An Eclectic Mind

Fighting a new kind of spammer.

I’m an avid Twitter user with 5,000+ tweets to my name since I joined up over a year ago. I tweet from my computer, usually using Twitterrific, and from my Treo smartphone, usually using text messaging. I don’t follow tweets via text message, but while I’m out and about, I occasionally will use the Treo’s Web browser to see if I’m missing anything interesting among the people I follow in the Twitterverse.

If you know Twitter, you know that you can select whether you should be notified by e-mail when you get a new follower. I have this option turned on. Each time someone follows me, I get an e-mail message with a link to his/her page. In the past, this has enabled me to identify new, interesting people to follow.

Twitter, like all online services, has abusers. In the old days, this was limited to people who tweeted more promotional material and links than real “What are you doing?” content. These people used bots to follow everyone they could. And there were just enough idiots out there to follow them, making them look somewhat legit.

For new followers, I’ve always applied the 10% rule. I wrote about this rule in my post, “Twitter Sluts.” This rule states that if the Twitter member is following more than 10 times the number of people who follow him, he’s following indiscriminately and is probably abusing the system. In reality, he’s not “following” anyone at all. He’s just trying to get suckers to follow him.

Now there’s a new breed of spammers. They set up a Twitter account and post a single tweet with something like “This make money fast plan really works: http://www.somebogusplan.com/.” Then they use bots to follow every person who tweets.

People like me, who want to find new, interesting people to follow, get the notification in e-mail and click the link to check out the user’s Twitter page. What I see is the promotional link and stats that include thousands of people being followed and only a few idiots following in return.

Obvious spammer.

This wouldn’t be so bothersome if it were just one or two of these abusers a week. But I’m getting 2 to 5 of them a day. Following up on these people is becoming annoying.

While I could turn off notifications, I’d also miss out on the real Twitter users who are legitimately following me, people who I might want to follow. So that’s not an option.

Now the folks at Twitter have a technique in place to report spammers. It requires me to go to a feedback page, fill in a form with a number of fields that don’t apply, and put in the spammer’s account name. The entire process takes about 3 minutes to complete — when my currently funky Internet connection cooperates. With 5 spammers a day, that’s 15 minutes of my day pissed away on report spammers.

I don’t know about you, but my time is more valuable than that.

While I could simply ignore them, I’ve taken to using the Block button at the bottom of the user’s Twitter page to block them. This feature is designed to prevent the person from bothering me again or from seeing my tweets. But I think that if enough people do this and if the folks at Twitter occasionally glance at who’s being blocked by more than 5 or 10 people, it could be a quick and effective way to identify spammers. Just two clicks — Block, then a confirmation I want to block — the job’s done.

Of course, if the folks at Twitter installed a “This is a Spammer” link on the user’s page, it would make it clear what we’re all trying to say. I’ve put that in as a suggestion, but am still waiting.

The folks at Twitter have enough on their hands right now, just trying to keep Twitter up and running smoothly 24/7. I hope that when they’re done with that daunting task, they’ll tackle this one.

But they should keep in mind that once they put controls in place to prevent spamming, they’ll have a lot less activity on the site to worry about.

Social Networking spam, Twitter

How I decide when it’s time to stop following a Twitter friend.

I don’t follow many people on Twitter — less than 100, in fact. I think part of the reason for this is that when I follow someone, I follow him/her. I sit at my desk with Twitterrific running on the right side and, thoughout the day, I peek at it to see what’s going on with the people I follow. I respond a lot, which I know is falling out of favor these days. But that’s because the people I follow are my office co-workers, so to speak. They keep me company while I work and, like any workplace environment, social conversation is part of the picture.

Enter, the Abusers

Anyway, because I read all the tweets of the people I follow — well, at least all of those that appear in Twitterrific while I’m at my desk or on the Web when I happen to take a peek with my Treo — I see patterns in the way they tweet. I wrote about this at some length last June. (Is it that long ago already?) And I soon discover which ones have joined Twitter for purely self-promotional reasons.

You know these people. Almost every tweet they make is a link to something they’ve written. While I’m guilty of using Twitterfeed to automatically tweet about new blog entries as I post them, these folks often go far beyond that by repeatedly tweeting the same damn links, sometimes over several days. This wouldn’t be so bad if what they were linking to was something worth reading, but often, it’s just more self-promotional crap.

These people don’t last long as my Twitter friends.

Three Strikes and You’re Out

To make it easier to identify the Twitter friends who are most guilty of using Twitter primarily (or, worse yet, exclusively) for self-promotion, I’ve developed the Twitter Strikeout Rule. It’s very simple and can easily be applied by anyone who knows the rules of American baseball.

Here’s how it works:

• Each time a person tweets, he’s “at bat.”
• If the tweet is entirely self-promotional in nature, that tweet is a strike.
• If the person has three strikes in a row, he’s out. (That means I simply stop following him.)

The way I see it, my life is already bombarded with advertisements. One of the few places I can get some relief is in my own office, at my desk. Do I really need to see an endless stream of self-promotional bullshit from the people I let into my workplace? Of course not. So I merely push them out.

Once of the nice things about Twitter is that it doesn’t tell people when someone has stopped following them. That’s nice because it means I don’t have to insult anyone. They don’t even notice I’m gone. Most of these folks have far more followers than they deserve anyway.

A Home Run

Taking the baseball analogy a bit further — heck, why not? — a Twitter Home Run is a tweet that’s really good. Usually it’s a link to a video or blog post or plain old Web page that is funny or makes you think or teaches you something really useful.

Sometimes — but rarely — its just a plain linkless tweet that does the same thing.

Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies), for example, has the uncanny ability to pop these things off more often than anyone else I follow. Here’s one from a while back that I favorited:

Starting a blog solely to make money is like learning ventriloquism to meet girls.

John Gruber (@gruber) writes the funniest rants. Sherrie Holmes (@sherrieholmes) can be hysterically funny. Tom Negrino (@negrino) comes across as a very funny, grumpy, old guy. (Sorry, Tom. I know you’re not old. But you must admit you write grumpy tweets.)

Think about the achievement of using 140 characters or less to communicate something memorable, something to make a reader laugh or think. That’s pretty special. It’s something that all serious Twitter members should aspire to.

But then again, that’s just my opinion. What do you think? Which of your Twitter friends hit home runs? Use the Comments link or form to tell us.

More on Twitter

I’ve been using Twitter for about a year now. (The first blog post where I refer to it dates back to March 21, 2007.) I’ve tweeted 3,806 times since then. Most tweets come from Twitterrific, but I also tweet right from the Twitter Web page at my desk or via text message from my Treo when I’m out and about. Amazingly, I still enjoy it. I’ve made a bunch of real friends and have strengthened my relationships with people I knew before Twitter.

If you’re interested in reading more about what I have to say about Twitter, you might find these articles interesting:

• Four Steps to Get the Most Out of Twitter
• Twitter Spam
• Twitter “Friendships”
• Message to Twitter Users: Use a Lint Screen
• Twitter Sluts
• Twit This

Social Networking Social Networking, spam, Twitter

Why can’t they look at least a little like the person they represent?

Like so many techno-geeks these days, I’m involved in a bunch of social networking sites: Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook, RedBubble, Flickr, MyBlogLog, etc. And all of these sites give each member the ability to include an avatar — an image to represent that user.

Maybe I’m not very creative, but my avatar is a photo of me. It was taken by photographer Jon Davison during one of our flights last September. It shows me in one of my favorite places: at the controls of my helicopter, flying over the Arizona desert. (I think I’m over the Little Colorado River Gorge in this shot.)

The way I see it, my avatar is supposed to represent me. What could represent me better than a photo of me doing something I like to do?

Evidently, not everyone has the same idea. While many of the avatars I see in Twitterrific are photos or drawings of the people they represent, quite a few are not. And in other social networking sites — MyBlogLog comes to mind — the majority of avatars don’t bear any resemblance to the people they’re supposed to represent.

I find this bothersome, especially among my Twitter friends. Why? Well, in most cases, an avatar is the only visual representation I have for a person. If the avatar features purple hair or a goofy cartoon face — you know who you are, folks! — that’s the image I have of that person. And it’s a lot tougher for me to take these unrealistic avatars seriously.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I find it easier to communicate with people I can take seriously.

A few more notes on avatars:

• Some people seem to like using their Second Life avatars as their social networking avatar. While I could write a dissertation covering my thoughts about Second Life — starting with, is your first life so bad that you need a second one? — I’ll just say that Second Life avatars are generally a highly stylized version of how people want to look. While few of us are supermodels, surely there’s a decent photo of these people somewhere that they can use online.
• Some people use glamour photos for avatars. I have a colleague who does this. When I met her in real life, I didn’t recognize her. Let’s face it, we only look like our glamour photos in our glamour photos — after they’ve done the photo shoot and brought our faces into Photoshop for some digital plastic surgery. Every time I see this avatar, I have to remind myself that she doesn’t really look like the photo. (Of course, it’s also made me want to get a glamour photo.)
• Some people use photos of their pets as avatars. Talk about going to the dogs! Do the dogs really look better? Or do they just identify with their dogs? Ditto for cats, birds, and miscellaneous wild animals.

Of course, none of this has to do with special-purpose avatars used to promote an idea or cause. An example is the Frozen Pea avatars that many of us wore on Twitter for a few Fridays to raise awareness and funds for Breast Cancer Research through the Frozen Pea Fund. I was a single pea for the day. My favorite avatar was one Twitter friend who created an image of his head sticking out of a pea car.

But I’d like to start a movement among serious social networkers. Be proud of your face and show it off as your avatar! It doesn’t have to be a full-face shot; it can be creative. (Some of the best avatars I’ve seen show only part of a person’s face.) But it should show you, as you really are.

I’d just like to see who I’m tweeting to.

Call Me a Geek, Social Networking Facebook, Internet, LinkedIn, photography, Social Networking, Twitter

A service that makes it easy to post links on Twitter.

I recently found Twit This, a Web site that enables you to post any URL to Twitter as a tweet.

Here’s How It Works

When you browse to a Web page you want to share with your Twitter followers, you invoke Twit This. (I’ll explain how to do that in a moment.) The first time you use this feature (or if you have not set up your browser to remember your password) you’ll be prompted for your Twitter User ID and Password to log in. You’ll see a form like the one here. Choose an option from the pop-up menu to indicate the text you want to appear before the link and, if desired, add some additional text in the box beside it. Then click the Twit This Page button. The link and your text will be sent to Twitter as a tweet. A confirmation page with a link to the tweet appears so you can view it.

It’s quick and easy. The only thing I don’t like is that it doesn’t return you to the original page when it’s done. (But I’m just picky that way.)

Invoking Twit This

There are a number of ways you can invoke Twit This for a URL.

• Install and use the Twit This bookmarklet. On the Twit This home page, you’ll find a bookmarket that you can drag to your browser’s toolbar. You can then click the resulting button while viewing a page you want to Tweet about to access Twit This’s features.
• Click a Twit This button or link in the post. Of course, that requires the blogger or Webmaster to include a link like this. (Keep reading.)

Adding a Twit This Link to Your Posts

The Twit This site’s Home page includes code you can insert in your Web pages to add a link that will invoke Twit This. The code, which uses JavaScript, is available with or without a clickable button. You can include the code anywhere you like on a page.

If you’re a WordPress user, you might want to try the Twit This plugin, which will place a link for each post. I downloaded this plugin but I admit that I didn’t install it. I’m very particular about how and where my links appear, so I decided on a do-it-yourself approach.

To manually add a Twit This link to a post, insert the following code anywhere within The Loop in your template file(s):

<a href="http://twitthis.com/twit?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Twit This</a>

When you save the change, the link will appear for each post. You can see the Twit This links on this site at the bottom of each post. I got fancy and included a tiny Twitter icon so it would match the format of the other bookmarking/social networking sites I listed.

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Try It!

Obviously, if you’re a Twitter user, the bookmarklet is a great way to share your Web finds with your Twitter followers. But if you’re a blogger or Web designer interested in getting more exposure for your posts or site, including a Twit This link can help spread the word. After all, not everyone will have the Twit This bookmarklet installed. But many Twitter users will be interested in trying out a Twit This link.

After all, that’s how I learned about Twit This myself.

On Blogging, Social Networking Internet, WordPress

A new term defined.

Okay, so maybe this isn’t a new term. And maybe I’m not qualified to define terms like these. But as I get an e-mail to inform me of yet another Twitter follower who has nothing in common with me, I came up with this term and felt a need to share it and its definition with the blogosphere.

A Twitter slut is a Twitter member who indiscriminately adds Twitter friends to his (or her) account. He may be doing this for one or more of the following reasons:

• He’s believes that all of the people he adds as friends will reciprocate and add him as a friend so he has a large audience for his tweets. I discussed this phenomena in my “Twitter Spam” post.
• He’s hoping that other people will respond directly to his tweets using the standard @membername format so other people will make him their friend.
• He’s desperate to follow the tweets of anyone who can type intelligible comments into Twitter. That is a minority that I am apparently part of.

Twitter sluts can easily be identified by their friends to followers ratio. If that ratio exceeds 3:1 (that is, 3 friends for each 1 follower), that person is may be a Twitter slut. If the ratio is around 5:1 (5 friends for each 1 follower), that person is likely to be a Twitter slut. It the ratio is closer to (or higher than) 10:1 (10 friends for each 1 follower), that person is definitely a Twitter slut.

Here’s an example. This person has been a member of Twitter for only 9 days. Yet he’s added over 4,000 members as friends. With only 9 updates to his name, he has apparently attracted 398 suckers to reciprocate his friendship.

(Okay, okay. I’ll try to tune down the cynicism. But it’s very difficult sometimes.)

The other day, a Twitter member on the public timeline asked, “Am I the only one who gets a bunch of new friends every time I post a tweet?”

The answer: no, you’re not. Like the rest of us, you’ve just been discovered by a handful of Twitter sluts.

Call Me a Geek, Social Networking