Sometimes, it seems scams are becoming almost as common as social media experts on Twitter. The latest one, unleashed Monday morning and initially noticed by tech blog Mashable, centers on a fake blog hosted at the domain twittersblogs.com. Tweets containing links to the site circulated rapidly, each featuring the message: "omg!! is it true what they wrote about you in their twit blog?"
Former Apple Macintosh evangelist Guy Kawasaki posts Twitter messages about a lot of different things, but the message he put up on Tuesday afternoon was really out of character.
Spammers are never far from a hot story, it seems, and in the past day they've been flooding Twitter with phoney messages about Iran and the<strong> </strong>latest iPhone 3.0 operating system.
So you thought Twitter was a waste of time? Just fun and games? Stupid even? Dell doesn't think so.
The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) is increasingly turning to social media tools and virtual environments to attract students and improve its services.
Twitter is difficult to use because it's so easy to use. Once you've created an account, your Twitter page allows you to update your status and watch a scrolling list of status updates from your friends.
Online ticket sales site Ticketek was this morning paralysed by demand for tickets to AC/DC’s Black Ice Australian tour, which went on sale this morning at 9am.
Twitter users who thought friends were directing them to a "funny blog" Thursday ended up experiencing something completely different: a phishing scam.
The story is as old as the Web: A social network born among twenty-something college kids and young wired professionals sprouts up, apparently out of nowhere, and grows into a cultural phenomenon. Eventually, it reaches critical mass and explodes, its mushroom cloud drawing the attention of millions of Baby Boomers, leading to a huge influx of new users, which in turn triggers complaints from the youngsters who started it all. The invasion of the Boomers spurs some members of younger generations to flee the carnage (and the fallout) in search of fresher territory.
Lately it seems I can't go anywhere without running into a gaggle of social media consultants bloviating about the wonders of social network marketing. Sure, you've seen 'em, too. Slick shake-and-bake "experts" promising to help you leverage the power of Twitter and Facebook to raise your profile and, inexplicably, boost your profits. But scratch the surface on most of these claims and they instantly crumble. Meanwhile, it seems the only people making any money in social media are the consultants themselves.
When it comes to some aspects of finding a job by social networking, such as online reputation management, Sean Ryan, senior vice president of engineering and a hiring manager at online measurement tools vendor Lyris, has a completely opposite view than most. The vast majority of recruiting professionals say it's important to make sure there's nothing online that could be too personal or embarrassing or that might turn off potential employers doing a background check.
One of the many luminaries I follow on Twitter is PornStarTweet. (I make these sacrifices just for you, I hope you realize that.) Earlier Friday he/she/them tweeted the following:
Twitter certainly has received a lot of media attention recently, with the Kutcher vs. CNN battle to see who would be the first to have a million followers. Oprah also had a show about the impact of Twitter on people's lives. According to comScore, Twitter grew 131 percent in March 2009.
Despite its growing popularity--thanks to celebrity exposure and the infamy it has gathered from the swine flu debacle--Twitter has exposed the cracks beneath its veneer and shown it is nothing more than a fad. Its services are limited, its fan base drops out quicker than a brick in a wet paper bag, and its potential for causing harm only increases as the days go by.
A Nielsen report this week revealed that Twitter has an uncanny knack for hemorrhaging users. In fact, some 60 percent of new users bail on the service within a month. For those of us who've been tweeting for a couple of years, this isn't exactly a shocker. Many longtime users have gone through that initial period of wondering what, if any, use Twitter might be. And maybe it's better for everyone if those who don't get it refrain from tweeting until they do.