AmEx-Twitter deal taps web of links
Drake Bennett February 14, 2013
This week American Express and Twitter announced a partnership to allow people to buy things by tweeting. It works like this: You sync your AmEx card to your Twitter account, and then you can start making purchases by putting hashtags in your tweets that correspond with special deals AmEx is offering.
You send your tweet out to your followers - "So excited to wear my Donna Karan Urban Zen bracelet while playing Halo 4!" or something like that - and include the hashtags. AmEx sends you a confirmation tweet, and when you respond to it, the transaction is complete.
To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, the medium of exchange is the message.
There is, at first blush, something conceptually confusing about the whole idea. We tend to think of Twitter as a form of communication, not commerce. Paying by Twitter seems to make as much sense as keeping up with your old college roommate via PayPal.
..
I Northeastern University Century Club has absolutely no problem with keeping in touch with me via Paypal.
Twitter is a means of graffitti, not of communication.
Bill Horne Moderator