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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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Manifesting itself as a new old problem? That is what a startup company needs to address. The old problems that are being shoved aside because they are not fun, but still keep coming back as a new old problem. What do I mean?

Image by brizzle born and bred via Flickr

Spam – While we all hate it, you find very few companies heading into battle against it. There are a few, but what investor is really going to put money into a company that is dedicated into fighting it? I see blog posts about people getting sick of spam, such as twitter user spam or fake accounts as noted in that recent blog post by @RizzoTees.

While it’s not the same as the spam websites out there that constantly barrage the inbox with the spam email, it’s all the same, very few companies want to fight it head on. While there are companies like the recent LaterSpam.org which is quite encouraging, one company is not going to be the answer to helping to curb this old issue.

Old issues taking on a life of being a new issue. Sometimes you can be the victim of clicking a bad short url, and even t.co isn’t perfect since it’s a wrapper, not an url shortener service. So you have to be guarded at best to stop this from happening. You should check into these urls to make sure what you are clicking is legit. While that will only help to prevent the issue from occurring, there are many other old becoming new issues that should be addressed.

While spam is probably the #1 issue that has never been resolved completely, there are others. They may be addressed in another post, but this one seems to be done for now.

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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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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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的工具提供给任何人，我会写一份中文邮政今日（简体）根据谷歌翻译，看看是苍蝇。我不知道是否有人在俄罗斯读最后发表的文章，但我以为这是有趣的是如何自TweetDeck禁止或删除它的职位，刚刚发布的bit.ly网址。我想我必须要在那里后俄罗斯在俄罗斯或类似的东西。这似乎有点像Twitter的还是来自TweetDeck歧视？

说到歧视，有没有想过为什么有些事情是因为这样只能由美国公民自由联盟和其他一些激进的左派或右派集团考虑？我没有买成任翼，因为我认为两翼是一个他妈的一堆螺母工作。右和左。两者都应该被发送到/ dev/ null的’丽集团是正确的，因为没有100％的时间激进组织。两者都有它的日子，它的观点，但在任一修辞最想我要留言-关闭他妈的起来了！

中文（简体）书写让我说7个字，你不能说任何程度上，我他妈的吧。我不是一个戴夫麦克卢尔谁认为这是他妈的冷静地说所有的时间以及屎，妈的，混蛋，对母狗，混蛋儿子，假装喜欢的都好，因为他是从地狱天使超级混蛋。或类似的东西。我认为他其实是相当幼稚的把自己有帮助。但是，谁是他妈的知道吗？如果你有那么多钱，你很可能 你播种什么收获，因为他们说，他肯定了一些有趣的母猪的追随者。信徒要为他们的启动他的钱。不是所有戴夫或任何采摘，只是想指出，他说，他妈的一个一个假设与很多cash’ola的智能人非常多。

从技术上讲，这只是一个借口以发布在另一种语言的博客，这次放开与他妈的字位。我不是戴夫麦克卢尔，即使我有他所有的钱，我觉得成熟是不是像一些该死的白痴就是寻找更好的发射架F -仅仅因为他是谁，他能弹。这是我的意见，如果你他妈的不同意，让我在英国唯一的评论。 ：）

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With regards to that time of the year called award season, in the past month or so, I have had about ~10 Bit.ly URLs that seem to have reached a level of interest.

Image via CrunchBase

#10 – Cottonmouth Ghandi – Vance Savage – Pete’s Dog

- Vance Savage is a very talented musician and music teacher who I met via Craigslist when I was looking for someone to teach my older son how to play drums. I happened to have found him, and luckily we have forged a pretty decent friendship over the past few years. These are some different bands and projects he has out there where you can listen.

#9 – Power Ballad City

- If you are in the mood for a decent Power Ballad, you should check out this bit.ly bundle for it. Clone it!

#8 – Church Tongue – The Gutter – Solo Trashy

- This is a friend of mine that lives up in Chicago. I played bass in his band for a bit, The Gutter, and he did this techno solo Church Tongue project, and I also engineered (re-engineered) the Casket track. I’d love to work (intern even!) in a recording studio.

#7 – 3 Gifts That will Surprise And Delight (ME) on Christmas

- Yes, I would love to find these under the “tree” this year.

#6 – Top Ten Holiday Gifts You May Want to Re-Think Giving

- It’s that time of year, and if you want to get me something, try the #9 link above.

#5 – Crowdsourcing abortion is probably a bad idea

- This one still floors me that someone would try to crowd source an abortion. Not a good idea, and kind of weird and illegal in some places.

#4 – 5 reasons people switch from iPhone (iOS) to Android

- These are my own personal observations written down as a blog post, and surprised it was read by many and linked by a few power twitter users.

#3 – Major Reasons Why Mainstream Businesses Are Leaving Twitter

- A different perspective of the Twitter Kool-aid that everyone subscribes too. Well read post that was written by Scot Duke.

#2 – Beatles on iTunes

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

- This bundle I made to help people understand bundles on Bit.ly. It seemed to work as it was also featured on @bitlybundles

#1 – Wade Phillips Fired – Jason Garrett in as Dallas Cowboys Head Coach

Image via Wikipedia

- Crazy that made it as the #1 item for my Bit.ly URLs, but timing is everything I guess. I’m not even a Cowboys fan!

Technically Speaking, what are your top Bit.ly URLs?

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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!

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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

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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)

This list is from some of the more intriguing ways I have personally seen people use Twitter.

Whether it’s via the iPhone, an Android device, or someone sitting in front of their laptop or iPad, tweeting your thoughts in real time in less than 140 characters can become a way to communicate with the masses. It can also become a way to just simply piss off the masses (ie: followers) a lot quicker.

1. The only thing you do is RT (re-tweet)

There are times that you find something so interesting that you have to reshare it with your followers. That is usually done with giving some attribution to the original publisher of the interesting link. The bad thing is that more often than not, the people you follow post more interesting items than you. No big deal, you just click re-tweet and off you go. Or do you?

Now this is probably the number one item that everyone abuses. The power of the RT. It’s also like the number one item that is ignored or sent to the Twitter Dev >> Null file rather quickly. It can also have you dropped rather quickly from being a followed person. You can lose much of your Twitter power as a known RT’er – or – you can become known as just another bot spammer type of tweeter.

Being an actual person, you probably do not want to be known as a bot or spammer.

Instead of constantly RT’ing, maybe you should do a /cc or /via at the end of the tweet to give credit to the original tweeter of the link, or the item. This is one small fix or change to my tweeting habits I started doing when I found my twitter account overloaded with RT’s. That is one way to make sure you don’t become a RT’er all the time – monitor your own twitter stream from time to time!

We are all guilty of doing this, so don’t feel bad that you violated this #1 item!

2. Never engaging your followers when they @ or DM you

This is probably the worst thing you can do. I don’t care if you are a celebrity or have a pseudo tweeter running your tweets, you should somehow respond to your @ or DM items. People like QuestLove who I happened to run into one time in NYC in an elevator, are for real people that take the time to tweet and engage their audience.

Not saying that you must respond to every @ or DM, but you should try to respond to the ones that touch you directly. If you are a celebrity, you should make your fans feel like you are in touch and not above them. Even if you are a pseudo internet famous celeb, you should try to reach out and connect more often than not.

This is probably close to ranking up there with the RT’er only tweeter. That is why this has to be the #2 item on the list of 3 ways to piss off your Twitter followers. Don’t engage? Expect to start in that long downward spiral of losing your fans.

3. Being an affiliate who uses Twitter to spam affiliate links only

If you are an affiliate and you want to use your twitter account to spam with, you should probably go out and sign up for a separate account just for that purpose. Using your personal Twitter account for only affiliate links will have you marked as an affiliate spammer. Your links and your thoughts will be ignored, and most likely your followers are only other affiliates or even worse, bots.

Remember, bots don’t click links, and bots don’t buy your promoted products. Also in that same thought process, most affiliates don’t click other affiliate links. They are usually all self consumed on their own products they are pushing. More than likely being an affiliate on Twitter is not quite as easy you think it is. If you are an affiliate, maybe you should stick to mass e-mail campaigns vs mass tweet campaigns?

Technically Speaking, those are the 3 proven ways to lose or piss off your Twitter followers. There are more, but these 3 happen to sit at the top of my thought list this morning. If you have more to contribute, please leave it in the comments and share them with the other readers of this blog post.

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Or anyone for that matter!

These are 5 items you should never send a startup (or anyone). This expert has worked for a few startups as a front facing person for the past few years now as well as helped to co-found one. In the various experiences seen, and yes – these are all real world, for real, no bs things that people do, these are 5 of the most commonly repeated mistakes. I was inspired to write this by a post I read earlier, that even though was originally written in 2005, still applies today called - Writing sensible email messages - shared earlier on my twitter feed.

1. You know MORE than the Startup

You may know more and be quite knowledgeable about a company. You may in fact be the social media expert on the topic. But flexing your knowledge in an email beat down is not advised. In fact it’s usually looked at briefly and either ignored or politely responded too. Why is that?

If you are the expert in the field the startup is in, try contacting them without so much bravado that you are the know it all person in this field. Try to engage them with a better non-pitch pitch. That might work, and it still might be ignored. Also, if you are the expert, you should already be a startup in that field/area of your expertise? If you are not, then you are basically not doing it. Or as one startup veteran loves to preach “Just do it!” in regards to startups.

With places like Y-Combinator and TechStars (which is now in just more than Boulder, CO, but also Seattle, WA and NYC this upcoming year) – there probably is no better time to take advantage of pitching your idea. Try avoiding sending an e-mail to a startup with your multi-paragraphed manifesto on why they are doing it wrong.

2. F-Bomb Dropping

Whether it’s a friendly F-Bomb drop or F-Bomb in total comical context such as a F-Bomb T-shirt from local St. Louis super entrepreneur and social media person RizzoTees, there is absolutely no reason to curse in an e-mail.

While one of the more popular VC/Angel investors of our time – Dave McClure probably receives a pass on dropping the F-Bomb, you are NOT Dave McClure. You don’t receive carte blanche just because someone like Dave can do it. And while I’ve seen him F-Bomb drop in his blog posts, YOU still are NOT Dave McClure. Plus most of his droppings are saved for the big stage in front of a big audience. He is old school attention getting, and for him, it works. But remember you are not making T-shirts like RizzoTees and you are not Dave.

Even if the F-Bomb is in total jest, or said in anger, in e-mail it looks absolutely stupid. A sentence laced with profanity sent to an e-mail address where you have no idea how many people are on an account alias is just not the smart thing to do. Everyone from the CEO of the company to some engineer that could care less that you have such a grasp of the English language in such a McClure’like way will either be offended or think you are the biggest loser to ever exist.

3. Reading the FAQ, Not Reading the FAQ

Most startups provide an easily accesible FAQ for people to read. Most people either never read the FAQ, or read the FAQ and believe they are somehow above the FAQ.

The second one is the one that is commonly seen a lot. That is the person that reads the FAQ and for some reason, maybe they think they are Dave McClure or something, think they are super special and are above the FAQ. When a FAQ states “You can’t do that” – unless you are possibly a leader of a country (or Facebook), you probably will not get your way.

Many people take offense when you tell them “No“. They act like they are the only one to have ever e-mailed that thought in. Let me tell you this, if you think that way in real life, just tell the officer pulling you over for running a stop sign that you thought it was there for other more stupid people.

4. Long Winded Stanley

Or Mike, or Tom, or Shirley – Insert YOUR name – doesn’t matter. When you e-mail a startup (or anyone), keep it basic, to the point, and write complete sentences that can be understood. Don’t theorize. Don’t think. Just ask the question or present the thought. It was one of the tips in the earlier linked article that inspired me to write this post, but it’s the truth.

When you have processed over ~90k e-mails in the past few years alone, you really don’t have time to read beyond the basic idea. In a startup (or any company), getting to the point can be crucial to fixing your issue, answering your question, or processing your payment/order. People that think it’s okay to write on and on and on – probably don’t understand that fact or the skill required in processing over ~90k e-mails.

You may think that since the above linked article was written in 2005, people have become better at this. They haven’t.

5. Colored Font

Back in the day before e-mail, would you have written a professional business letter in green or pink ink? Why would you insist on clinging to the last bits of the AOL email (you got mail!) empire and make your font an annoying pink, in comic sans serif? If you wouldn’t have done it before the internet and e-mail, it’s probably not a good idea to do it now.

Technically Speaking, I saved that last one specifically because that could lead to more points or a sub-point of #5 above which is “If you didn’t do it OFFLINE face-to-face communicating to a business, why do you think being ONLINE and communicating via e-mail shields you from that rule?” Leave a comment if you liked this post or have other things to leave beyond my 5 items listed. Discuss.

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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.

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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.

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I also have a TwitterTim.es going here. But I like the look of the paper.li Daily better:

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Another post in my little series I of spam warnings.

The below is a screenshot of what the e-mail looks like. It looks almost identical to a real iTunes e-mail.

Now many of you are probably rolling your eyes and saying, “Why bother writing this post, and I’m not that stupid to click this!” This post is just an informational post for those that might freak out at seeing a $795.99 iTunes bill. How would you really feel if you do a lot of iTunes purchases, and you see this? Would you all of sudden automatically click and think someone hacked your iTunes account?

Again, you may not be that stupid to click, but you never can tell – and if you are not that stupid – at least have the sense to pass it on to people that you know might click. Look at the above, and look at the below now:

Technically Speaking, I’m not trying to insult your intelligence, but if you (after reading this post and viewing the pictures) rant and rave on twitter or Facebook about “boo-hoo, someone hacked my iTunes account… ” – well hey smart ass, you just were warned! :)

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