So it is time for the Shorty Awards again eh? They had to have them just a few weeks before I drop a bomb on the music industry March 1st. Right now I have absolutely nothing going on and have a bigger chance at winning something insulting.
After March I could win something really cool though. So I figure I might as well have fun with this. I doubt I will win anything. So instead I offer the top ten Shorty Awards I might have a chance at. Just for the sake of a good laugh. Enjoy and please help me win one of them.
So if you want to be a smart ass, feel free to nominate me for one of the following. I do have something I would like to win though if you take these kinds of things seriously. Not sure I take any awards seriously though. I’d rather make a joke out of it. How about you?
However, let me be clear that if you want to be nice you will give me a nomination for http://shortyawards.com/category/media I won’t mind. Can I beg for your nomination?
So what have they done now? It seems that they have asked SocialToo to discontinue their “auto-unfollow” feature. This lets a person automatically un-follow anyone that unfollows them. A great trick of spammers is to set a bot to follow several thousand accounts, wait for those people to follow them back, and then un-follow those people. This makes the spammer look like they have this massive following they don’t deserve. Then those parasites can trick people into all kinds of nefarious things. This can lead to hacked accounts, stolen identities, and any number of other things. All because the spammer was made to look more legit than they should. Setting an auto-unfollow through a great service like SocialToo helps keep that problem in check.
So if SocialToo is the one that will discontinue the service why not revolt against them? Well, SocialToo is pretty much held hostage by the fact that their entire service lives within the Twitter system. If Twitter does not approve them, they die. Although Jesse is too nice of a guy to come out and say it, Twitter is pretty much forcing him at gun point to kill this great service. It is not at all his fault, his choice, or his decision really. He provides a service to Twitter users, so Twitter has all the power.
So who will join me in trying to save Auto-unfollow? On Tuesday Jan 19th at 12:00 pacific can everyone send out a message that says “Tell Twitter to save auto-unfollow because it helps stop spam! #saveautounfollow” If we can make this a trending topic more people will know about this oversight and maybe Twitter will actually think about this stupid mistake.
Ok, so I have touched on this subject before HERE and HERE. However, I have never posted about this from the approach of the regular user. Some of it has been mentioned on these pages before, but again those articles are not specifically directed at the regular user. So here are the top ten mistakes I see people make. These rules work for metalheads, bands, fans, labels, online magazines, and anyone else.
1. Begging for followers.
I see people making tons of posts asking for followers. Why should people follow you? Give them a reason! Post good content. This could mean things that make people laugh, great articles you come across, or anything else interesting. See an article you like? Post a link!
2. Not filling out the bio
Just like rule number one, give people a reason to follow you. Tell us the things you are into that might be interesting to others. You enjoy metal? Saying so in the bio will get you metal fans. Are you an obsessive gammer? List your favorite games and you will get followers that also like those games. As you can see this isn’t brain surgery.
3. Use the link in the bio wisely
I have seen people post a URL shortener link in the spot where you should put a link to your website. This makes it look like a total spam account. Use the real url. I have also seen people post the link to the same Twitter account. What is the purpose of that? Of course nothing looks worse than no link at all. Post a link. Post a real link. It can be your MySpace profile, Facebook profile, or a website all your own. Just be open and honest about it.
4. Change the avatar
Using the default avatar is the worst! Of course the best is to use a photo of what the account represents. If it is an online magazine make it the magazines logo, mascot, or editor. If it is a person make it a nice close up, a cartoon head of the person, or something else that represents that person. Slightly better than the default is a photo of a pet, your favorite band, or your favorite celebrity. Just please do not use the default!
5. Using a URL shortener at all
Now don’t get me wrong, I use a URL shortener from time to time. However I only use it if I absolutely have to. Many people will never trust a shortened link at all. If it comes from a trusted person they fear it is a hacked account. Hacked accounts are getting VERY common, so it’s a well informed paranoia. If I am looking at accounts on Tweet Chart for people to follow, I will be hesitant to follow an account flooded with Bit.ly links for this very reason. I will assume it is either a hacked account or just a spammer. So only use a shortener if you absolutely have to. It makes you look like a spammer.
6. Getting your account hacked
Now of course the way to avoid getting your account hacked is to be very careful about the links you click on Twitter. That is the number one way accounts get hacked. However there are ways to make sure your account hasn’t been hacked. The best way is to look at the sent tab in your direct messages. If your account has been hacked it will be sending out spam to your followers direct message boxes and pissing them off. Check that DM sent tab often!
7. Auto DM thank you messages are spammy
Sending out a thank you for someone following you ticks off more people than it doesn’t. So don’t do it. The path to being labeled a spammer is paved with good intentions. The worst is if you include a link.
8. Auto-Follow only if you have to
Are you a multi-platinum band selling out arenas? You don’t have time to sift through your followers to make sure you only follow back legit people. So you’re forgiven for using the auto-follow. Also, bands and webzines that have very limited staff. Obviously some bands are so small that they doon’t have room for a netbook with it’s own portable internet connection in the overly cramped tour van. I have to use auto-follow for the RockMyMonkey.com account. I’m lucky if I have time to sift through the followers of my personal account. There is no way I could do that for RMM too. But there is no excuse for doing the auto-follow on a personal account. That’s just spammy.
9. Letting your following and follower ratio get to far to one side
A spammer will almost always have way less followers than the amount you are following. Noobs to Twitter will come in like a lion and start following every account they can find in a lame attempt to get followers. This is a major mistake for many reasons. First it makes you look like a spammer. This will cause the highest quality people to not follow you back. The second reason would be of course that you end up with a ton of low quality people. So if it is just a numbers game to you and the only thing that matters is getting the number up go right ahead and do this. Your amount of followers will indeed go up. The problem is that it will be nothing but spammers, bots, and dead accounts with auto-follow turned on. This is also how you get hacked. You get a bunch of phishing scams in your feed tempting you to click links that take over your account! Don’t just blind follow to get followers, because you will only get the worst followers this way.
10. Never forget the social part of social networking
Twitter is a social networking site. So many forget the social part of that. It’s a community. Watch the people who use the #metal hash tag a lot. We are a small but passionate group of people. Sometimes we talk a lot of smack to each other, but we also support each other. It’s a very high quality group of people that follow back, re-tweet, and follow Friday like crazy. We talk back and forth too. We are very social. I spent a ton of time with a friend to create the Tweet Chart for a few hundred people. Why not do something more trendy like Twilight that would have got me ten times more followers? Because I don’t give a rats ass what Twilight fans have to say or care about. I would rather have way less followers if those are not only quality people, but also people I care about. We follow each other because we want to be social with each other. It’s all about the social!
There are new people coming into Twitter all the time. Send them this top ten list. There are tons of people that have been on Twitter for months and still make these mistakes. Send them this list too. Better habits make it a better place for all.
So I think it is time to start calling out the Twitter spammers. Now some may think this is to embarrass them, but this is not the case. Not all Twitter users are tech savvy enough to know that what they are doing is wrong. Does the band The Destro know that this is a total douche thing to do? I would guess not. In fact, they may not even know that their account is sending out these obviously spammy messages. Their account may just be hacked. Also please keep in mind that most bands do not run their own social networking profiles. Normally it is run by someone in management, the label, or even a wife. So calling them out for being a dirty spammer might get them a response of “Holy crap, we had no idea! Thanks for letting us know this was being done.” Calling someone out for being a dirty spammer can help them if they come by the mistake honestly. So this is NOT a witch hunt!
However, if they are actually a dirty spammer this let’s everyone else know not to trust the account. Now there are several other things you can do to help stop spam on Twitter if the person gets out of control.
1. Forward the message to @spam on Twitter
2. Go to their profile and click the link on the right side of the screen that says “Block” or “report for spam”. This is in the “action” section of the side panel.
3. Send a public message to the person that this is being done. Why public? Because the person may not see it, but their friends might. Imagine one musician getting a text message from a friend letting them know their account is being used for sending out spam. Artist then calls person in charge of account and spew fire. You did them a favor. Also, if they are a true dirty spammer they need to be flogged publicly.
Now of course there will always be a debate on what is spam. I send messages promoting interviews, reviews, and photos I post online. Some follow me because of those messages and some think of it as spam.
A few of the messages in the screen shot above are from people playing Twitter games. This is a pet peeve of mine and I hate it. It gets in the way of why I sign up for Twitter. I only want conversation and have major issues with these games and what funds them. The entire funding structure that supports these types of games on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace is to trick people out of their money. That’s dirty. So to me it is spam, but people that enjoy them have no clue it is looked on by most as very slimy. There are options on most of these games to NOT send out messages to people you follow. If you play games like this please check these options or you risk really pissing people off.
The last type of spammer listed in the screenshot above is barely a spammer at all. It’s just annoying. This is the person who sends a DM to thank you for following them. Again, this floods the persons inbox with messages that get in the way of conversation. I understand that this is the most innocent of all the douchey things people do on Twitter. So this is more of a warning that it is NOT something you should do. Many find it annoying and it will get them to unfollow you or even report you as a spammer.
No hard feelings if you are on the screenshot above. Just a public request to stop doing it. I will soon be unfollowing these people and deleting their messages from my DM inbox so I can get back to just conversation. But hopefully I don’t have to do this. My hope is that they came by this with honest intentions and just stop doing this. Please re-tweet this if you hate Twitter spam like I do. Thanks.
UPDATE: This just in. Just seconds before this blog post was to go live, @radiochick1620 sent me a message letting me know she was hacked, her password has been changed, and I again recommend you follow her. Since this is the whole point of this post I claim victory! This is how it is done people. This is how you kill Twitter spam. Let people know!
The list below is of my followers with the most likely spam accounts at the top. It was scored based on common characteristics of junk, by a service called TwitBlock. Now I think the name shows a lack of research due to the fact that “Twit” has nothing to do with Twitter. Other than that it is a great service.
I am asking my followers to look over the list (use the ctrl +f function to make it take two seconds) and make sure they are not on the list. If you are on the list and are not some lame spam bot (spam is not done by humans), please let me know so I can vote “not spam” and of course not block you. If you are on the list and want to know what might be getting you on this list please ask me and I will help you figure out how to look less like a spammer. Thanks. Together we can stop spam!
So I have an idea. We have all heard of Follow Friday and Music Monday on Twitter, right? Well what about RT Tuesday? A day about nothing more than helping others get the word out! Now I know it takes a lot to get a new trend on Twitter started, so how about this. I will Re-Tweet a few “tweets” every couple hours on Tuesday.
How will I pick which ones to RT? Well I have a few rules. To keep track of people playing this new game of sorts I ask that you use one hash tag #RTtuesday. I also ask that you put @MarkCarras in there so I can just go to that section of my profile. Third, I only care about tweets about music. Guitar based music to be exact. This can be bands wanting their websites promoted, news stories about a band you love, a music video on YouTube (or some other known video hosting location), an article on your website about a band, or whatever else. Just as long as it is about music. No websites whose main purpose is to sell though. That’s not an article or helping a band. It’s spam and I don’t care about that crap.
I know I haven’t been doing #musicmonday or #followfriday much, but to be honest I notice almost nothing from those days. People have become jaded about them. They will pimp out a friends profile, but how many follow someone because of that? Because #RTtuesday is about compelling content I think people will care much more. So who’s in?
So on this late Saturday night I made a comment that Metal Mania on VH1 Classics needs to play a bigger variety of classic metal. It seems that the show has no programmer and they just play about 4 different tapes over and over again. Those 4 tapes have the same videos with nothing but the order changed. Now this could be a rant about how pathetic the programming for Metal Mania can be, but I was de-railed into a much more passionate debate.
For those who do not know about @vikingfist on Twitter, you really should follow him. This man is passionate about metal to a frightening degree. Well, @vikingfist said that “I like how THAT METAL SHOW never has metal on it. Just Cock/Hard Rock. KISS is great, but it isn’t Metal! Just hardrock.” Well, as comical as I think full on glam is, I still think it fits into Metal more than Hard Rock. Why? When I was first getting into Metal in the early 80’s (yes I am old), Glam bands were all over every Metal magazine, Metal Video show, Metal radio show, Metal tour, Metal label, and pretty much anything that was part of the Metal scene. It is part of the classic Metal era. I’m not a huge fan and prefer traditional Metal and old school Thrash (85-95), but just because I’m not a fan doesn’t make it non-Metal.
Now the roots of Metal most pretty much agree on. Or should I say the core of what makes something Metal is something most agree on? Bands like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, & others were the first pretty much Metal bands. Everything else is an off shoot from that. Now there is some debate on if bands like Led Zeppelin, Motorhead, Deep Purple, or Steppenwolf fit the Metal tag or not. I say they can be added if it is made clear that there is a debate. Kind of like adding a star next to the stats of a baseball celebrity that was caught using steroids. Sure they played and the stats happened, but their placement in any “Hall Of Fame” is questioned. So they barely made it and their placement is the grey area that will keep Pandora’s box closed for anyone who strays even further from the perimeters.
I think some are trying to change history and unless it has 45 minute blast beats and Cookie Monster impressions for vocals, it isn’t Metal. Well, that just isn’t true. Van Halen may not be as heavy as Cannibal Corpse, but they were part of the fore-fathers of this style along with many other bands. Can we deny that Stephenwolf was the first to scream “heavy metal thunder”? Can we deny that Sammy Hagar told us to “Get your one way ticket to midnight, Call it Heavy Metal”?
Now this brings us to other questionable off shoots of the Metal Scene. In the interest of full disclosure my username on many Metal forums in the 90’s was “RapIsNotNewMetal”. It was the mantra of a site I ran once called Abrasive Rock (the pre-cursor to RockMyMonkey) even! I still stand by that, but I will get to that later. First let’s talk about Glam. When Glam was the massively popular style that packed out stadiums, it was never played on Hard Rock video shows. Those bands almost never played with Hard Rock staples like Deep Purple or Steppenwolf. They did however play with “real” metal bands on the bigger package tours and festivals. They were also in magazines with bands like Exodus, Slayer, Iron Maiden, and Overkill. The place to find out the latest about the Glam bands were the places you went to find out the latest about Thrash, Power Metal (then just called Metal), and everything else. Call it “Poser Metal” if you prefer, but that is still calling it Metal. It’s the redheaded step child of Metal, the retarded cousin, the joke everyone makes fun of, but it is still part of the family. We all have members of our family that embarrass us, but they are still family. It’s a guilty pleasure at best, but it is Metal.
Now that brings us to the Rap-core off shoot. The place to find out about the latest in Rap-core was not hardcore Metal magazines. It was the pop mainstream. I never heard Limp Bizkit on the local Metal radio shows. I never saw Limp Bizkit tour with Nevermore. The term Rap Metal never really even took off. People used Rapcore more it seemed. Now Nu-Metal used the guitar riffs strongly inspired by rap, but never had Rap vocals so it’s another story. Nu-Metal may be the only member of the Metal family I can say I hate (for the most part), but it is Metal. It is the worst example of Metal. It is so pathetic many may say it makes Glam look like a respectable member of the family. It is the member of the family many of us would like to disown, but it is still part of the massively huge umbrella that is Metal.
For the record, my tastes mostly stick with Metal from 85-95. I like old school Thrash, Traditional Metal, Doom, Stoner Rock, and Hard Rock. I’m not much into Death Metal, Black Metal, Grindcore, Glam, Nu-Metal, or Metalcore, but I do like bands from all those styles. I would say in fact I like and dislike those members of the Metal family just as much equally.
Now please feel free to comment below and continue this debate. However, let’s keep the respect level at it’s highest for all involved. Keep the debate about facts and history and not about insults. Otherwise what’s the point? And make sure and check out Viking Fists blog at www.vikingfist.wordpress.com because it was his passion that inspired this overly long passionate blog post from me.
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.
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.
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.
