Geek Gestalt

It appears that for now at least, we won't get to find out the value of identity on Twitter.

A few days ago, Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron put his Twitter account up for sale on eBay, offering access to his 1,500-plus followers. (It's now at 1,757 followers.) Within a few days, the bidding had gone over $1,500 and appeared headed for much more.

At the same time, Baron went on Craigslist and was also offering to sell a two-day guest-hosting slot on his Twitter account for $150.

Bidding for Andrew Baron's Twitter account eventually went over $1,500 before he pulled the plug on it.

(Credit: eBay)

"I really love my Twitter account but I feel like I haven't been using it the way I want to," wrote Baron in the eBay auction description. "Quite honestly, I feel sorry for all of my followers because they wind up with my tweets in their timelines and I haven't been able to utilize the medium the way I want to. I also participate in another Twitter account over on Rocketboom so I'm thinking I'll post more over there and start up a new account to do what I want to do next.

"It would be silly to just delete this account I have here, especially if there is someone out there that had like interests and had something to say or wanted to get involved in some relevant conversations. In terms of monetary value, I have no expectations or needs at all so I decided not to put a minimum bid on this. Whatever will be, will be....The winner of this auction gets my account with all of my followers."

But now, both the auction and the Craigslist ad have been deleted.

In a series of Twitter posts over the last couple days, Baron indicated that he had already been planning to delete the auction when eBay contacted him and told him he needed to move it to a different category than the one it had originally been posted under.

But rather than doing that, he Twittered, he removed the auction himself. He also said Craigslist maintains that his attempt to sell a guest-hosting spot on the Twitter account violated terms of service.

In an interview Thursday morning, Baron explained his rationale behind the decision to take down the auction.

Essentially, he said, a fellow Twitterer wrote him suggesting that the people who were bidding the eBay auction well into four figures were "all spam marketers, people who will do anything just to get their name out there, people who don't understand Web 2.0 and blogging."

"I already knew," Baron said, "there would be a great range of different types of (possible) outcomes. But I believed that I would be able to manage the outcome by trying to make a positive outcome for the buyer, for my friends and followers. Even if it wasn't a good fit, I (believed) I could work with them. But after I heard that they were all just spam marketers, that just kind of killed it for me and I didn't want to risk that."

Baron told me that he was concerned that many people who have been following the saga of his trying to sell his Twitter account on eBay would assume that, because there had been a fair amount of backlash against him for the planned sale, he was just trying to save face by pulling the plug on the auction.

Instead, he insisted to me, he just felt very uneasy about having the account--and his many followers--fall into the hands of people who didn't necessarily have any idea how to use the account in a way that benefits all concerned.

Some may say that even that rationale is just a way to try to save face, and it may well be. After all, we don't really know for a fact that the auction bidders were really spam marketers. And it's likely there's no way to ever know what is really going on in Baron's mind.

Regardless, Baron said that he had already been cooking up an entirely different plan for his Twitter account when eBay called him.

Unfortunately--for me, at least--he wouldn't say what this plan is.

"When I first put the auction up, I got a Twitter from somebody," he said, "who had another idea I liked much better....There were several ways to keep the auction going and have an end result, and that still would have worked better, but the plan would work (even) better by deleting it."

To me, this is all rather unfortunate. I was, and I think many others were too, very curious to see the value of identity in a case like this demonstrated in such a visceral way. After all, this is a market economy and if someone is willing to pay $1,500 for Andrew Baron's Twitter identity, then we begin to get a sense of what such a thing is really worth.

Then again, does $1,500 of a spammer's money equate to the same amount for someone who is actually active in the Web 2.0 world? Perhaps not.

To Baron, the auction spawned discussions online and off about many other fascinating issues: that of intellectual property law, what friends are, the difference among friends on Facebook, friends on Twitter, and real-world friends, and even angles of technology, marketing, and advertising.

"That's been the most exciting" element of this whole thing, Baron said. "And if I had mentioned what (my new) plan was, that would have killed the conversations."

Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron is selling his Twitter account on eBay. As of Sunday morning, the account--which includes 1,506 followers--was up to $560 on eBay.

(Credit: eBay)

Here's an interesting question: In the world of social media, how important is identity? For example, if someone "friends" someone else, does it really matter who the friendee is?

Well, we might be getting a bit of an answer to this question. That's because Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron has announced he's selling his Twitter account--which includes more than 1,500 "followers"--on eBay. And as of Sunday morning, the auction had already gone up to $560.

"I really love my Twitter account but I feel like I haven't been using it the way I want to," writes Baron in the eBay auction description. "Quite honestly, I feel sorry for all of my followers because they wind up with my tweets in their timelines and I haven't been able to utilize the medium the way I want to. I also participate in another Twitter account over on Rocketboom so I'm thinking I'll post more over there and start up a new account to do what I want to do next.

"It would be silly to just delete this account I have here, especially if there is someone out there that had like interests and had something to say or wanted to get involved in some relevant conversations. In terms of monetary value, I have no expectations or needs at all so I decided not to put a minimum bid on this. Whatever will be, will be....The winner of this auction gets my account with all of my followers."

One thing he points out is that Twitter allows users to change their account name so that whoever ends up buying his account can alter the ID but still retain the 1,500-plus followers.

"So basically it's like getting a new account with your own name," he wrote, "but having a pre-installed audience."

Another interesting element to this saga is that he's actually attracted a fair number of new followers since he put the account up for sale on eBay. At that time, he said in his auction description, the account had 1,397 followers. And now it's over 1,500.

On the other hand, he acknowledged that his followers are following him.

"Also, as with any dynamic group, there is obviously risk," he wrote. "My followers could jump ship at anytime. There is no guarantee on this part. People will come and go, that's just the way it is."

This is definitely the key point. It's true that he has attracted a rather large audience of followers on Twitter--though, according to Twitterholic, a site that tracks the most followed Twitter accounts, he's not in the top 100 accounts--but those people are interested in him and what he has to say.

Yet, the fact that the auction has already fetched $560 is noteworthy. People seem to want those followers, and it will be interesting to see what happens when the auction ends and the transfer occurs.

But in the meantime, as the auction proceeds--it doesn't end until April 22--Baron is offering two-day guest hosting spots on his Twitter account for sale on Craigslist for $150.

Barron is also offering two days of guest hosting on his Twitter account while the eBay auction is still running. He's asking $150 for the guest host spots.

(Credit: Twitter)

"Are you really creative and feel as though you have a lot to offer online culture? Are you interested in online video, social networks, blogging, technology, art and design? If so, this could be a great chance to take a stage and say something," he writes on the New York Craigslist site.

"I'm selling a 2-day guest host spot on my Twitter account to someone who meets just the right profile. I'm looking for someone that my colleagues, friends and others will benefit from in a culturally and socially valuable way. Maybe you have some great videos or a great album of music, or have a story you want to tell. Maybe there is a great cause that you want to spread. Maybe you even have a great product that needs improvement and would like to leverage a great brain trust of interested and capable people."

This is very odd. In some ways, this is more interesting, and at the same time, more cynical. Guest-hosting blogs, of course, is a well-known sport, but selling the slots? And at the same time as the account is up for complete sale?

Well, for someone like Baron, who is sometimes adept at publicity, this is quite the attempt to get some. And of course, here I am helping him.

For me, however, this isn't about Baron at all. It's about the nature of identity and the question of how valuable identity is and whether people in social networks are really willing to be sold like customers of a product being hawked to another company. My guess is that, on the surface, they're not.

But I also am willing to bet that Baron's Twitter followers will give the buyer a brief honeymoon to establish whether he or she has something valuable to say. If so, they may stick around. If not, it'll be sayonara, and too bad you spent those Benjamins to buy the account. Stay tuned.