days of free advertisements on your car without giving you any compensation? Should be no sweat, right? It’s all in fun, after all. (It would certainly be fun for me.)
Also, since your company straight-up lied to me about my #moonfruit tweets being counted as entries to your main contest, I do hope you’ll consider my online bulldogging of you as an entry for one of your “creative” prizes. Those aren’t necessarily hashtag-dependent, right?
Cry me a fucking river dude. They are trying to have a fun contest and you have to go and whine about it? Do you not have better things to focus your attention on. You are somewhat of a scumbag with your “bring it to a very public light” comment. If you have problems with twitter, try emailing them. Not bitching about moonfuck on your blog.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment Dave. FWIW, I could give a crap about winning a MacBook. And bringing things to light when folks in power aren’t being fully honest or transparent is something I’m not even close to wanting to apologize for.
Getting Twitter to fix their search index is a separate issue, which I am also working on. And if you had read the support thread for it, you would know that hordes of people have been complaining to them for a month with no response. I did email them, long before any of this you see here, and before your suggestion to do so. Thanks for trying to help me out though.
P.S. Dave – I’ll be sending a crew by to cover your house in a giant ad for me, which I’m not going to pay you anything for. It will be fun!
Just to be clear here: Moonfruit could have held this contest in a fair way, simply by acknowledging up-front what they knew to be true: that not all tweets would in fact be included in the entrant pool.
They could have instructed people on how to see if they were being indexed, and advise how to enter as appropriate. (In the U.S., sweepstakes are required to accept all entries that are submitted in a certain way, regardless of their particular gimmick for entering.)
Such a transparent move would have avoided any controversy, and would have ensured that no one was being falsely duped into promoting a brand with no hope of being entered. But Moonfruit faced that decision and chose to claim that tweeting #moonfruit would equal entry into the contest, knowing for sure that an unknown percentage of entries would never get “entered”.
These are issues of fairness and business ethics, plain and simple. You don’t get to involve millions of folks in your marketing campaign based on unethical grounds. Making sure stuff like that doesn’t happen is one of the purposes of the twitterverse, as I see it.
I’ll admit I’m a little upset too I spent several hours doing my creative submission and it never even got posted via @moontweet
I messaged several times @moontweet and got no responses, starting to think maybe my twitter doesn’t work at all (I’ve never received a message towards me?) I don’t blame moonfruit though, just twitter really. I feel like I wasted a lot of time typing #moonfruit though I’ve noticed none of my posts show up in the hash searches either :(
Anyhow here’s my creative submission in case 1 person wants to actually see it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5RbG4P03k8
Here’s my creative entry! Rock on #moonfruit, awesome advertising!!! :)
A love letter to my sweet little #moonfruit: http://bit.ly/hkwOU
Actually, the way Moonfruit has gone about it, if this “sweepstakes” were being run in any medium other than the Internet, it would be illegal as hell in my state. In fact it is not clear to me that it is actually legal as it is.
Certainly, changing the rules in the middle of the game is illegal in my state. Being in the UK, I am not sure they can be prosecuted (or should be), but again: if they were doing this in any form other than the internet, they would be open to prosecution and lawsuits.
While I appreciate you wanting to bring things to light, I think it’s understood by reading their contest rules that they can’t be held responsible for things out of their control like Twitter’s search not capturing all tweets. Thus, the onus is on the user (or contest entrant) to ensure that their tweets are captured in the twitter search. I just checked, and mine are.
As for grounds for a lawsuit, I’m not really sure what you could sue for. I mean, you’re choosing to enter a contest on your own. Nobody made you do it. They’re claiming they’re giving away MacBook Pros and indeed that is the prize–not a gift certificate to the Apple Store or something that _could_ be a MacBook Pro.
I can’t say I’ve had fun with this contest, but I know others have. All I can say is that it’s just another contest to me, and it’s not like they’re intentionally defrauding people. I think that the bottom line is that Twitter search is not perfect, and Moonfruit addresses this in item 9 of its rules. So at the end of the day, if there are technical reasons why one tweet is not recorded as an entry, then it’s not their fault because there’s no way they can fix a problem that is Twitter’s and Twitter’s alone.
At least they’re giving you a chance to win a MBP. Whether Twitter search will let you have a chance or not is another story, and the fault lies with Twitter.
Lance you are a sucker because after reading this entire post I feel more comfortable about moonfruit.
You really had no legitimate reason to gripe. Moonfruit just used Twitter, you are claiming they knew about the issue. Ridiculous claim considering they are not affiliated with Twitter and just used it to market.
Andrew,
Joe White from Moonfruit openly admitted that they knew before the contest started that not all tweets would be included in their survey of tweet entries.
Even if that wasn’t the case–and it is–even when they were made aware of it through outside forces, they still didn’t disclose that fact on their contest page, or their Twitter feed. They continued to claim that all you had to do was tweet #moonfruit and your tweet would be counted as an entry, even though they knew that was not true for some percentage of users.
If you feel more comfortable with them after knowing that, then I’m not too worried about your opinion of me or them.
Also Andrew, I don’t really see why I’m a sucker. I posted this in order to get an answer from Moonfruit, because they had blown me off on other channels. I got the answer I was looking for, which is that Moonfruit was indeed aware of the problem, and wasn’t telling anyone because they apparently have shaky ethics. I was able to then check their site and see that they were continuing to not tell potential participants about it, which wrapped up my inquiry into the matter. So this post accomplished all it set out to, IMO, given that Moonfruit is comfortable misrepresenting the truth to people for marketing purposes. The time frame of the contest, which got shortened even more by Moonfruit’s abrupt decision to end it early once Twitter delisted them from Trending Topics, made it so that taking any substantial action to make them change their ways was unlikely to work. So again, this post did exactly as much as it could have. I’m pretty content with it.
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