Hummingbird touts itself as a tool from an Internet marketer that has made millions of dollars online. Now they want some of your money to use Twitter. Before we go further, keep in mind this is a blog with an opinion.
Straight from their website first..
Hummingbird has been sold for over $2000.00 to marketers who begged me to keep this a secret.
When I told them how much I planned to sell Hummingbird for, they nearly jumped through the phone. In fact, we argued so long and so hard about it, that they literally paid me to compromise.
To honor my promise, I have agreed to only sell 75 copies at this drastically reduced price, then close the doors, forever.
Maybe we are nuts here at EverythingTwitter, but I don’t recall showing you any tool you would pay $10 for, nevermind this crazy thought.
Automatic friend following – we have free tools for it
Unfollow people not following you – free tools again
Isolate your friends – yes, free grouping tools
Monitor your account – you do it daily!
UPDATE: Feb 23 2009 due to the same 2 people adding the wonderful supportive comments to this post wondering why we tanked this review, I removed them.
Filed under: Add-on Tools, Web Clients, Hummingbird, scam
Can anyone tell me if there are friendly tools for automatic friend following out there?
3 tools with completely free elements for all your twitter automation. You do not need to buy the tools. See what free parts to use in each tool here:
http://www.abipo.com/blog/web-design/internet-marketing/automate-twitter-follow-unfollow-for-free/
Enjoy,
/Brian
I purchased Hummingbird, like many other people believing that the software was from a reputable company.
However, once the purchase had gone through, the trouble started immediately. Firstly it took over 3 days to get the license, during which time I tried to contact the owners (which was very difficult as their support mails don’t work and trying to find their support details is near impossible) without much success. Eventually I received the license form them, only to realise that it does not work on a mac, which is what I use at home.
I then requested a refund from them using PayPal (where I purchased from), and after nearly a month of emails and requests, PayPal completed the claim in favour of hummingbird (Jounce) stating that “The item is ineligible for PayPal Buyer Protection because it is intangible”. What a crock of BS!
The thing about this software company (Jounce) is that the attitude and rudeness of the people at Jounce is unbelievable, they even stated that I should run a “virtual machine” on my Mac to make it work! How dumb is that… why do you think I bought a Mac (NOT a Windows PC) in the first place? And furthermore, why should I have to? As far as I am concerned the software IS SIGNIFICANTLY NOT AS DESCRIBED. Their support system is basically NON EXISTANT, and as many people have come to realise (in this and many other blogs), there any many alternatives to Hummingbird, and nearly all of them either free or a lot cheaper than HB, and their functionality is far better than Hummingbird.
So after all my hassles with them, and them not refunding my money, I still cannot use the software that I don’t want. After everything, I even installed it on a Windows PC, only to find out that the license they gave me is not valid anymore (surprise, surprise). So I have paid $69 for Hummingbird that I cannot use at home because I have a Mac, and after all they have suspended my license anyway! Would you call this even remotely ethical?
My advice to anybody thinking about purchasing hummingbird is the following:
DO NOT BUY IT!
YOU WILL BE RIPPED OFF ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!
There are many alternatives out there and I will use all my comment and blogging ability to ruin their name!
Considering that this company no longer exists and the program relies on the server on their side to work, this product is a moot point to complain about. I, like others I am sure, have to eat the money we spent on the slick advert. Live and learn in 2011. Go free as much as possible and be skeptical about anything you have to pay for.
I bought the product around 9 months ago. There was some difficulty with the licensing key, and the owner (or support staff or whatever) was very rude when I tried to get things fixed. Maybe he was just having a bad day, but it was uncalled for.
The product itself worked to an extent, but I recently have had use for it, but it’s been down for the last few days. Save your money and try tweetadder instead. They actually give you a free trial, and they don’t advertise themselves like amateur affiliates trying to make a quick buck.
I’ve reviewed Social Oomph and TweetAdder and use both.
http://www.sweetice.biz/wordpress/?page_id=188
Searching Social Networks is great, it reminds me of http://www.searchulike.com that helps search social Bookmarks…
With recent changes Twitter is really much less “bulk” manageable.
What are the alternatives to hummingbird
I bought HB 2 and it does not work.And when I called sopport they said that it was me and not the program.When I tryed to get answers he told me to get f*ck.So I had my cridet card refund the payment.Then when I tryed to delite it from my computer it open and started running.So today I found a rebill and now I have to start it all over.Please DONT BUY IT!!Dont buy any thing with out a 60 day money back guarantee.
hi,so whats the best often for a free software for twitter?
Just noticed a pretty rude advertising tactic on the part of hummingbird. I googled Tweetadder – a tool that I have tried for free and am thinking about buying – and the sponsored link said Don’t Buy Tweetadder – in all caps of course. I clicked on it and it went right to the sales page for hummingbird – no actual criticism of tweetadder at all.
Twitter is changing it’s policy toward bulk follow and un follow so software like HB is loosing it’s touch.
I really don’t understand this bandwagon that appears to attract slagging off Hummingbird and Mesiab labs.
I understand the concept of free speech but at least take the time to justify yourselves.
I got half way down the list of comments and haven’t found anyone who’s bothered to actually make any effort to make any comparisons.
I’ll admit I’m biased because I use Hummingbird and it suits me just fine, which compelled me to look into it.
Moving on, I went through some of the comments to find references to the free options. Here’s what I found.
Social Oomph: Doesn’t mass follow or mass unfollow. I use it in combination with Hiummingbird for its auto follow and auto unfollow function.
Phoenix Twitter Desktop, doesn’t list features from what I could see, so I’ll assume there’s not much to rave about. I get that its free, But I’d like to know what I’m getting before I take the time to set it up.
MTF Dashboard: ????? Tried searching for it and it doesn’t appear to exist, forgive me if my ignorance is the issue here.
Catfood Follower:Appears to be a good free alternative, however having read the threads on its support there still appears to be a few bugs.
In conclusion, I don’t see any justification for majority of the remarks, many appear to be simply following the trend without any frame of reference. Maybe its cool, I don’t know.
Hummingbird was one of the early programs to perform mass follow/unfollow, and issues were bound to arise, however Hummingbird as I understand it has recently signed an agreement with Twitter to ensure compliance with Twitters parameters.
Finally I would add that mass following in any way does not create targeted traffic as some would have you believe. It simply builds numbers, and by the law of averages, the higher your numbers, the more chances you have of getting good traffic. Gaining quality followers is down to who you follow, and how much you participate in the community.
I have to say my participation up to now has been small, as I tend to dip in and out, either way Hummingbird does what it says on the tin.
Hope this helps.
I think people here ignore all comments. The problem with hummingbird is nothing more or less then the cost. Socioaloomph, pheonix twitter desktop, MTF dashboard, catfood follower, and SO many other programs do EXACTLY what hummingbird does only they are free!!
However all that aside…. I’d actually pay for a tool that would automate using http://sokule.com/postit/blogmarketing At least then when my posts go out they would go out to 30 different social sites… now THAT is worth $200
Pretty sure Hootsuite would match your needs, plus it’s free too.
I think hummingbird bashing is becoming a favourite past time among the internet marketers. Wouldn’t it be a better to have some independent review site that analysises all availabl the software/appsand lets users vote on it.
I think the actions it performs are the bashing portion. Not the actual software developers. It could have been anyone
I haven’t used HB yet. But, I use Twitter to find potential buyers for my products and services. My goal is to make a couple hundred dollars a day, and if I can spend $100 or $200 once to help me earn $1000 every week, I think that’s a good investment of time and money.
For me, the most useful functions of any Twitter tool would be:
1 – auto-follow 100-200 people per day based on keywords in their profile or conversations
2 – auto-unfollow people who have not followed me back 3-5 days after I have auto-followed them
3 – create a never-follow list of people I have un-followed, or don’t want to follow based on keywords
4 – create a never-un-follow list of people I want to follow even if they un-follow me
Where are the free tools that automate those functions?
can hummingbird filter tweet, i do not want add follower that tweet link, usually people tweet link just want to promote stuff, so, it is useless and probably danger to follow them
I just wanted to mention our tool that I believe has the same if not more features then hummingbird and is a fraction of the cost. Here is the website: http://www.tweetwhistle.com I know it’s shamless self promotion but hopefully it helps someone out and they save a few bucks
-Paul
I said it before I will say it again… hummingbird was doomed from the start. But no rest assured this is NOT the end for twitter mass friend programs. My program MTF dashboard still works perfectly and as long as you don’t go setting some ridiculous number like “follow 1500 users” I have yet to see any flags from it. I use it on 26 different accounts for mass following, auto tweets, rt’s and virtually everything else. And unlike hummingbird guess what? My program is STILL free :O) Just do a google search for MTF dashboard.
I just did a search for MTF Dashboard and I couldn’t find your site..Whats your URL, I’m interested in checking out your program
It appears that the use of Hummingbird has started to get accounts suspended.
It happened to me within minutes of using HB. In fact HB was still working.
There are a few people starting to report this via the HB forum.
Looks like it’s all over for HB and auto follow tools in general.
Well, I think it’s awesome! I agree with Jake Z. For the everyday Twitter user it is not a necessity, but for a hard-core online marketer/business owner it’s great! Sure, there are sites that do all of the things that the Hummingbird does, but it takes forever to keep up with all of that. I, for one, am a very happy customer. Thanks!
Leah
http://www.twitter.com/haloproject
Hello!
I have heard great things on Hummingbird,more than birdfeeder, however, is there one app, that has most of the features all the other apps have out there?
Is there a granddaddy of them all?
there popping up all the time.. heres one examplehttp://whostalkin.com/
so many…
any ideas?
Sean Vanity
I really do appreciate your attitude and opinion. So after all paid stuff are not always the only solution.
Hi,
My windows laptop was stolen. Bought a MacBookPro. Wanted to reinstall Hummingbird again. Paid full price and loved it.
Can’t figure out what has happened, I cannot find a way to re-download the software or retrieve my installation credentials.
Please help. I would like to use it on my Mac instead. Is that possible?
well, that was fun to read, anyhow
We would like to thank the blog creator [ idonotes ] for allowing all opinions to be voiced. We respect the authors opinion but also support freedom of speach and non-censorship. We are not the type of business that tries to build by censoring two sided opinions. Thanks again! For all you whom have benefited from Hummingbird and support Mesiab Labs software and products, we appreciate your business.
I am completely confused on the Hummingbird affiliate program. e-Junkie, which it is run through, shows the product to be $97 with a 30% commission, whereas the Hummingbird website provides banners and has language that says it is $197 with $98 commissions.
Time to find a different program where things are on the level.
Mark, we ( mesiab labs ) creators of hummingbird recently dropped the original hummingbird to $97 and missed a few images here and there, we apologize for the confusion. Our new affiliate program for Hummingbird 2 is located here: http://hummingbird2.com
I would love some help.
I think hummingbird sucks big time. and thats before I even load it on my puter.
I have sent 6 emails to support in a little over a week explaing my problem, and asked for a fix or a refund. Now I get no replies from anyone.
I was going to tweet a message like this
BEWARE HUMMINGBIRD A story of lost money and lack of support, Lets checkem out b4 buying.
Do you think that a message such as this would motivate support or admin to respond to my emails.
Sneakysales, first of all we apologize if you have not revied satisfactory support. Do make sure you are verifying your support ticket through the email sent by zendesk. We have 3 methods of support for the Hummingbird product. http://mesiablabs.zendesk.com , http://twitterproforum.com , and http://twitaddict.com/hummingbird/wiki/index.php?title=Home
Hummingbird has helped some of our top useres gain more then 90,000 followers. Mesiab labs builds top quality software and is a real software company unlike many of the peopel whom have jumped on the twitter software bandwagon.
Honestly, this is the biggest crap I ever heard. It seems you never tried this programm. IMHO it is one of the most powerful twitter tools actually available! And I’m not from mesia lab!
I am glad you read the posting. However, it isn’t about how well the product functions. It is about paying for the product that can be done for free if you are only trying to build followers that really don’t follow you all that close.
This blog post is completely CRAP, if you are so certain hummingbird sucks, then POST THE FREE ALTERNATIVES FFS!!!
I am glad you read the posting, but apparently not all the comments. We have constantly shown the categories to look in to get tools to do the same thing from all over EverythingTwitter.
never used this product i prefer to used the free ones and see whatt happens then make my judgement
Hummingbird is releasing a FREE client version of their software completely redone and mac / windows compatable.
[...] How can you even talk about Guy in the same sentence as someone who isn't an Internet legend?? Classic marketing – it's like those Quixtar ads that used to say, Bill Gates endorsed our program! Here's other takes, good and bad, on it: Hummingbird – pay for a Twitter tool that can be done free? crap EverythingTwitter [...]
Hummingbird is ok but way too over priced. I ended up finding a way better solution called Bird Feeder by PacesysSoftware.com . Triple the futures, no ugly web browser and its fast!
That pacey software is horrible!! Design is very frustrating.. Hummingbird on the other hand I have been very satisfied with, gained a ton of followers =)
Jeff, although we respect your opinion. Do note that we have lowered the original $197 price set in February to $97 in preperation for our Hummingbird 2 launch. Also, all our customers will receive HB2 free of charge, it will be much more advanced then any twitter marketing software on the market.
Hummingbird is a great app. I’m confident there is nothing out there like it for free. Don’t really think there is anything else out there… Full stop… Great blog
Where is the blasted free version of this program!
Exactly the point. They do not give this way but we point to a combination of products that will do it. Sure not in one wrapper but is the goal to get a whole bunch of followers that unfollow you or ones that stay and grow for the right content?
We’ve released a similar product with many more features that I’d invite you to check out for comparison. There’s a free trial, so feel free to see what you think. (link on my name).
How much is your product? I know you have a free trial but nowhere on your site does it say how much it is after the trial. Plus your contact page asks us to go to the faq’s first but there isn’t one single ques about this software. And there are not prices for any of your products.
I’m sorry but this tool was very poorly programmed
spend some more time on it and give it another shot
You’re crazy! Bird Feeder KILLS Hummingbird. It has way more features. See for yourself.
Actually, Bird Feeder has ZERO issues for me – it’s perfect! I also like how I can follow by keyword. I can’t do that with Hummingbird.
I thought i would point out that christines post is associated with an affiliate link to paceys software. A true opinon is formed when no affiliate link is associtiated. Nonetheless we also encourage market competition, without it there is little innovation.
how do you get twitter to turn on automatic following?
I’ve gotten a ton of new followers lately, but when I get around to following them back, they’re not following me any more. Guess they’re using Hummingbird and have automatically unfollowed me.
The whole idea of “automating and managing the process of following and unfollowing large groups of Twitter users” sounds kind of bogus to me (or at least, not a good fit with how I use Twitter).
I think the software works great………..and if you use coupon code RECESSION, you get another 15% off.
Notice I didn’t include an aff link. If you want to go buy this amazing software, it’s at (no affiliate id) in case you all don’t have it to use that promo code. [img]http://www.quicksnatch.com/images/smiley200.jpg[/img]:)
I dont care who you are and what you do if you feel your business cant survive without a 200.00 app then buy it.
If you can run your business just the same with free apps then send me your 200.00 and i’ll spend it wisely for you :p
does anyone know is there is a mac version? or programs that do the same thing?
bradyo, thanks for asking. We will be releasing a MAC compatable version very soon. Our developement team plans to release an Adobe Air version mid-summer.
For now, all of our MAC users ( myself included ) are running Hummingbird through parallels or bootcamp.
We will be announcing this release to all of our forum members. Feel free to join the forum here: TwitterProForum.com
you can now get the MAC version in BETA here: http://hummingbird2.com ( the marketing features will be released to all original hummingbird users ).
Note to author “hummingbird friendadder” should say “twitter friend adder”
Does this add friends (followers) automatically?
Or does it “add friends” by automatically following others in the hopes that they will reciprocate and follow us back?
I’m assuming by friends you mean followers.
It is one of those automatic followers hoping people follow you back. What value is there in poeple following you that have no reason to or may never pay attention?
I will say, I love your post. I couldn’t agree more and I have even more facts about this garbage on my website. Like the fact (and I have part of emails posted) that the owner admits he raised the price of hummingbird to nearly 6 times the competing software just to get affiliates to buy it! The worst thing is, thats only the start of it!
I also recommend either people stay away from hummingbird or use the hummingbird cleanup tool to use hummingbird for only $7 instead of $200!
People want alternatives? Well I won’t show you free ones but I will tell you things like hummingbird friendadder is 1/4 the cost and 3 times the software! Its more professional, gives options to set time intervals, and a great deal of other things.
The creator of hummingbird tyson quick is a con artist and good at his cons. Stay away from hummingbird for twitter! GREAT POST!
I appreciate your comments Blogging for Bucks. Although you are greatly misleading people.
First of all, I am not the creator of HummingBird, I am the Chief Opeations Officer @ Mesiab Labs.
Second, I think it only right to let people know why you spent your time posting this.. Blogging4bucks got his website removed from his host because he was illegally selling Hummingbird and now is angry that legal action was taken.
We respect all opinions, but I can assure you Mesiab Labs only creates top of the line software and works to serve its community and yes affiliate team better then any other market competitor.
Hummingibrd has been so successful because of the high performing functionality of the software and because it has paid out over $40,000 in affiliate commissions in 2 months.
Thanks.
I bought twitter, had problems…service and support was HORRIBLE…App is OK but it will be short lived as other apps will kick its butt.
keep in mind that those supporting this are friends of the developers or the developers themselves.
bob, Twitter is free.. what do you mean you bought it haha.
And if you were referring to HB support and service you must be mistaken as well.. they have an entire community of supports ( myself included ) at http://TwitterProForum.com , not to mention it has a detailed documentation wiki, and a support/help desk?
Your opinion is fine, but please speak for yourself as there are many of us whom enjoy the product and make good money as an affiliate.
Idonotes, have you used hummingbird? because nothing in the add ons section can do what HB does.. still waiting
Unless you are going to specifically point out free tools or services that can do what hummingbird can do than what good is this post? In your add-ons section you still dont have any links that match the features of Hummingbird.
Ok, I see the posts coming in and finally took the time to start looking at our tools. For follower management we have category found right here
Then monitoring your account can be done by watching keywords, searches, and more across many clients and websites. Add-On tools here have them listed.
I personally love hummingbird. I busted out 5000 followers with it in the first night. I have never regretted paying 200 bucks for it. This review seems kind of dirty. P.S. There are no free tools out there that even come close to generating followers as quickly as hummingbird. Believe me, I’ve tried them all.
Tyler,
Nothing dirty about the review. I question your 5000 in the first night as the rules of Twitter do not support this.
they didnt used to be a few months back, I followed over 5,000 one day as well when the rules werent as locked down
Interesting read. With so many different applications, a “new” gal like me isn’t sure what to pay for an what not to pay for. Is the old adage still true – you get exactly what you pay for? Who do I trust in this ever expanding and contracting world of applications and software as service?
VERY interesting! Thanks for sharing everyone’s opinions – and if it does what you can do for free – then why are these fools paying for it!
Ann Evanston
http://www.warrior-preneur.com
The Warrior is Within You
Hi,
Which are your free tools for:
Automatic friend following –
And free tools for:
Unfollow people not following me back.
Twitter Karma is useless for those with over 5,000 followers..
Please let me know.
Thank you,
jeff
It would be awesome if this blog linked to those tools it mentions for free rather than only saying they exist =\
Kinda useless.
idonotes, how is that list of automatic tools coming along? I wasn’t able to find any under the Add-on section.
you responded to Jake and said you would list the links to free tools like hummingbird. YOu still going to post them?
I have not used the software, but could you point me to the free tools that follow people based on keywords? Thanks.
Bird Feeder follows by keyword, location, language and much more. It’s a free download, so check it out (click on my name for the link).
Can anyone tell me if there are friendly tools for automatic friend following out there?
twitterlater does all that
I think that was a bug they had right when they released the trial, i believe it was mentioned in the hummingbird forum or something. Anyways I’d have to say that simply being an affiliate for HB makes it worth it. A guy I know bought it and just twittered about it and has already make like 6 sales at $60 a pop commission. If you arent an affiliate marketer it might be more difficult to monetize im not sure. anyways, EverythingTwitter thanks for creating a good place to find twitter apps on!
Not a great experience with Hummingbird myself, I have to say – only with the free trial though. Any software that tells me on first run that I have 1400 hours to evaluate it, then on day 3 tells me my trial has expired has to be suspect… If they can’t do the basic math – how good is it really?
Plus, of course, all the risks of plain losing your account if you mechanically follow big blocks of people!
Where did you get the trial?
Hummingbird doesn’t have a free trial anymore, but no worries – just get Bird Feeder. It has way more features anyways (click on my name for the link).
What tools are you referring to that can do what hummingbird can do idonotes? In all honesty that program works great for business in my opinion, already have 14k followers =) …
Gimp can do what photoshop does and its free, inkscape can do what illustrator does and its also free. But Im paying for the Adobe products all the way!!
Great Blog you have here though, got some good stuff!
Sheri, I am going to make some sub categories under Add-on tools to help highlight some of them. I will grab the links but we just cataloged a tool to allow easy follow-unfollow and view who does the same with you. Also there is some sites that will do the auto-follow or Twitter can turn it on for you for free.
It also seems that you are getting people following you back from following them. Interesting approach to gain quick users
But many of these tools work simply and easily, some without downloads too. And definitely for free. I would presume your uncle and Tommy had some decent parts that used together would be a nice free car. Lexus writes a whole new product and charges a ton for it. But Hummingbird doesn’t come with leather, a sunroof and valet when it is getting serviced. I am glad you found it helpful, we didn’t.
Thanks for voicing your thoughts though
I decided to create my own Twitter tool similar to Hummingbird but that actually had the features I wanted as a user: http://twitter-ally.com
While it’s not free, at least I can improve it and add new features fairly easily on request, and IMHO it beats everything else out there already.
But can anyone get your tool without having to sign up for the newsletter or whatever it is?