Ok, so a friend and I have been working on a little project the past few weeks. It is an automated ranking of Twitter users. I leaked the secret url to the rank list and ended up with a few responses that made it clear this explanation was needed. So here are the top ten things you should know about Mark’s automated Twitter chart. You can find the chart by clicking HERE.

While we are working out the bugs, this will be the FAQ of sorts. If this doesn’t answer all your questions, please let me know. This project is as much yours as it is the two guys creating it.

10. The site tracks how often an account tweets the hashtag #metal but only within the last week. The reason it only cares about how often you have talked about metal within the last week is so that users who move on from Twitter will drop from the chart. It will also prune people from the chart that just ‘gamed’ their way to the chart.

9. There is no need to ask me to put you on the list. It is automated. Just start tweeting with #metal and it will add you automatically.

8. I know that this may not be the best way to rank metalheads on Twitter. At some point I may perfect this.

7. No I did not do this alone. I suck at code too much to ever pull something like this off. The concept was mine and I am in charge of most of the design. Code is done by @meltedmatch He’s not a metalhead though. Just a friend trying to help me out.

6. Have I mentioned that the list is 100% automated?

5. This is a work in progress. Please be patient. It will be way less ugly when we are done.

4. Feel free to spread the list around, but the url will change when it is out of beta (finished).

3. This program is new and unfinished. It still has some bugs in it we are trying to work out. So the algorithm is not doing exactly what we want yet. When we are finished the point system will make more sense. For example, the score currently gives people more than one point per #metal tag. We are working on fixing that and making it only give one point per #metal hash tag.

2. No I will not make it track several hashtags. Just keep it simple. Always use #metal

1. If an artist uses the term indie to describe their music, please shoot them. I know it has nothing to do with this chart. I just REALLY hate the term “indie”.

No, none of these were meant as insults at any Twitter user. Those who had questions had good questions. Those good questions made me realize I should make this list. If this top ten list doesn’t explain something, let me know. I’m really a nice guy. I only bitch slap stupid people.

Find the chart at http://markcarras.com/twitter/rank.php

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MarkCarras

How To Survive Facebook

This is another post that although written with bands in mind, it will help many non-musicians as well I think. Facebook is a very busy site. It is full of what many call ‘noise’ and if you are a busy person it can be very annoying. However, there is a way for the busy person to survive the noise of Facebook. If you go to my profile on Facebook I have a notice right at the top that says I reject all the garbage. The problem with Facebook is that it is made for people that need “busy work”. They need brainless time killers to pass the time. If you are one of the people that spend tons of time with all this busy work, you are not a busy person. Seriously, if you need tons of time killers…you have time to kill. I however do not have time to kill, so do everything I can to reject every single time killer. I don’t have time to kill.

It is very tempting to get caught up in the brainlessness that is Facebook though. It ends up being a game in and of it’s self to kill all the time killers. One thing you must understand though is that Facebook is designed to play on your guilt. When a friend sends you an invite you end up feeling like a total jerk for not accepting the invite. Don’t! The truth is that your friend probably doesn’t know they sent you the invite, didn’t intend to send you the invite, and has no way to track who reject the invite. When they go to set up the app for themselves, it sends an invite to all their contacts by default. Most people feel bad about it after it is sent anyways. No friend wants to fill your Facebook inbox with unwanted messages. We all hate spam, but Facebook by default love what sending that spam does for their network. So don’t feed the spam monster and just reject everything.

A few of you by now might be wondering why I am on Facebook if I don’t want to take a quiz to find out which member of the Back Street Boys I am, how big of an American Idol fan I am, or which wanna be vampire from Twilight I most want to see ‘glow’ in the sunlight? I ask those people what is so wrong with just plain old conversation? Share a photo, share a news article, or just ask a question. Do we need an app to tell a joke? Do we need an app to post a poll question? Facebook can be a great networking tool, but it can also be the most evil time killer around. So please take a stand with me for true interaction, conversation, and networking. Reject every single poll, quiz, survey, app, game, and invitation. We no longer have time to kill!

I have said it a thousand times before, I will say it a million times again, and here I will show why I hate him so much. Will Ferrel is a talentless hack! He is the succubus of funny. Put him in a room with someone truly funny and he will make them boring. So why does this bother me so much? Because I am a huge fan of comedy and this guy is ruining the reputation of comedy. People like Will Ferrel, Sara Silverman, Larry The Cable Guy, and several others are watering this art down. They are the Wal-Mart of comedy. They cheapen the craft and lower it’s collective value. The truth is that there are tons of much more talented comedians that are being ignored because of the watered down comedy of hacks like Will Ferrel.

So below I list ten examples of comedians that should be way more mainstream than they are. I list them in order of who deserves more attention. These are the people that should have their own massive hit movies and television shows. These are the ones that should be household names. Enjoy.

10. Greg Giraldo

9. This guy should have been the break out star of the so called “Blue Comedy Tour”:

8. Jeremy Hotz

7. Zach Galifanikis

6. Christopher Titus-Should I be worried that I can relate to this?

5. Lewis Black

4. Brian Posehn

3. Dave Attell

2. John Pinette – I’m Starvin’!

1. Gabriel Iglesies-I am brought to tears every time I hear this guy

Please feel free to post links to other comedians you think deserve more attention. I might post a part two if we come up with enough.

Sometimes progress is not moving forward. Sometimes innovation is not improvements. Look at mobile phones in America right now. Those things are getting so small they are worthless for anything but talking and maybe a little bit of text messaging. From what I hear Japan has phones twice our size for those that want to watch their media on a respectable sized screen. Let’s face it, unless you are some 20 something with a desk job in some cubicle farm a tiny phone is just not functional. Yet, they keep getting smaller.

About halfway through the 80′s we had this thing we called Crossover. For you young whippersnappers that would be the classic thrash sound mixed with the old school punk sound. It was one of the coolest things to ever hit my young ears. I never got into the whole punk vs metal thing to be honest. If it was good heavy music, I liked it. Sure I am mostly a metalhead, but anything good and heavy is still good. This mixed two of my favorite styles together. Now let’s fast forward about ten years to 1995. Crossover evolved into something called Metalcore. Imagine the watered down thrash of today mixed with the flat and monotone hardcore punk of today and you get the extremely bland cousin of Crossover. Think I’m the only one who thinks this so called innovation is a big steaming pile of crap? LordBling, ruinedmachines, & NeilH73, all pretty much agree with me. Ruinedmachines even went so far as to say “To me, metalcore is more focused on sculpted hair and guys wearing girl’s jeans than the music itself. crossover has more balls! When I think of metalcore I think of all of the bands nowadays that sound exactly the same.” I should mention that metalross thought that “crossover is an early name for Thrash (DRI), whereas metalcore, is hardcore punk that has adopted slayer riffs & Death metal vox”, but since Thrash came out well before Crossover I’m not sure how this could be true. But my point is that when Crossover ‘progressed’ into Metalcore it was not a move forward. The record companies shoved it down people’s throats, but most saw it for what it was rather quickly…a step backwards.

Lastly, I want to talk about something called OpenID. Yes, I am sneaking in a tech lesson again. Deal with it! OpenID is the hot buzz word in tech right now, but I am taking a stand against it. For those that do not know what OpenID is, let me explain it as simple as possible. OpenID is a service that let’s you store all your passwords into one service to log into all your online accounts. So instead of trying to remember a million passwords you just remember your OpenID password and OpenID does the rest for you. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, not really.

People that defend OpenID seem to have only one defense. They claim that “Well, people usually just use one password for everything anyways, so why not use OpenID?” So OpenID is a good thing because people are lazy about security? Call me crazy but I think that’s insane! Psogle even calls it a “security hole”. How about we continue to tech them how to have safe passwords instead? Or maybe we should just get rid of the hassle of locks on our doors and windows so we can have the convenience of not needing to carry around so many damn keys?

There has always been a debate over convenience or security. Or should I say that there has always been a debate over what is the perfect balance between the two. You could make things so secure that not even the user can get in, or we can make things so convenient that we get all our personal info hacked with no problem. There is a common sense solution in there somewhere.

How about you think of 3 passwords. Use one for things you don’t really care about at all. The second one you use for things like email or accounts you kind of care about. The third you use for a very select group of online accounts you want to be very protected (bank). All three passwords should be a funny sentence with ten characters in it. For example “Mark’s Blog Post Today Was Extremely long Today For Some Reason” or “That Guy Mark Carras Needs To Shut His Trap Sometimes” Or maybe even “Yes Mark We Get The Point. Now Shut Your Pie Hole!” Take the first letter of each word and you have a password that is more safe then 99% of what most people use. If you want you can make it even more secure by tossing in some numbers in the middle. The extra paranoid can even alter the case, but then you will need OpenID to keep track and the problem starts all over again.

Why is OpenID so bad? Because if a hacker only needs to remember one password to get into your OpenID, it makes his job too easy. OpenID is a hackers best friend. So why do services like TwitterFeed force you to use it? Because some geeks are so distracted by new shinny toys that they forget about the security holes said shinny toys might create. We as an internet community need to also force services like TwiterFeed to stop forcing users to use security holes like OpenID. It’s not progress. It’s a step backwards. Just like Metalcore.

Am I the only one who wonders what the difference is between what is shoved down our throats and what we actually like? Recently I asked my followers on Twitter a very common question in the rock world. “DLR era Van Halen or Sammy Hagar era Van Halen?” Ever since the movie Airheads I have wondered why the DLR era of Van Halen is always considered the best when the Sammy Hagar era sold way more cd’s. If everyone likes DLR so much how come he didn’t sell as many cd’s? If no one liked Sammy Hagar who bought all those cd’s?

Rumblestrip & freemetalalbums said DLR, but nethead, J_Churchill, & metalross either said Hagar or both. Will Ferrel is a talentless hack and whenever I say so, very few come to his defense. Yet his movies make millions and the jerkoff still somehow has a career. Who is going to his movies and supporting the death of good comedic films?

To really push this issue I figured I would really push the envelope and risk that people would stop following me on Twitter. When I asked people to choose between the legendary Ramones or the more pop punk style of Rancid, most picked Ramones. So maybe there is hope. Tattedgrl, plugola, ruinedmachines, NeilH73, lacippo, CarlynnCarnage, rhino777, LordBling, mece66, & a highly entertaining answer from andy_oconnor all gave the right answer of Ramones. Now I would rather make fun of Nick Grant for taking way too long to post some reviews, but instead I will just wonder what makes him and NorCalChika pick Rancid? Where they programmed to think that? Was I programmed to think Ramones are better? Do I think way to much about these things? Well of course I do. But that’s ok because sometimes I get reactions from even the official Twitter account of the modern hardcore band Throwdown…like THIS ONE! I’m thinking my next question should pit Throwdown against Agnostic Front just to see the reaction. That’s the real fun…isn’t it?

The real question is, “Do I have a point”? Mostly yes, but ths time I’m not sure. I think I just wanted to rant about things that run through my brain with no answer in sight. So maybe the real question is, ‘Did these questions make me insane or am I wondering about these things because I’m insane?’ I think I will ask the voices in my head. They never lie.

My best explanation of why the 360 deal is bad

Ok, I talked about this once before, but I didn’t go into direct detail about why the 360 deal is so bad and anti artist. Last time was more about opinion. So here I will try to not only explain it all, but maybe show a more clear picture of why this is so bad for artists. First let me explain how things used to be done.

The old way record companies would do business was to sign a new band to a record deal where they would a huge advance and give the band a percentage of the profits for their cd sales. Sounds good right? Well, it does until you really look at what that means. Say for example you are given a loan of 500,000.00 for your business. Now let’s say that instead of you taking that money from the bank and spending it on the things you think your business needs to become profitable, the bank spends the money. They spend your loan and you pay it back. Pretty weak eh? It gets worse. The band’s not only have to pay back money the label spent, but while the label keeps 90% of the profits the band pays back the loan with their 10% cut. So out of that $20 a fan pays for a cd, the band gets nothing until they pay back every penny the label spent to promote them. Because the loan is being paid back with only ten percent of the profits, it takes decades for even well established bands. In the old days a great majority of bands would never see a single penny from any cd sales. It just didn’t happen. Unless a band went multi-platinum they never got a slice of that pie. Sometimes even bands with hit videos being run into the ground every day on MTV ended up in debt to their label.

So how did the band’s survive if they never made money from cd sales? For decades band’s survived strictly from touring and merchandise. Without those two sources of money most of your favorite bands would have never made it past album one. We are talking about less than one percent of the band’s that get that ever elusive record deal would have never made it without touring and merchandise money being all theirs. If a band made it over that hill to where they did make money from the cd, it was called “artist development”.

The 360 deal changes that! The 360 deal says that the poor record company isn’t making enough by taking every penny of 99.99% of every cd sale. Now they get a good chunk of the merchandise and touring as well. Artist development is now thrown out the window. If a band doesn’t become a major break out success right away they just disappear. The label own their ass until they pay off that “advance” (that’s really a loan), so they can’t do anything until that happens. It used to be that a band could at least tour like crazy if they wanted out of their unfair contract. Just keep touring until the label is willing to negotiate. Now even playing a show is under the contract. So the only thing they can do is break up.

So please encourage your favorite band to never sign a 360 deal. I hear Fat Wreck Chords like to talk smack about the 360 deal, so I love them for that. If you know of a label that is willing to stand against the 360 deal please let me know so I can love them too.

What your band can learn from the swine flu hysteria!

This weekend CNN posted one great article about the over blown hysteria over swine flu (along with probably 50 very irresponsible articles fueling the insanity). We have all seen people go nuts over this for very little reason. The World Health Organization said that as of the writing this article there have only been 20 deaths world wide! There are probably more people that die from a smack upside the head every day. This is proof that people have zero interest in facts. We have become so addicted to being controlled by fear that we will latch on to anything hyped at all. It’s as pathetic as a worst case heroin addict.

So how can bands use the knowledge on this to benefit their band? Well, like most lessons, it is something anyone paying attention would have learned many times before. It’s always about hype. When advertising something it is never really about just letting people know about the event. You can have millions of people know about your show and still have an empty nightclub. Why? Because if it doesn’t seem like an out of control hype of hysteria people just don’t care. People always want to be part of something big. On Twitter people are going nuts posting articles supporting the paranoia over the swine flu. Why? Because they want to be part of the big party of everyone over reacting to the swine flu hysteria. When you have a show you want to create as much hype about the event as you can. You want to make it look like it is the event of the year and the club will be packed.

I stopped reading press releases many years ago, because the press agents pile on the B.S. a mile high. It’s like the bands that keep talking about their livers going on strike because they are such wild party maniacs. The truth is that most of them barely drink at all. Not too mention that that line has been over used to pathetic level. The press agents for metal go on and on about how the cd they are promoting is the most brutal thing to be recorded since the dawn of time. They find several ways to repeat the same thing Ad Nauseam. They are trying to hype the band to the point of hysteria because they know what that is worth. So even the pros do it, so why don’t you?

Now of course the press agents do several press releases a day and get so bored with the project that it comes off with zero integrity. You have way more time and can put more passion into your campaign. This is also why you should not play a city more than once every three months. Part of making the event hyped as much as possible is to make it special. How is it special if you are playing the same clubs, in the same city, every weekend? In fact, I have seen bands do very well if they don’t play within an hours drive per season. Starve your local scene! The other thing you do is to save up as much money as you can so that you can advertise on radio, print, flyers, internet, and whatever else is available. Bands that spend their own money to promote a show end up with opening slots with the majors.

Like anything else, you will get out of it what you put into it. Expect things to just fall into your lap will get you no where. Work your royal ass off every second you can and you will see a difference. If you don’t see a difference you should have worked harder. Or maybe your band just sucks? That’s ok. I hear we will all die of swine flu within the week anyways if the media hype is to be believed.

I have made it a habit to not update on the weekend for awhile. However, I am thinking of doing a new series on Saturdays whenever possible. I will send out a question on Twitter, post the replies, and give my useless opinion. I tried to do this with all social networks involved and it was too over whelming and it never got done. So you have to follow me on Twitter to be part of this.

This weeks question is when do you follow people back. Myself I follow back anyone who makes it clear they enjoy heavy music. This can be made clear from the bio, user name, avatar, profile background, looking at your Twitter messages, or by sending me a Twitter message telling me your favorite three bands. I’m not too picky about how you get the message out. If you at least make the effort to lie to me, I will follow you back. You would be amazed at how few even try to trick me into following them back. This works very well for me. Here are what some others have said…

metalross i follow back everyone unless they post hundreds of tweets in a row, then i unfollow them

Pubrockercom I follow everyone back. when they post too much stupid crap or too many links (just advertising w/o personality) I delete them.

deathisgain713 Like mindedness. Metal, design, etc. I don’t need to follow 500 people to tell me how to make money at twitter.

May I beg for help from any Twitter API programmers?

So I really suck at programing, but I do know how to dabble a little. So I have a concept I want to do, but I don’t know enough to figure this out myself. So here is my deal to you programmers. The first one to help me with this gets free advertising at the top of this blog (for one month), this new site (for the life of the site), and your Twitter account featured in a big way on this new site. The advertising can be just a link or a full banner linking to the site of your choice. Of course I pay for all hosting of this new site.

So what is it that I want. We have all seen the sites that track keywords on Twitter and have a free flowing stream of tweets that include those keywords. cursebird.com, www.pantsstatus.com, or twitterfall.com can be looked at for an example. I would be happy with something that works like www.pantsstatus.com, but if it can be free flowing like the other two that would be super sweet.

It just needs to be able to track one key word and only one key word. Users will not be able to change the one keyword either. I want to keep it simple.

So if you can help em with this please let me know. I would prefer a lesson over Skype if you would be so kind, but just sending me the code would be fine too.

Contact me at http://twitter.com/MarkCarras

Top Ten Things Bands screw up on Twitter!

10. #followFriday
Follow Friday is where you pick someone you are following and “pimp” their profile to everyone else following you. “#followfriday @rockmymonkey because it posts some great music news” is fine. Keep it simple. Now some do the lazy Follow Friday where they say something like “#followfriday @markcarras @isewdollies @rockmymonkey @HeavyAsHell” with no explanation of why you should follow that person. Details are very important and people will be more thankful you cared enough to pimp them exclusively on that one message. Make it about quality and not quantity.

9. RT’s can gain you fans
Now this only works for bands trying to gain attention. Unsigned or mostly unknown bands need to do the Re-tweet! What is a Re-tweet? When you see someone sending a message you like, agree with, or is talking about your band, re-send it to the people you follow. If nothing else this can be used to encourage people to talk about your band.

8. Not being on “We Follow”
This is how you can find new fans. Or even fans you have had for decades but they don’t know the band is on Twitter.

7. Not doing updates
Ok, depending on how big your band is you may want to post different stuff. Once a day is fine for most. “Playing Chicago tonight. Who’s gonna be there?” can work for pro level bands. If you are unsigned, let people know how the new cd is going, what clubs you are going to play, what merch you are working on, or even some contest where you need your fans to show their support.

6. Not filling out a bio!
Sure everyone knows who Queensryche is, but most bands can have Gold albums and still not be known to most people. Keep it simple though. “We are the band Blah and we play old school thrash!” is all you need. The band name and what style you play is all you really need. Don’t try and be cute or funny. Just tell people who you are and what you play. If you are some wussy indie pop band I need to know that so I don’t follow your yawn inducing crap of a band.

5. Not uploading an image
It makes your profile look fake and spammy. A band photo or logo is fine. It takes just a few seconds and makes everything look way better.

4. Paying someone to run the account
This makes your band look like they don’t care about their fans. Call me if you need to know how to make this so easy even a drummer can do it. (just joking, we love drummers too)

3. Not responding to fans
Ok, your main focus is creating great music. So don’t try to respond to every message. Try to be strategical about it. But please try and respond to a about ten percent. 1% if you currently pack 10 thousand seat arenas.

2. Not Following Back!
Twitter is about being able to interact with your fans. @reply every once in awhile. Even Shaq does it, so what’s your excuse? You think you’re bigger than him? If your lazy you can at least use @socialtoo to auto-follow people back.

1. Not being on Twitter
Seriously! I am shocked that many bands are not using this great tool. This leaves it open to someone creating fake accounts and screwing with your fanbase. Very bad!

Yes, I know that last link doesn’t work. That’s the point. Nevermore needs to get their collective butts in gear! All my other links however do go to real places. Each point is made with a link to an account that SHOULD be doing something on Twitter they were not doing at the time I posted this article. Most of them fit several of my points though.

I like to think of myself as the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Tech Consultant” so please feel free to contact me if anyone needs advice or consulting. I work dirt cheap and even free for most things. So contact me on Twitter if you have a quick question. Call 360-789-0703 for paid phone tech support if you need that little extra.

http://twitter.com/MarkCarras