Posted by Gabe on November 28, 2009 under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners | 
The most annoying and frustrating spam that has been running rampant through Twitter lately is the dreaded Britney tweets that end up in your mentions folder. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself lucky as the avatar is extremely pornographic in nature. There are hundreds of bots that cycle through Twitter handles, spewing their brand of filth virtually on your front porch with no request for it nor a warning thereof. My method for combatting this to date has been to click on the sender, click the “Report for Spam”, exit Tweetdeck and reload so the avatar is gone from my screen. These spam bots have been so prevalent lately that I find myself doing this several times during the day.
I came up with the concept that it would be nice if you kept a list of words and/or phrases in your personal profile, that if found in the mentions, you would never see them. This I believe is a sound idea that I would like Twitter and other apps like Tweetdeck to adopt. Then I noticed something. In the current version of Tweetdeck there is a Filter option at the bottom of every column, including the ‘Mentions’ column. If you click this you can add words to the box. Usually this means that you want to see only tweets that include these words. However, if you change the option just to the left of the input box from a ‘+’ sign to a ‘-’ sign, you will only see tweets that DO NOT include these words. So I added the word ‘britney’, changed it to a ‘-’ sign and voila! Tweets with that word in it will not be seen in my Mentions folder in Tweetdeck!! Now they will still appear in my Twitter mentions but I rarely use that interface to read my tweets. It is certainly a poor man’s solution, but until they fix this problem I’m going with it. Please let me know if this post helps you, or what else we can do to combat these spammers.
Posted by Gabe on November 24, 2009 under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
“Getting weird DMs? Probably due to phishing. Don’t go to the links sent in the DMs or give out your login & PW!”
“We’re still seeing phishing attempts; don’t click on strange links! And tell folks who DM you phishing links to reset their password.”
“Someone saying they’ve got 100s of Google Wave invites to give out & you’ve just got to RT & follow them to get one? It’s a scam!”
“General tip: don’t retweet a spammer’s message. You might get suspended accidentally.”
These are tweets randomly chosen from the @spam account on Twitter. (I highly recommend everyone follow this account by the way.) If you have been reading my posts you will know that I am a huge Twitter advocate. I’ve never had a bad word to say, at least until this post. The spammers, scammers, porn bots, phishing scams and whatever else is lurking out there is a huge problem for Twitter in my estimation. If these were isolated incidents that would be one thing. But they certainly are not. It is getting so bad now that I recently got an @reply by someone who had a pornographic avatar. Now c’mon people – I have a nosy 11-year-old who is vists me in my home office all the time. I also get several of these “phishing” DMs a day. Maybe if you follow a hundred people or so you get fewer, but I bet you still get them. About six months ago I clicked on one of these links and it corrupted my Twitter account. I was locked out and someone else tweeted inanities from my profile. That was called the “Mikey” virus. The fix to get rid of it was complicated. To discover the fix and to implement it took a few hours right when I needed Twitter the most. AAARGHH!!
How that virus was propagated was by clicking on someone’s profile who was infected. When people discovered that my account was compromised, they all tweeted it. “Don’t click on @KidsAreHeroes – his account is infected!” Not the publicity that I was seeking at the time.
So now I am smarter. I don’t click on links I don’t trust. I have even gone so far as to turn the switch on in Tweetdeck that allows you to preview the long URL that the short URL represents before you click on it. Yes it’s an extra step but worth it. I “report as spam” the obvious accounts, and unfollow many others - I find myself doing that a few times a day at least. I am vigilant about approving which Twitter lists I appear on as a result of what happened two weeks ago. When people send me a reply that is spam, it irks me so much that I block them, then have to restart Tweetdeck so that their spammy request doesn’t show on my screen.
My question then becomes, is all this worth it? Why should we put up with all this aggravation when it seems that Twitter has no ability to improve our experience? For me, yes, it definitely is. I am still making true connections to people I never would have if it weren’t for Twitter. But I can no longer blindly say that if you want to promote your business, or whatever, you should use it. I can now see where putting up with this kind of silliness does not warrant having a Twitter account for some. I have a friend who recently moved to the Washington area. She is an amazing photographer who took pictures pro bono for us on Kids Are Heroes Day. She is not on Twitter. I have recommended it to her highly and I plan to give her a quick hands-on class about it if she wants it. But I must include this post when I discuss it with her. Things like this never used to enter the conversation, but now they must. Maybe it is because as you follow more people you get exposed to it more.
So, are there any steps we can take to minimize the impact of these miscreants? My last post discussed the pros and cons of protecting your tweets. I was also since asked to comment on the True Twit Validation tool. This is a free service that will attempt to tell you by email if the person following you is human or a bot. When you follow someone who is “protected” by this service, you get an automatic DM (direct message) that asks you to verify yourself by typing in some words via the Captcha service. Once you do this they get an email stating that you passed their “human” test. This service does not stop people from following you, it just acts as a tool to tell you if it thinks who is following you is human or not. It is still up to you to deal with the follower as you normally would. I have no strong opinions about this, other than the fact that it seems more trouble than it’s worth. It’s pretty easy to spot a spammer when you check who is following you. I don’t need an email to sift through and match up with. And I have heard from folks who think it’s insulting to get one of these DMs, and others who flat out say they will not bother with people who use the service.
I just treat all this nonsense as part of what I have to deal with to get the benefit from using Twitter. At this point I am not jumping ship, but at the same time paying more attention to our Facebook fan page. We’ve had a recent spike in new fans thanks to a few people who suggested the page to their friends. (Thanks so much to those of you who did that!) Things seem much calmer on that platform, at least for now.
So what do you think? Would love to hear from people who follow less than 500 to hear if this is still an issue for them. Also love to hear solutions on how Twitter can fix the problems. I myself have always wondered why they don’t make the sign-up process a little more sophisticated so as to weed some of the spammers out from the get go.
Posted by Gabe on November 22, 2009 under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I saw a tweet posted by someone yesterday that prompted this post. It read something along the lines of “C’mon people – protecting your tweets is so pretentious!” The thing that made me laugh is that this guy was being followed by over 6000 people and he followed back only 15! Yes, fifteen people. So who is the pretentious one?
Anyway, my personal view is that it is not at all pretentious to protect your tweets. In fact, in some cases I highly recommend it. @MM4Animals is my daughter’s Twitter account. Not only do we protect her tweets, but we also discuss who she follows and who can follow her back. It is usually limited to celebrities she knows and other people that I know. I recommend to all the other hero parents of young ones that they protect their tweets. In my mind it gives off a bad impression if these tweets are not protected as there are so many spammers, porn bots and other crazies on Twitter.
Now if you are an adult and want to protect your tweets here are some things to consider. I would not recommend this action if you are trying to get lots of connections. When I look at someone’s protected profile I cannot read their tweets, I can’t see what they tweet about, how often they tweet or when their last tweet was. I usually follow people who are active on Twitter so I have a better chance to engage with them. More often than not I do not send a request to follow – even when they follow me, because I have been given no reason to follow that person. The up side about protecting your profile is that you greatly reduce the amount of spammers you have to deal with. You are also raising the percentage of quality connections among your followers. I do think you will miss out on some other ones though.
Another point of interest — I checked to see what happens with protected updates in conjunction with the new Twitter lists. It works as it should, at least in my mind. If you have protected updates and someone who is legitimately following you puts you on a list, the only people who will see your tweets from that list will be other people that follow you. And you cannot be put on lists by people who are not following you. That can be both good and bad. You have more control but will get less exposure.
So how do you protect your updates, anyway? Go to your Settings page and scroll down to the bottom. Check the “Protect my Tweets” box. From now on you will see a list of wannabe followers that you can check out and either Accept or Deny before they can read your tweets.
Would love to hear other reasons why some of you protect your tweets! :)
Update 12/12/09: Since I have written this post I have discovered that many people have found it via Google. No, they weren’t searching for “thought provoking articles on Twitter”. The real nature of the search was a bit more sinister in fact: “how to read unprotected tweets”. Since this kept happening over and over I tried Googling the same phrase. Sure enough, my post was there amid the other results. And there were other posts that related more to the actual search. Several methods were published in fact. I was surprised to find that indeed there is at least one loophole to read protected tweets. I will not divulge how I did it here, but I came across a post, read it, found a person (who I was not following) whose tweets were protected and voila. The tweets were there out in the open when I followed the directions. Now if I did it this easily anyone else can too. So what does this mean? When you protect your tweets they are not fully protected. You will still have a level of privacy but don’t believe your tweets will be truly private until Twitter closes all the loopholes.
Posted by Gabe on November 21, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I was just asked a question by @RightonMom that, although I have talked about similar situations in the past, I don’t believe I have dealt specifically with this question. So here goes:
“Do you unfollow those who unfollow you?”
The answer to that at least for me is yes and no. No because I do not monitor who “unfollows” me. There are tools out there that supposedly email you when you are unfollowed but quite frankly I found them to be unreliable. I also discovered that I have so much I have to keep track of on a daily basis that the last thing I need is to add something else to that list.
But where the answer becomes “yes” is when I am “massaging” my follower ratio. Two things I have been consistent with in my Twitter journey are 1) Making no bones about the fact that I do seek out followers, or more specifically connections — the more people who know about Kids Are Heroes the better for us. (Having said that I will not and have never purchased followers nor have opted in to sites that claim to get you more.) 2) I manage my follower ratio by unfollowing those who do not follow me back or end up unfollowing me. This practice increases the chances of getting more connections, which is my ultimate goal. Think about it. If someone unfollows me they have made a statement that they are not interested in my subject matter. So how can I connect with that person? Now does that bother me? Absolutely not. There are plenty of subjects that I am not interested in so that may be the reason I do not follow a particular person. But that is no reflection on the originator of the tweet.
Twitter is such a wonderful tool — through its use I have garnered so many connections that have helped us along the way. I am always very active on Twitter in the pursuit of new connections. Mind you this is not intended to be one-sided. I try also to help as many people as I can. That’s why I write about Twitter – I have been told that these posts are helpful to some and I am glad to do it.
So how do I actually do this? When you follow as many people as I do it becomes more and more difficult to keep track. Luckily there are tools out there to help. My tool of choice has been Huitter (Mutuality). That tool is great as it will automatically unfollow all who are not following you. That’s when I discovered it costs money to use it after a while. Well I am cheap so I sought out another alternative. The best one I found was TwitIn by InRev (using their “Flush” utility). It requires much more work on your part as it is much more interactive, but it’s still free and you are not really bulk unfollowing which can get you in a spot of trouble with the Twitter police.
So that is what I do anyway. Not saying it’s the only way, just my way. I know there are a lot of conflicting opinions on this subject out there, so let’s hear ‘em. :)
Posted by Gabe on November 19, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I just received a very interesting question from @HomeSchoolMD:
@KidsAreHeroes What’s the difference between using Tweetdeck vs. Twitter lists?
Let me continue by saying that I don’t pretend to be a “guru” on either subject, especially when it comes to Twitter lists. I have created one and I honestly don’t use them that much. (I explain why in the addendum to my #followfriday post.) But I do pretty much exclusively use Tweetdeck so I feel I can at least answer the question. (I also welcome comments in case I miss any good points here.) The main difference in my mind is that Tweetdeck “groups” which compare to Twitter lists cannot be made public for anyone else to follow. They are simply for your own benefit. Where Tweetdeck excels is in the ability to have multiple columns visible simultaneously. So I can view several groups at once along with my mentions, direct messages and general tweets. It appears to be a bit easier to put people in Tweetdeck groups, as with Twitter you have to be in the user’s profile to add him or her to your list. So with Tweetdeck it’s strictly for personal benefit, but with Twitter getting people to follow the lists you have created can also be considered some sort of personal accomplishment.
I cannot help but get into a wider comparison to the overall interface of Twitter and Tweetdeck. One major advantage of Tweetdeck is that it automatically refreshes any and all columns after a time that you specify in the preferences section. It also allows you to customize notifications, both visually and auditorially. You can specify general tweets, mentions, groups and or direct messages in the notifications. Since I work in an environment where I have several computers, I prefer to leave it on at all times and have it beep only when I get mentions (I know not very “green” is it?). Tweetdeck is designed to be able to do just that, but a bug in the software is preventing this at this time — I expect them to fix it in the next release.
The multiple columns, once I experienced it, made it impossible for me to go back to the old way of doing things. This is true expecially if you follow LOTS of people like I do. Tweetdeck also gives you the ability to filter tweets in your columns (i.e. if you filter by “http” you will get only tweets with links inside them.)
Tweetdeck has a “Translate” feature which is pretty cool and I have used it from time to time. It will translate the tweet from whatever language it is written to your own native language. It also interfaces with MySpace and Facebook — these are features I personally do not use.
The one difference that is being talked about A LOT recently is that they both have retweet buttons that will retweet a post you might like. The difference is that in Twitter’s brand new implementation you cannot edit the retweet. Period. It simply retweets the exact tweet to your followers giving only the originator of the tweet the credit. The advantage here is you never have to worry about going over the 140 character limit, since the original tweet cannot be added to. So for example, here is a tweet I retweeted with both Twitter and Tweetdeck.
Original Tweet:
GabeONeill: Am testing to see what happens when you use Twitter to retweet a very long message that approaches one hundred and forty characters. Just tw
(the “tw” is at the end of the 140 characters)
Twitter retweet from @KidsAreHeroes:
GabeONeill: Am testing to see what happens when you use Twitter to retweet a very long message that approaches one hundred and forty characters. Just tw
As you can see the tweet is identical. When viewed in Twitter it has their retweet icon in front and says “Retweeted by KidsAreHeroes” at the bottom. Now the real interesting thing here is that it does not seem that the Twitter retweets show in the Tweetdeck stream at all. I was trying to see how these would appear but in several cases I could not find them. Would love to hear the scoop on that if anyone knows it.
Tweetdeck retweet from @KidsAreHeroes:
KidsAreHeroes: RT @GabeONeill: Am testing 2 c what happens when you use Twitter to RT a long msg that approaches one hundred and forty characters. Just tw
Now as you can see I had to edit it so that there was enough space to include the RT in front, and the GabeONeill also takes up part of the 140 characters in this case. This can be a pain if someone writes a cool but very long tweet. But this method allows us to give credit to multiple retweeters (which I like) and can be used to add commentary on the end. Here’s an example:
RT @Milogirly RT @CarynTamber: @KidsAreHeroes My favorite kind of dog! Bernese Mountain dogs are beautiful! (Agreed! :)
Another rather large difference is that you have to go to a separate list to see who has retweeted you. This is very cumbersome to me. Using the old-fashioned method, if someone retweets you that retweet ends up in your mentions folder. That way you know which of your tweets are more popular than others and you have the opportunity of giving thanks, even connecting with the retweeter.
From what I have seen and heard being able to edit is still the preferred method of retweeting. We are even conditioned to the point that if we want retweets we keep our tweets short enough to allow for them.
So what do you all think??
Posted by Gabe on November 18, 2009 under Kids are Heroes, Music for Life |
If you have been following darling daughter MaryMargaret’s progress over the past year, you would know that she has been collecting donations via several fund raisers for the purchase of MP3 players destined for the kids at Children’s Hospital in Washington DC. MaryMargaret endured a 10-day stay at that hospital over four years ago. It was harrowing for all of us, as they told us she might have leukemia. It turned out is was not leukemia, but she did suffer from another serious ailment, albeit 100% curable (which thankfully they did). Nevertheless the experience has had a profound impact on her as she had to suffer through many invasive and painful tests.
A little over a year ago MaryMargaret and I were walking our dogs and she told me of her idea. She wanted to buy the gift of music to kids at the hospital. “I think it will help them during those procedures they have to get and when they are bored” she told me. I was all for this concept as I could tell she was passionate about it. She dubbed it “Music for Life” and we went forward in holding many different events in support of it. Well a year has passed and it is time to purchase the MP3 players. She has raised $3,114.44 for this project! We are looking to purchase as many MP3 players (w/ adapters) as we can for this amount. We are going to prepopulate the players with music. Nicholas Giordano is a 13-year-old hero who plays classical guitar and he offered to give us a sampling of his music. Cowbell Digital Music (@CowbellMusic on Twitter) is an Australian company that provides digital streaming music. They are offering us as many free downloads as we need to populate all the players. (That is AWESOME – thank you!!) As soon as we have purchased and preloaded the music, MaryMargaret will deliver them to Children’s Hospital.
We are looking for corporate sponsors to step up and match the amount MaryMargaret has raised. Maybe you know someone at SanDisk or Best Buy that can also give us a DEEP discount on the players so we can purchase more of them. This is a very trying time for both the child and the parents — we are hoping that we can make their stays just a little bit more comfortable. If you think you can help with this effort, please contact us directly here. Thank you.
Posted by Gabe on November 11, 2009 under Twitter |
I checked my Twitter profile this morning and noticed I had a big jump in the number of lists that mentioned me. My smile morphed into a look of perplexity when I discovered that all the new lists came from the same user. That’s funny, I thought. I was about to walk away from the issue when I looked deeper into these lists. I won’t give the user any publicity, but they were claiming to host names of child sex traffickers, sexual predators and other cyber crimes. These are the lists that I was on!! It seems to be some sort of new bot that is putting random people (I am in good company with Regis and Kelly) on these lists.
The good news is that if you block and/or report as spam you will automatically be taken off all their lists. I couldn’t do that fast enough.
So now we have to make sure all the lists that we are being put on are legitimate. Twitter can be such a great tool, but also can be quite frustrating thanks to the other “tools” that are using it.
UPDATE 11/28/09: Not all Twitter lists are as offensive as the one mentioned. I just discovered that I was on a list created by someone who has a “thing” about a company. This morning I read an interesting post that challenged a particular company to get better instead of just advertise. I liked the read so I retweeted it. This afternoon I discovered I was on a list of “People who are Disappointed with So-and-So Company”. I didn’t want to be part of the list creator’s agenda, so I blocked him to get me off the list. So again, be vigilant in combing through the lists you appear on.
Posted by Gabe on November 9, 2009 under Kids are Heroes |
So, how many readers out there are envious of us right now as we start our fund raising journey with a brand new non-profit? Oh, I forgot to add: in this economy? Well this is something we do not cherish as I am sure most people do not. When I was president of Wags for Hope, and we asked for people to do fund raising, no hands ever went up. Currently my now 11-year-old daughter, my wife and I make up the entire Kids Are Heroes team. But somehow we must do it or our doors cannot remain open. We have a lot of plans on how we can effect change and that goes way beyond inspiration. (To see a list of our future plans, please visit here.) So how will we do it, especially with so many other established nonprofits competing for the same donations?
I’ve always been of the sort to try new things, and that is the way I believe we must effect our fund raising. Thankfully, I have had people approach me with their unique ideas. Our kids have inspired them so much that they want to help. Mary Kate of Mary Kate McKenna Photography approached us last week about wanting to do a fund raiser for us. She plans to take holiday pictures at an outdoor location for two days this coming weekend. She is offering a 15-minute session and your choice of two hi-res pictures for just $40.00, and the entire disk can be purchased for an additional $30. Families like ours simply cannot normally afford a photographer of her caliber, but you know we signed ourselves up for a slot! It is a great value and half the proceeds will go to Kids Are Heroes. We are so thankful for that. (As of this writing there are still a few slots available – if interested click here.) Now my head is spinning to see how I can tie in other similar services. This is a win-win situation as it is simply good business for Mary Kate to do this. UPDATE -11/18/09: Mary Kate raised a grand total of $890.00 for us during this event!! Thanks SO MUCH!!!
A Twitter friend who has also been following our progress for quite some time now has also come up with a different plan to help us financially. Zephora Haddon is a social entrepreneur who has extended a very generous offer to us. She owns a company called “Amber Alert Registry”. For every family that signs up and selects our organization as the beneficiary (it will be evident how to do that on her web site), her company will donate $5.00 to us on a quarterly basis. I have also been watching her progress at the same time and she is doing great things with her organization. Those numbers can add up to a significant revenue stream for us as time progresses. To explain what Zephora’s company does, I will use her own words: “Amber Alert Registry is a secure online database that captures key information on children for parents to be empowered to disseminate the information in an emergency – whether your child goes missing, has a medical emergency, or legal or personal information needs to be on hand for caregivers and parents. We support parents living without fear, but with tools to protect their family and assist law enforcement from anywhere in the world. We have babies to university students registered, and new schools signing up every day.“ So please check it out and if you do sign up your family kindly select Kids Are Heroes as your charity of choice. Thanks so much, Zephora!!
We also plan to sell Kids Are Heroes branded items in our store to help offset costs. Currently we do have wrist bands and piggy banks available. (Great stocking stuffers!!)
UPDATE - 11/09/09: As a response to this post I was contacted by Christy Mossburg who just happens to be the mom of our very own Mandy Mossburg. (See Mandy’s Kids Are Heroes bio here.) Christy is also an Arbonne consultant. For the unaware, Arbonne makes all kinds of skin products for women. They likely do more than that, but you probably already know that too. For the entire month of November, Christy will give 100% of her commissions for all sales if you purchase from her web site, provided you put the letters “KAH” in the middle name. Even if you have trouble ordering from the site itself, you may contact Christy directly and order through her. If you mention Kids Are Heroes then she will still donate all her commissions to us as long as it is done by the end of the month! This couldn’t come at a better time since the holidays are coming up. So you can get your shopping done and know that you have helped a charity at the same time. Thanks Christy!!
I would be interested in hearing any other different ideas you might have. If you have a business that wants to help us in some way, we will be glad promote you in our Businesses section as we have others. We have seen first hand how we have affected people, both kids and adults alike. We are changing people’s lives by opening up a whole new world of philanthropy to people who may have never discovered it. With your help, we can continue to do that. Oh, and if you would like to chip in to the cause, you can do that here. Thank you.
Posted by Gabe on November 3, 2009 under Kids are Heroes |
Photo courtesy of Mary Kate McKenna Photography
I was recently approached by my friend Mary Kate McKenna about doing a fund raiser for Kids Are Heroes. Since we need financial help to do all the things we have planned, this piqued my interest. Fund raisers can be hard, especially in this economy, as it usually involves the simple act of parting ways with hard-earned cash. But what if you could get something extremely valuable in return? That’s where Mary Kate comes in.
On Saturday, November 14 and Sunday, November 15, Baker Park in Frederick, MD will be the site where you can get phenomenal holiday pictures taken and help out a great cause at the same time. Sign up for a slot for only $40.00 and you will get 15 minutes worth of Mary Kate’s artistry along with two high resolution photos. These can be used for holiday greeting cards, family albums, mantle displays or whatever other purpose you might have. Bring your (well-behaved) pet(s) too and have them join in the fun. If you would like all the photos, a disk can be purchased for an additional $30.00. If you are familiar with Mary Kate’s work, then you will know how great a price that is — this kind of opportunity is rarely available. (Her work speaks for itself. See her Web site here and see more family pictures, including the ones she took of our heroes here.) And the best part of it is that half the proceeds will go to Kids Are Heroes! (To see why it is important to support Kids Are Heroes, please visit our donations page.)
So bring your friends, family, neighbors and pets down to Baker Park for a really fun time just in time for the holidays.
When: Saturday, November 14th – 15-minute time slots are between 10AM and 4PM.
Sunday, November 15th – 15-minute time slots are between 10AM and 1PM.
Where: The Gazebo at Baker Park in Frederick, Maryland
MAKE A RESERVATION
To sign up you can choose from available slots and register directly here. To see which slots are available, check out our online calendar. Have questions? Email photoshoot@kidsareheroes.com or call 240.782.4233. Knowing firsthand how good Mary Kate is and the value involved, we fully expect the slots to go rather quickly so sign up as soon as you can – they will be allotted on a first come, first served basis. This is indeed an opportunity you won’t want to miss!
UPDATE: 11/06/09 As of this date over HALF the slots are taken already!! Sign up now to reserve your spot!
We’ll see you in Baker Park on the weekend of the 14th!!
