Amazon Integrates Twitter with Affiliate Program. Is it Spam?

Amazon has introduced a feature on its Associates affiliate scheme which allows its members to tweet links with ease directly from its site. When browsing products, affiliates can now post links to Twitter by simply clicking a toolbar button at the top every page, similar to the way in which they might share an article via a “share this” button.

Of course, the same result was already possible by entering an affiliate link into a url shortener and posting it to Twitter, but the two-click functionality now makes that process easier and quicker.

Whether or not this is a good thing for Twitter users is another question entirely. The micro-blogging and networking service already experiences problems with spam accounts and unwanted marketing messages, so the introduction of similar functionality across other affiliate programs could well contribute to the growing amount of content many users consider spam.