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Just a casual observation as noted on several blog posts of late.If you have tweet arguments (is that a real term or did I just make it up?) they can come back to bite you. There are other examples we could share here, but don’t want to stir up crazy people from past tweet discussions that seemed to drag on beyond it’s life span.

One recent example of that is right here below. Or you can go to the site to see the original post here:

WhizTechCafe’s social media miss by ericasmith A spat between a local business and one of its residential neighbors turns ugly.

It started with a simple complaint.

“	It sounds like there is some sort of party under my window, what the hell @WhizTechCafe, this is why no one who lives here likes you.
	TabithaKMeyer  October 2, 2011

“	@TabithaKMeyer @WhizTechCafe rent space from time to time.. If u don’t like it or us were not mad it’s about business at the end of the day
	WhizTechCafe October 4, 2011

“	@WhizTechCafe understandable that you rent space. But if you’re going to be a coffee shop otherwise, be open during coffee shop hours.
	TabithaKMeyer October 4, 2011

Then it started to take a turn for the worse:

“	@TabithaKMeyer Its called part of downtown living maybe you should consider suburban living or get a loft that is not on the 2nd floor
	WhizTechCafe  October 4, 2011

Tabitha tactfully tried to end the conversation:

“	@WhizTechCafe Thank you, I’ll take your advice into consideration. Have a fantastic day!
	TabithaKMeyer October 4, 2011

But others already had picked up on the public conversation:

“	@WhizTechCafe Swing and a miss! Come on guys, can’t talk w/ customers like that. At least, it’s a bad idea. cc: @TabithaKMeyer @michaeltomko
	RizzoTees  October 4, 2011

“	@WhizTechCafe if you’re going to call out a customer ( @TabithaKMeyer ) at least use proper punctuation even if you can’t be a good neighbor
	PTtheIslander October 4, 2011

“	Wow, @WhizTechCafe, I think you picked the wrong person to aggravate. cc: @TabithaKMeyer @rizzotees @michaeltomko
	therebirth October 4, 2011

“	@therebirth @WhizTechCafe @TabithaKMeyer @michaeltomko Yes, Tabitha is not to be played
	RizzoTees October 4, 2011

“	@therebirth @WhizTechCafe @TabithaKMeyer @michaeltomko And btw, the wrong person to aggravate is…… your next customer. #justsayin
	RizzoTees  October 4, 2011

Again, that could’ve been the end of it. But it wasn’t:

“	@RizzoTees @michaeltomko talk like what?? @TabithaKMeyer has some sort of personal issue with @WhizTechCafe our REAL customers are all :-)
	WhizTechCafe October 4, 2011

“	@WhizTechCafe how many people were real customers before they got bad customer service from you ? @RizzoTees @TabithaKMeyer @michaeltomko
	PTtheIslander  October 4, 2011

“	@PTtheIslander lol punctuation this is twitter @WhizTechCafe offer 10% discount to printer lofts we r good neighbors but we cant pls every 1
	WhizTechCafe October 4, 2011

“	@PTtheIslander @WhizTechCafe have been open almost 1 yr I have never seen @TabithaKMeyer you have to visit to get bad customer service
	WhizTechCafe October 4, 2011

“	@WhizTechCafe nope, you don’t. This is an extension of your business. And please learn have vs had. Cc @TabithaKMeyer
	PTtheIslander October 4, 2011

“	@whiztechcafe @michaeltomko @TabithaKMeyer With respect, telling someone to move to the county. Just an odd tweet from a business
	RizzoTees  October 4, 2011

“	@whiztechcafe @michaeltomko @TabithaKMeyer Unless you’re a real estate agent, that’s just a weird msg to send.
	RizzoTees October 4, 2011

“	@whiztechcafe @michaeltomko @TabithaKMeyer Again, with respect, you have customers that have expressed confusion at multitude of changes
	RizzoTees October 4, 2011

“	@whiztechcafe @michaeltomko @TabithaKMeyer changing hours, etc. I don’t make it downtown much anymore, but downtown residents feel this way
	RizzoTees October 4, 2011

“	@whiztechcafe @michaeltomko @TabithaKMeyer If your message to them is, “Just move, you’re not a REAL customer,” then we’re clear.
	RizzoTees  October 4, 2011

“	@whiztechcafe @michaeltomko @TabithaKMeyer I sense you guys are trying hard and want to stick it out, and I’ve had good food there
	RizzoTees October 4, 2011

“	@whiztechcafe @michaeltomko @TabithaKMeyer But respectfully, & last thing I’ll say, this entire Twitter conversation should not be happening
	RizzoTees October 4, 2011

That last tweet, by the way, is the moral of this story. But I’ll go ahead and let it play out.

“	@TabithaKMeyer @pttheislander stay out of this?? WOW!! You are the one who started this if there was a problem our number is listed 241-whiz
	WhizTechCafe October 4, 2011

“	@WhizTechCafe @pttheislander Ok, I was trying to stay out of this. But now you’re lying. I ate a Cobb salad there last week! Never seen me?
	TabithaKMeyer October 4, 2011

“	Is the customer always right? Appears that @WhizTechCafe and @TabithaKMeyer have a difference of opinion. #twitterspat #meantweets
	EvanBenn  October 4, 2011

“	@WhizTechCafe And you could have DM’d me rather than starting a visible argument.
	TabithaKMeyer October 4, 2011

“	@TabithaKMeyer WHO DO U THINK U R?? YOU STARTED WITH THAT IS Y NO ONE LIKES U N THE BUILDING SO DO NOT TELL ME WHAT I COULD HAVE DONE!!
	WhizTechCafe October 4, 2011

About 30 minutes after this story was published and shared, Whiz Tech Cafe deleted all of its tweets related to this conversation.

“	@WhizTechCafe nice strategy to delete all your tweets. Good thing it’s been given the @storify treatment
	PTtheIslander  October 4, 2011

“	@PTtheIslander deleted = non-factor @WhizTechCafe
	WhizTechCafe October 4, 2011

“	@WhizTechCafe Wow. If you think that, you understand social media even less than you let on.
	LoganJames October 4, 2011

By then, this story was trending in St. Louis.

I’m a big believer in learning from mistakes; I hope everyone has.

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Yes, while I’m writing this about ~2 weeks in advance of it posting online, Google+ is turning into nothing but a cesspool of marketers and spammers. Too bad, as many of us had so much hope for G+ as the next social network that made sense. Of course those of us who are as cynical as I can be, realized that once they opened up access, so would the carpet baggers, hanger ons, and the scum of the internet would join. It’s come to pass, and even though I write this about ~2 weeks in advance, doubtful much will change by the time this post goes live.

While G+ goes down the drain in massive fashion, that still won’t prevent Google+ from going into a giant social space. Will it be used once the spammers flood the streams? That’s hard to say. Currently, Ignore All has become my favorite new addition to G+. Most of the crackpots that are joining, I wouldn’t want to see their streams on G+ or any other social network.

Here is to hoping that I’m totally wrong this time. Doubtful since I’m sure by the time this posts live, we’ll all still have spam in our inbox, as well as see spamvertised links elsewhere.

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Image by compscigrad via Flickr

If that is what you thought you’d be reading about now, you are sadly mistaken. I’m using this blog to just write about whatever comes to mind currently. It’s better to not have a set format since most people can’t comprehend beyond the quick < 140 character Tweet or the one to maximum 3 line Facebook status update. In fact blogging has become more of a news service more than anything.

Witness the fact that small tech blog about ~6 years ago called TechCrunch was valued well over the price the person paid to start it. Had revenue positive before it hired it’s first writer outside of the creator/founder. Then ended up selling out to the big dogs (AOL), even though revenue was still strolling in.

Blogging is now more or less people who want to create a media empire. In fact Mike is trying to do it all over again with his new Uncrunched. Figures. But then again, maybe he just needs to write again. I’m sure it will evolve into something big once again. But if not, at least he can write what he wants, when he wants, and say whatever he feels like. That’s the beauty of blogging. When it comes down to it, the only ethics you need to follow is those that make you the person that you are. The wild west.

What does that say about the future of blogging? Well anyone can (and many have!) set up a blog. With Tumblr and WordPress being so easy, it’s a wonder why we don’t have more blogs. Well we probably have too many. Many just sit around (like this one) and gather dust.

Gathers dust until the owner of the blog (me), decides to just hammer out posts. Relevant or not, and whatever fits the fancy of the moment. All that and blogging in advance so that nothing really matches a time or date. It’s back to writing at will. Also dragging an image to the post from my Zemanta that doesn’t even make sense with this post. Cool, right?

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A few weeks back, some guy I know hits me up on Facebook messaging and said he wanted to jam. I’ve been playing a lot lately as already noted, and since I pretty much have done the iPod shuffle (basically) I’ve been out figuring out different tunes. Getting the jist of the songs enough to play along, and I’m by no means perfect or anything. The dude asks me for 10 songs, which I started to jot down in a notepad on my phone. I came up with 10 pretty easily and here is the 12 I sent over:

Shinedown – Second Chance
Creed – One Last Breath
Creed – Weathered
Three Days Grace – Never Too Late
Socialburn – Down
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus – Facedown
Rascal Flatts – These Days
Motley Crue – Don’t Go Away Mad (just go away)
Better Than Ezra – Good
Journey – Don’t Stop Believing
Lucero – San Francisco
Train – Drops Of Jupiter

This was back on the 17th of September. I have not heard from him yet, but these would be fun to thrown down acoustically speaking. Two guys on guitars, type of coffee shop thing. Most are one guitar songs, but with two, it would be much easier to sing/play and on some of the more technical ones, easier to have one guitarist concentrate on certain passages. To make the songs passable and all.

I would love to call the project “iPod Shuffle” or something, but I guess that would run into issues of copyright, etc… I did get the idea from my week spent in the #FLA last month (August, early September) visit when I saw a guitarist/singer perform at the Fiddler’s Green Irish pub down there.

I liked it. Now hoping this guy will learn these songs, or the jist of them so we can jam soon. Already building the next 12 songs list. They already include the following: Shinedown – What a Shame, Papa Roach – Scars amongst others. Need to start jotting down what songs for sure.

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Why it’s tearing down the entire social sphere. Facebook spammers are at best a humorous bunch of people. They are at worst the heart of what is destroying the social sphere overall.

Not only is Facebook being destroyed by this lot of idiots who feel that posting random Follow me on twitter messages on every open page it can find is of any benefit to them or to the entire ecosystem is beyond me. It’s not only breaking down the system, but it’s an age old problem that has never been fully addressed.

Google+ while releasing a read only api for the time being is going to be under assault of this rogue group of people who’s only intentions are going to be to destroy the platforms that allow them to speak freely. Quite insane if you ask me, but hey, no one is addressing the issue of shutting down these rogue sites or groups of funny people. While everyone agrees it’s an issue only a few companies are tackling it.

While we wait for other people to figure out that this funny stuff spam is nothing but a destroyer of all that is good about social and open, it will be too late. The people who want to contribute to help grow the system will leave in disgust. Quite a shame, but that’s the truth.

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People seem to hit me up all the time about their startup. I find it quite interesting as half the time all they really want is an introduction to someone that I know.

That’s fine, just ask for that intro. I’ll usually give you my full attention to what it is you want to do, and I’ll think of who I can connect you with. Now if I don’t connect you with anyone, that means I don’t think your idea is worth a damn. But hey, I’m not someone that knows it all either, so just because I say it’s not worth it, doesn’t mean it totally sucks.

What I won’t do is lie to you and say “Yeah, you have a great idea!” – when it reality it isn’t a great idea and I can’t see any worthwhile thing coming out of it. Then again, there are things I’ve probably snubbed and would have gone on to make great ideas. Thinking really hard about it now, in the past ~8 years or so. I probably would have passed on:

- Twitter – stupid, it’s nothing more than SMS with some stupid naming conventions

- Skype – another dumb chat program with video chat, and the only saving grace may have been the encryption

- Facebook – who needs another MySpace/Friendster

As you can see, I would have not done a few things and probably would have been burned by that fact. All three companies listed above would have been in foresight been passed on by me. That goes to show you one thing.

Not everyone is perfect in their judgement of your startup. If one person says “No”, be sure to keep trying. That one person could be someone like me. A person that really only has an opinion and you know what they say about that!

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I get invites to be part of people’s LinkedIn all the time it seems lately. It’s almost as bad as how when MySpace was a valid social network, people would bug you to be friends with them. Almost as bad as how Facebook is. How bad Google+ will become if they don’t watch out or let loose a free to post api before they are ready.

Today, I saw an actual invite in my email that had me checking to approve. I looked up and saw a ton that I haven’t bothered to approve! So I went through each one, approving most except the obvious spammers. Like I said it’s like a good way to bug the shite out of people.

Not that there is anything wrong with Shite the religion, but rather shite the nice way of adding an “e” to not just write a word more commonly referred to as excrement. Seriously though….

LinkedIn is starting (has been for quite some time actually, just getting around to writing something!) to become just another social network. Speaking of which, I find most of them are pretty bloated places. Wondering why Facebook and Google+ didn’t learn from the mistakes of MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, Bebo, etc… etc… The beat goes on.

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Well it seemed to have started here, and it’s almost like coming home in a way. Full circle blogging. I just found a new favorite blog by a serial entrepreneur that actually has inspired me to write again. Eric’s new blog or revived site has quite a few interesting posts so far. I’ve read them all, even the one today about his stain glass hobby he is starting again. His earlier posts were all advice he was giving out for free to potential new entrepreneurs that were looking for advisers. Date your advisor before getting married was the last post in that series. You should go back to the first in that series and read them all. Like I said – FREE advice!

Technically Speaking, this the last time I’m going to use that line. For real, it’s hit the full circle, now time to move on to something more progressive.

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I see spam daily. In fact most of us see too much of it. We mostly ignore it and here are some reasons why. If you are in the business of affiliate marketing or email campaigns, you’ll want to review these reasons.

1. English is not your native language. That is probably one of the main reasons your message is given the deep six. When you state things in English and if English isn’t a skill you command naturally, get some help. Even if the marketing message is something the person opted in to receive, more than likely they will ignore it and mark it as spam going forward if there are basic English mistakes. Most of these are grammatical errors that are quite obvious.
2. Sending your marketing in Arabic, when the user can’t read Arabic. Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, etc. – doesn’t matter what foreign language it happens to be, but if you are shotgun marketing your message in one of these non-English languages, you better be precise about your target audience. Basic marketing 101 stuff, but usually I will see a few Arabic messages a day.
3. Promoting a domain that has “bot” in it. Cashbot, Moneybot, incomebot, etc. All of those are versions of domains I have seen, and are real. Any domain with the word “bot” will usually be a quick way to have your email marketing sent to the hole of spam hell. No one really wants to put any money into a bot, unless they are looking for a losing proposition for their list or their money.
4. Shotgun marketing has your short url blocked. Yes, the short url people do block affiliate urls once people abuse them with shotgun marketing tactics. If the person you are sending your marketing message isn’t opted in, don’t send it. That should be rule #1 on your list before you email. Are they opted in, and if they are not opted in, the next item is to remove the email from the list. It shouldn’t be sent. More often than not, people have short urls blocked because they were lazy and just figured the more they sent, the better the results will be. More does not always make a conversion. Shotgun marketing is generally just a really, really bad marketing tool to use.
5. Believing that Twitter is the best marketing tool. Yes, while Twitter can be a great tool, if you are not engaging in conversation with the people, you may as well just be a bot and not a live person. People will be more receptive to your marketing via Twitter if you first engage and actually strike up a real conversation with them. Yes, we are all guilty of using Twitter like it is the end all, be all marketing tool. But yes, we all have been guilty of abusing it.
6. Facebook is not your only place to be. While there are probably close to what, ~750 million people on Facebook now, that doesn’t mean that you must have your silly marketing message all over the site. In fact, being on Google+ now has given me the same look I had when I first joined Facebook. Looking at my Facebook stream is like how it was looking at MySpace streams. Look what happened to MySpace just recently. It was no surprise, and now that Google+ is around, Facebook is starting to have that MySpace appearance in feeds.

Marketing by email and affiliate marketing can be a good thing for many people. I think though, if you are ignoring some of the above six items, you’ll find out that marketing and affiliate marketing can be a losing proposition for you. Not because the product is good or bad, or even your messaging. It might just be flat out ignored due to the fact you have already violated some of the six simple reasons on why your marketing message is considered spam.

Technically Speaking, this has been some of the basic and obvious things I see daily. This list could be longer, but I think these six items are some of the main issues on why most marketing (and affiliate) campaigns fail as well as why most people will surely fire the marketing email right into the spam folder.

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Which of the three services do you like (you can like all three) and for what purposes are you using them?

Do you buy into what this article stated – Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded | Singularity Hub

Vote here or just leave a comment with your thoughts if you like all 3 services equally or have no real preference at this time:

Technically Speaking, how many think that the “awesome” Facebook announcement was lame? (leave a comment also if you want to answer that one!)

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Use Google Translate if you can’t read Kanji

今日は明日されていない現実には日本では以上です。つまり、私はそれが既に存在を超えている5月27日に生まれた国です。 Google翻訳のおかげで、私は私の母国の言語でこの記事を書くことができます。私はそこにされていないけれども私はあなたの出身地隠そうとする方法を私が住んでいる彼らは’フードから実際にいるとき、私はシカゴに彼らの故郷を呼び出すこと知っている何人かの人々のように関係なく、推測〜5歳の頃から今私は否定できないメープルウッドミズーリ州と呼ばれる-私は5月27日に横須賀、日本で生まれた。

私は多くの知る限りではそのことについて日、今の子どもたちの多くは、時間のビデオカメラ、写真などのtechologyの進歩のための鮮明な記憶を持っていること、そしてもちろんFacebookに登録して、/ Ustreamのに戻って、歴史的な視点のイベントのライブストリーミングの日-私の生みの母親は、そのような利点を持っていた。実際に戻って当時では、それはおそらく非常に非結婚恥ずかしいと子供を抱えていた。したがって、私はかなりすぐに養子に与えられた。

したがって、私はどちらかの側に私の本当の家族の何を知っている。私は、彼はおそらく軍人だった知っているが、私の父は、私の出生証明書に入れていませんでした。私は彼女に位置することがないが、私の母の名前は、証明書を利用しています。私は彼女が見つけることを望んでいないと確信しています。私は彼女は、私が一年をとってきて、もう一度、彼女は生きているかもしれないと仮定する。

私はGoogle翻訳の助けを借りて、漢字で書くことができるというヘルプを超えて私の故郷に接続されていることかもしれませんが、私はそれは私の誕生のお母さんにありがとうを言う方法だと思う。同様に列挙されて二度とていた私の誕生父、限り。

私はあなたの両方に何を伝えることができますか？さてあなたはおそらく、常に”人に正確に自分の本当の親だった”知りたがっている5人の孫がいる。それは私が答えることができることは決してないだろうものです。私は、彼らがそれについて考えることにしようとどのくらいの空白、またはギャップを自分自身の歴史の中でどんな人生の空虚さを残すことと思います。あなたの孫のすべては、一部の日本人が知ることに誇りを持っています。さらに私は人生の中で持っているより。

私がそれを受け入れているよりも実際には私は私の実際の遺産を否定してきました。私はこのバックの段落に、これらを先行するになると思います。私は養父母（アメリカ）私の新しい国を採用していることがある意味、多かれ少なかれ私は過去に生まれた国を去った。

技術的に素晴らしい休日の週末を持っている、といえば。私の誕生日を持つことの利点のひとつは、月27日にされて、私は通常の休日やその周囲に右のいずれかにそれを持って取得するという事実です。 ：）

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Interesting information found here written by Dan Zarrella:

Some stats have been published, by researchers and the company themselves, about mobile usage of Facebook. But to content creators, one of the most important uses of the social network is when users create posts, sometimes posting original content, often sharing articles and media found elsewhere on the web. I was unable to find much data about how much of this activity occurs via mobile devices, so I decided to research my own.

I used a random sample set of more than 70,000 Facebook public posts (those from users with open privacy settings). The data includes status updates, videos, links and photos. 32.69% of those posts were created from mobile devices. The mobile Facebook website, m.facebook.com lead mobile usage with more than 18% of posts created through it. Below you can see a breakdown of the mobile applications used.

Technically Speaking, decent info with a cool infographic also on the post.

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• Beware of Fake Osama bin laden links on web! (trak.in)

Just in case you forgot, here is Spokeo to remind us that the web isn’t private. In fact it’s so un-private, what is the point of talking about online privacy in the first place? First people get down on one site after another about privacy, when at the end of the day, it’s not private. Never meant to be private. You want privacy? Don’t go online, stay away, and buy land in Montana or something. Oh, and quit blaming Facebook for all your privacy woes.

The more interesting story here is that about ~4 years ago when I had a small conversation with the original Spokeo founder Harrison Tang, Spokeo was just another harmless social network aggregation site. In that short amount of time, Spokeo like any good resilient startup has shifted it’s business model 360 from where it started.  I totally applaud the efforts there. But in the same token, I question the validity of the current social aggregation startups out there. Do we really know that they won’t flip the 180 or 360 and change into a privacy aggregation money making machine for their founders? What really are their intentions is what we should be asking.

Now if you followed the above link, you see that Harrison also added a position at People Search back in ’07 timeframe. And now his Spokeo is doing the same thing. What do I smell? Money. In the same token, isn’t CrunchBase doing essentially a similar model of data storage and revelation by what they do?

Now much has already been written about this, but for basics, go here to this article about Spokeo Privacy and how to take your name out of their database. If you don’t have the time to read all that, here is a snippet on how to do this:

The good news is you can get yourself off of there.

1. Go to Spokeo and type in your name.
2. Copy the URL when it brings up your information.
3. Go to the bottom of the page and click on “privacy”
4. Paste the URL in the box provided
5. Include your email address (it gives you further instructions via email)
6. Enter the code
7. Go to your email and click on the link they provide to you
8. Confirm the directory listing has been deleted
9. Go back to Spokeo and put in your name to be sure it was deleted and they can’t find you

Hope this helps!

Technically Speaking, when you are online and you do informational transactions online, you do not have privacy. Privacy is an illusion sold and bought for the price of the banner ads that bother you so much. Privacy is only something that happens offline, but the minute you connect, you can bet it’s no longer private.

Related articles

• Spokeo may know more about you than you realize (boingboing.net)
• How your visits to sites are tracked (thehindu.com)
• How your visits to sites are tracked? (thehindu.com)
• Spooky Spokeo (bigbrotherwatch.org.uk)
• Caught on Google Streetview (mckeay.net)

Ever ponder why Black Friday, Facebook, and Twitter are so successful? Want to duplicate the same feat with your startup or your venture? Just follow these 3 keys to success, and I’m sure you’ll have VC‘s and angel’s knocking at your door. Duplicate the 3 keys, no need to re-invent the wheel!

Step 3 – Go Mainstream

Well that goes without saying. If Black Friday wasn’t the term commonly known as the day after Thanksgiving, it wouldn’t be mainstream. Once it reached this level, it became quite apparent that to be in retail, you had to honor the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Facebook would not have survived as a college only social network. Once you are out of college, you are in the mainstream. To have been stubborn and not open to new ideas, it would have remained a small niche social network that, gasp – MySpace might have buried!

Twitter in 2006, 2007 was yet to reach mainstream. Once it clicked or resonated with the masses at SXSW 2007, it was off and running to the mainstream.

Step 2 – Get people talking about “it“

Whatever “it” is, you need people talking about “it“. If you don’t have the people buzzing about “it“, you won’t ever reach step 3 which as you just read is the mainstream.

For Black Friday, that mainstream was when the media picked up on all the sales post Thanksgiving and dubbed it by it’s common known name. Yes, Black Friday not only leveraged the media into believing the name it gave itself, it lent the tip to media to help spread the word of the “it” which of course is Black Friday.

Facebook became the “it” by simply being the “in” place to be first as a college only site, and by holding off the next level it pushed the anticipation of “it” by opening up the site to anyone. Once that happened, it quickly surged into the mainstream.

Twitter had a more difficult time since it wasn’t your classic social network. It was something new, but so new that it could never put it’s finger on”it“. Once it figured out that “it” was actually step #1 below, it quickly leveraged “it” to make a run to the mainstream quicker than either Black Friday or Facebook did.

Step 1 You follow therefore you become a follower

Black Friday would never have had the success it currently enjoys unless there were people seriously following the run up hype to the Friday after Thanksgiving. Retailers now even open on Thanksgiving morning since the hype (look for a new media dubbed name soon for the morning of Thanksgiving sales!) is so big for Black Friday. By hype, I mean lines of people (followers) that maybe won’t buy a thing unless they are tempted with super sales that the date offers. They still might not buy any item, but will be highly tempted by all the accompanying hype, so chances are they will spend some money.

Facebook would have never had the success without opening up and loading up their user base. Once they figured out that you hooked ‘em in college, but now most of their users were post college days, they needed to open it up so that their mainstream friends could connect. Once they did that, the next 2 steps were easier to achieve and success followed up quickly.

With Twitter this first step was more crucial since no one had a clue what Twitter was or how it was going to work. Twitter is/was almost like how this post started out. It had no idea where it was going, but figured that out when step #1 magically took off on it’s own. Once that happened, the powers that be at Twitter realized that it’s true calling was the followers that propelled it to be the darlings of water cooler chat, and then talk shows. It had “it” to talk about, even though “it” was still an unknown, but talking about “it” via the crucial follower step #1 helped it reach mainstream faster than Black Friday or Facebook.

Technically Speaking, if you gain some followers who talk about “it“, you’ll reach the final step in the 3 keys to success which is mainstream acceptance. If you want to put that in your pitch to VC’s and angel’s, tell ‘em you read it here first! Oh, btw, Happy Safe Thanksgiving to all!

Related articles

• Black Friday Deals 2010: 7 Ways To Use Social Media To Score At Sales (huffingtonpost.com)
• Use these apps and save big on Black Friday deals (en.onsoftware.com)
• 10 Social Media Deals to Check In to on Black Friday (mashable.com)
• CyberMonday2010.com is Here! (bradsdeals.com)
• AMD Twitter Contest Goes Live; Along With Some Killer Black Friday Deals (geardiary.com)
• Getting The Jump On Black Friday Deals With These Sites & Mobile Apps (makeuseof.com)

This is almost like the post I wrote a few days back that was entitled – The 3 phrases that annoy Entrepreneurs and/or Startups – except these are statements said to startup companies and entrepreneurs that just generally not only annoy, but ends up having your name (thought, idea) listed on the dev/null or ignore that person list.

While usually not an actual list persay, there is usually a mental note made somewhere. Meaning, if you do one of these items, you probably are on some startup companies list. Of course if you cross the line once or twice, you won’t make the list, but repeated offenses will usually tend to have you one way filed.

1. I’ve waited and my idea hasn’t been implemented, what is wrong with you?

This one is stated a lot in conjunction with #2 below.

Possibly correct in many cases, it still is a very narrow view of what a startup does. Most people think that someone at the company can drop everything just to make the service more pretty. That is not always the case. While people working outside the startup, and general end users may know better in some cases, better isn’t always what is best for the startup.

At times there are outside issues that can’t be publicly revealed to the users of a product. Just think of every suggestion that came into Twitter or Facebook in the past few months, and if they tried to implement them all? Or even a handful? Would the product be just as good, or worse? My bet is the latter. You can’t always please the entire mass while moving forward with the future product offering.

2. Since you aren’t listening to me, I’ll go to company B instead!

Most startup companies care about their customer base. That is why I love working at a startup, and have for a few years now.  Of the startups I have worked for, all of them have bent over backwards to make their user base happy. There is a fine line between happy, and what is good for both. The simple fact though is if you say that statement, you basically are issuing veiled threats (or actual reality). Most people, and me personally, brush off veiled threats.

Another thing to keep in mind, is if your level of frustration with a product or service makes you want to leave to company B, that tells me you have no loyalty in the first place and would go to company B regardless of anything company A did. That also tells me the maturity level is lacking, as stating something like that never does anyone any good.

3. How do you make money with that?

While usually a harmless question, most startup companies don’t share that information publicly. If they did so, then the market would become diluted. The product would be worthless, and no one would benefit. Sometimes it’s a good idea to share how it makes money, but other times, it just isn’t a good idea.

Other times, a partial showing of the cards is in order, but why should a startup tell you exactly how they make money? If you are truly interested in how they make the money with that, why not just “Do it!” and become a startup? Try it and see if you can see how they make that money doing that.

In fact in some respects this one is almost like when someone asks you “How much do you make?” I learned the hard way a long time ago to never reveal that information (to just anyone, in casual chat), even if you are making minimum wage slinging slurpees at a convenient store. To do so can cause lost friendships and more.

Repeatedly asking, after someone politely tells you “None of your business.” is a certain way to have any further conversation with you put on dev/null mode.

4. Arguing (that your point is the right way)

This one seems to make everyone reading this smile. How do I know that?

Well anyone that is reading this has either worked at a startup, works at one currently, or is looking at a message now that has this general point. These people should be made to read or listen to their own drivel. Half the time after looking at these half-baked thoughts, you can actually see people sleeping over it.

Sleeping as in, so bored with the nonsense that is spilling forth that eyes are actually closing in response while a response is being generated. Arguing with a startup is never a good idea. When you think and reveal over and over that your idea is the best since sliced bread, usually will put you on the front burner to dev/null’ville quicker than you can say dev/null.

Technically Speaking, there are more ways – in fact – I know there are more ways. These are some that I have personally seen. Add your items of scorn in the comments or let me know via an @ or DM

Related articles

• Startup Culture(s) Leading the Way (growvc.com)
• How to Connect with High Volume People (bothsidesofthetable.com)
• Stats Squared: Twitter Analytics Tool Sets Aim on Winning Global Startup Weekend (pamil-visions.net)
• Why is no one talking about the difficulty of hiring for startups in India? (swaroopch.com)
• The 30 Startups People Care About The Most (techcrunch.com)

These are actual phrases that have been thrown my way (or overheard – OH) over the past few years working in the startup world. I’m sure the entrepreneur out there that is not considering themselves a startup will also relate. If you have other phrases or thoughts that have been sent your way because you are in a startup or you are an entrepreneur, be sure to contribute them by leaving a comment.

1. Can I pick your brain?

This has to be the #1 item stated once people know who you are and what you do. Even strangers will all of sudden go into this pick your brain mode. A variation of this question is of course, “Let me ask you something… ” or “What is your opinion of… ”

Now sometimes there is a right time to ask this question, or inquire within, but when the whole phrase is stated by someone just looking for freebie tips, that is the point where the person becomes a big turn off. That is where you get their jist of just wanting that free information and walking away from you.

This phrase if used correctly can be a great way to exchange ideas, but more often than not, it’s just an excuse for someone to get a free insider view to the track you are on. I think a better phrase would be something to the effect of “I want your thoughts on this, but in exchange, I’ll contribute my true ideas on this so we can have a meaningful discussion of this.”

2. You mean it’s not FREE?

Freemium is a model or term for the startup business that has come to the surface in the past few years. It’s a great model to use to drive customers to your product. Eventually, if you are a funded startup, you must somehow turn a profit.

Freemium if used correctly can drive a huge userbase, but the next trick is rather a wall to hurdle for some companies, is how to make a profit in order to pay back the investors, or just be sustainable. Without reaching over that hurdle, startups and entrepreneurs just end up another kill shot at the end of the day.

Having FREE products or trials is a great way to reach your end goal. The end user must understand that there will be either one or two ways the company will start to make money. They will either charge you for an enhanced service of the free product you are use to using, or if it’s a traffic based company, they will monetize with advertising – which as stated yesterday in my data post, is going to still drive oodles of money to a traffic based company.

Either way, the internet is not a free-way for startups. Free-way as in, everything can remain free forever. It’s just not something that works in the long scope of company. For a company to survive, they must eventually turn a profit. It’s really common sense, but there are end users that gripe and leave in droves sometime when a company turns on the “We need to make money to keep the lights on” switch.

3. This is important, and this is important, and we need this!

Confused a bit? If you are a startup person you know exactly what that is. That is what is commonly known as user feature creep. Without a good product manager in charge of your service offering, you can end up with serious feature creep. That means your user base loves your product, and offers so many good ideas that only a few can be implemented in order for your product to stay on track.

While those outside of the startup world are always smarter, or they think they are, inside the entrepreneur and startup world you know that only a certain number of ideas are really great. And of those great ideas, only the grand ones make the product road map. To have it any other way means that all the interesting startups that have survived since ’06 would have never gotten out of the gate to mainstream acceptance.

I personally would love to see the ideas floating Facebook, Twitter, YouTube way in the earlier days. Same goes for some of the hot startups of today such as Quora, Foursquare, and bit.ly.

Technically Speaking, nevermind on that last company – I see those ideas float in daily. I’m glad I’m not the product road map person there.

Related articles

• Why is no one talking about the difficulty of hiring for startups in India? (swaroopch.com)
• The Best Startups Are Founded By Entrepreneurs Who Built The Product Themselves (businessinsider.com)
• Why I Moved Backupify To Boston (xconomy.com)
• Top 5 Qualities to Look for in Startup Job Candidates (mashable.com)
• Who will be The World’s Smartest Start-up? (ragtag.wordpress.com)

While many people talk about data being gold, there are those that advocate the privacy of it, and there are more that want to eliminate it entirely. The reason of course is that data is an online commodity that is meant to be bought and sold, and the most valuable data is the type that is associated to you, the casual browser and reader of other people’s data.

Rather, the stories you read online, the news you consume, the sports you ingest all lead the data buyers to want more. Want more of your data to dissect and ingest to present you with the best possible user experience.

1. Advertising

Data is very important to advertising. Without the data on you, the users, there would be no other reason for ads to be online. The internet would have died years ago, and what about the technological revolution we are currently living in? Without ads, advertising, and targeting of data, there would be none of it.

Many people hate advertising, advertisers, companies that are associated with anything to do with ads. Without it, none of this would be possible. The internet as we know it would not have evolved if there was no way that the advertisers could have benefited from running ads online.

The ad game has changed and evolved at a rapid pace over the last few years into a more exchange oriented environment. Companies such as AdMeld, AdTech, and even OpenX all operate on an exchange model over the traditional old school ad server – client/end user publisher advertising model.

2. Targeting

You need data to target. Plain and simple. There are some companies that get in trouble with it as they go beyond the non-invasive type of data or non Personally Identifiable Information (PII) type, into the more invasion of your privacy type – the type that tells the above advertising people that you are looking for a new car. And not only a new car, but the specific color, model, and maybe even the local dealership you want to make that purchase at.

This type of data is of course why data has become an online commodity. Bought and sold. Traded like the stock market. Ever wonder how they came up with the term ad exchange? With the ad industry being a billion dollar a year industry, you can bet your last cookie today that they will target you.

Privacy gurus will forever fight on about this invasion, but in the end will probably lose the battle since data is such a huge commodity. Data being a billion dollar a year business that is already is, it won’t be shut down completely.

3. Startups

How many startup companies rely on it? Do I need to even go there? Without data, many startup companies wouldn’t even exist. Most would be twiddling their thumbs working for some cubicle farm. I’m mainly referring to the programmers and thinkers outside the box type of people. The founders of these companies wouldn’t be doing what they are doing if it wasn’t for the data. They may be startup founders, but without the data aspect, what would the actually start-up?

These are the people that came up with companies like Bit.ly, Compete, Lookery, Perrformable, Shareaholic, BlueKai, Exelate, etc.. These companies all rely(ied) on the data that was out there. Data that could easily be manipulated into a sale-able item. People want to buy it.

Who are these people? Well the companies in #1 and #2 above come to mind. Even newer startups that don’t have a model based on data now realize that data is the way to go. Companies such as Twitter, YouTube, and even Facebook know the value of data even though data was never their first goal.

Technically Speaking, those 3 items alone will continue to drive the data business forward. It’s big business, and business is very good for those that are known as the data brokers.

Related articles

• The battle for online privacy (bigbrotherwatch.org.uk)
• Online Behavior Tracking and Privacy: 7 Worst Case Scenarios (mashable.com)
• Online behavior tracking and privacy: 7 worst-case scenarios (cnn.com)
• Online Privacy: 7 Worst-Case Scenarios (abcnews.go.com)
• The UK needs to change its cookie policies (econsultancy.com)

While the last spam watch talked about the Russian Viagra connection that is starting to run wild, now the Russians are coming up with an insurance scam.

I should say they have come up with an insurance scam. This one involves USAA Insurance company. Feel free to click that last link, that is the real USAA Insurance link located at https://www.usaa.com/.

The scam url looks pretty legit except for the fact if people would read the url – it’s not. When would USAA Insurance decide to really be part of the .ru domain?

Real USAA Login URL: https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_logon/Logon

Russian Scam USAA URL: http://session1007435139.usaa.com.vsdfile.ru/inet/ent_chform/

Notice how they try to use URL blindness and have the same format as USAA’s site in the long part of the URL? /inet/ent_logon and /inet/ent_chform are very close to being the same string. If you poke around on the USAA site, I’m sure you will find a /inet/ent_chform.

Technically Speaking, read some of the links shared below by Zemanta on this phishing issue.

Related articles

• USAA Phish: Avalanche uses many “redirectors” (garwarner.blogspot.com)
• USAA offers Aggie credit card (mysanantonio.com)
• Health reform’s side effect: Scams (money.cnn.com)
• Safety Tips to Avoid Insurance Scams (onlineinsurancequotes.org)
• Harmon Leon: For the Love of Viagra Spam and the 419 Email Scam (huffingtonpost.com)
• Girl’s sexy Facebook video is disguise for survey scam (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)

Well the spammers out there are re-grouping and coming up with even newer scams since the last spam watch I posted just the other day. Seems that since that time, the phishers of the world are back to trying to attract just a slice of that ~500 million user pie with catchy titles like below.

- This GIRL KILLED Herself After HER DADs post on Facebook have already seen several bogus apps sites such as – http://apps.facebook.com/sadhappened/ and http://apps.facebook.com/wllposts are just two that have been reported in the past ~6 hours

- Also it seems that the Russian drug / pill / viagra sites are more plentiful than before and putting in the early holiday push for you to order some pills for your thrills. Sites such as http://rxtop-my.ru and the usual long winded pills for your kills sites like http://tabletscheappillssite.com are flooding your inbox in hopes that you try some of their version of viagra.

Technically Speaking, be careful out there and if you do happen to order one of those sub ~$100 Walgreens Maylong M-150 Android tablets, I’d like to hear your general review of it.

Related articles

• Yes, Facebook Has Added A Spam Filter To Pages (allfacebook.com)
• FB spam and an increase in phishing mails (chainmailcheck.wordpress.com)
• Twitter phish aims for the big players (sunbeltblog.blogspot.com)
• Facebook Expands Test of Spam Filter for Wall Posts to Pages (insidefacebook.com)
• How to Stop Im giivng away my old Iphone 3gs Facebook Spam (jakeludington.com)

UPDATE: Be care of the new Google Shortener – lot’s of fake/spammy http://goo.gl urls are starting to show up. Most of them are related to free iPads so far.

It’s been a few weeks since I did a spam report, but figured I’d do one this morning. The AngelFire spam is pretty steady still, as well as the Blogspot spam – but both are easy to spot.

- Russia (.ru) seems to be the top sources of spam over the past week or so. Viagra, pills, drugs are a hot commodity to peddle.

- Fake news sites such as CNBC22.com and CNBC22.info are very popular. Also Taiwan appears to get in on the act as in CNBC22.tk – I don’t believe that CNBC has affiliate sites, and if they do, I wouldn’t click them as it seems to be too dangerous at this point as most of these news places are phishing sites.

- The dot info domain as a whole, mostly nothing but spam domain if you ask me. I don’t know of many (if any) .info legit domains

- Anything that seems to be a Facebook “learn more about your friends”, See who is “following you” on Twitter, etc…etc… Most if not all of them are nothing more than another phishing scam.

Technically Speaking, if you need some viagra, best to go to your doctor to get a script for it. If you are looking for news, CNN.com is easy to type and remember. And if you want to know more about your friends on Twitter or Facebook, why not just strike up a conversation with them to learn more about them? I guarantee it will be a heck of a lot easier to do the above then to find yourself another victim of spam-phishing reality this week.

Related articles

• Harmon Leon: For the Love of Viagra Spam and the 419 Email Scam (huffingtonpost.com)
• Looking For a Few Good Supplements?? (charity-lynn.com)
• USA, your poorly protected PCs are polluting the world with spam (sophos.com)
• hitekhedhelp: USA, your poorly protected PCs are polluting the … (hitekhedhelp.blogspot.com)
• Phishing Attack Shot Up Sharply, but, Spam Email Goes Down (taragana.com)
• APWG Report: Global E-Crime Gang Completes Transition to Crimeware Propagation as Principal Online Bank Account Fraud Strategy (eon.businesswire.com)
• Burning Question: Why So Much Spam? (wired.com)
• US ranked number one for relaying spam, Sophos reports | Virtual … (virtualgraffiti.com)
• Spam analysis shows that it pays to be polite (v3.co.uk)
• UK web sites to blame for spam epidemic (v3.co.uk)