It’s no secret that we run Macs around here, and one of the popular (and controversial) retail programs is something called MacHeist – basically a collection of multiple software titles sold for one rock bottom price. I’ve avoided participating in this (as a customer) in past years due in no small part to that controversy, which circled around the question of whether the group that puts on MacHeist screws the participating vendors.

I’m an ardent proponent of independent software vendors, and I like to support the creation of good software, which I define as both useful and elegant. As such, I thought it best to steer clear of MacHeist on general principles.

On the other hand, it’s unarguably one hell of a deal. And with this latest go-round, it appears that they’ve largely addressed the equitability in regard to the participating vendors, at least according to a number of those vendors themselves. Moreover, MacHeist donates a percentage of proceeds to charity, which is of course a plus.

So, I jumped in with both feet. Now the interesting thing about how MacHeist works is that there is an initial group of applications, and if they sell enough bundles, then additional apps are “unlocked” for everyone that has purchased. Which obviously generates not only the mob mentality that fuels any auction, but also adds to the word-of-mouth marketing of the whole bundle.

And here’s where things get interesting, and either brilliant or diabolical, depending on your point of view. After making the initial purchase, I receive periodic status updates on how they are progressing toward unlocking additional applications. Then I receive a “special Twitter offer” for two bonus applications that have been thrown into the mix, “all you have to do is click this link.” Said link takes you to a MacHeist page where you have to verify that you have a Twitter account (so now they have my user name and account) and then takes you to MacHeist’s Twitter page, where you must follow them. Of course you can always un-follow at a later date, but my guess is that many customers won’t do that.

Thus far, MacHeist has gathered additional customer data for later marketing purposes, and gotten customers to follow the Twitter version of the company’s promotional newsletter. Not bad. But it gets better (or worse).

After you follow MacHeist on Twitter, but before you receive the additional software, you have to post a promotional tweet to your account:

I bought the @MacHeist 3 Bundle. 12 Top Mac apps worth $900+ for just $39 AND I just got Delicious Library 2 FREE!

Once you’ve gone this far in the process, it’s extremely likely that you’ll follow through regardless of whether you find this distasteful or not. I did. And I have to admit to being torn: is this a brilliant social marketing program, or an abuse of social media?

-posted by Paul

Tags: twitter, macheist