Private Betas and Other Web Confidence Tricks

Today has been, quite frankly, an almighty pain in the rear end. I've been trying to setup this little guest blogging experiment of mine; getting all my ducks in a row. Wiring up my automation services. Attempting to seduce followers on Twitter. Then it occurred to me.
 
I've become what I despise the most.
 
You've seen them out there, those tantalizing invitations, those seedy cyberspace Sirens. "Follow @whoever for a private beta of whatever". Of course, let's not forget the plaintive "please RT!" at the end. They blink at you like the gaudy neon outside a strip joint.
 
The sad thing is, people click on them. Does anything strike you as wrong about this picture?
 
Before anyone says anything, yes, I know. This isn't real life; it's Twitter. Nevertheless, it's odd behavior from us, to say the least. We're all supposedly smart enough to refuse candy from strangers in the real world. Limit us to 140 characters, and we'll do it all the time.
 
I managed to stop myself, fortunately, long before I got to tweet the "private beta" invitation, pulled myself back from the brink of being a Twitter zombie running on auto-follow. And I tweeted. By hand. As if, underneath this inanimate avatar, I was actually a real person.
 
Hang on. Wait. I am a real person. I'm not an inanimate object at all, I just play one on Twitter. Every once in a while though, I'll have to drop the facade and be real. Just for a change.

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