Socia lMedia

So awhile back (I think a year or two) a couple people started up Twitter accounts for their pets. The accounts got very popular because it was an original idea and the people behind them had a good amount of imagination. The accounts were entertaining to watch. They provided good content. Then a million other people without that level of imagination tried to do the same thing. So we ended up with a flood of Twitter accounts done in tribute of some damn cat. Now I love animals. I have a cat who many people that don’t even live with me refer to as “Daddy’s Spoiled Rotten”. But there is no way I would start up a Twitter or Facebook account under her name. Why? Because I just don’t think I could come up with enough good content to make it worthwhile. This whole “Pets with social media accounts” thing has really gotten out of control.

Now we see everything with social media accounts. I have seen people with Twitter accounts for everything from their bathroom scale to their refrigerator. It’s down right retarded. So now of course we must have a parody. A good friend now has launched a Facebook account for a chair. Yes, it’s another stupid Facebook game and everyone knows how much I hate those, but this has something different to it. This one seems to mock the trend of things other than humans with social media accounts. So although I will not play the game, I do find it entertaining that it exists. So no I will not join, but I will write this entire blog post to help promote it. The question is, will people get that they are being mocked for giving the tree outside in their yard a MySpace account?

My question is, where did this friend of mine learn how to spell the words Sitting and Chair? Either way, go HERE to join up and follow the “Sittin Chaiir”.

And for my regular readers, yes this is one of the very rare occasions where I am posting about the activity of one specific friend. So yes person behind the chair account, this is about you.

So my birthday is Oct 31st (seriously it is)
On Facebook when it is someones birthday the tradition is to flood their wall with a ridiculous amount of posts that all say the same thing. No, not one post with a bunch of replies. Each person makes a separate post. Then you all think I’m being unreasonable by blocking people from posting on my wall?! Really? I’m the unreasonable one? Of course on Twitter you will get a ton of @ messages and every social network does the same thing. This on the day after The Rally For Sanity?

Let’s Do Something Good
So instead of doing the normal meaningless mess online, I propose something that does a little good. I have always been a supporter of the arts, especially when it is actually original. So instead I want to support the most original production I have seen in a very long time. It is the Heavy Metal Opera put on by a local band called Arakus. I know what you are thinking. Probably the same thing I was thinking. “Oh crap this is going to be so painfully low budget that it will break records of how much failure a production can have.” But I have seen the first part of this production and it was amazing. GO HERE for some photos I took to see that this is no low budget hack work. GO HERE to check out some music from the production.

THE IMPORTANT PART OF THIS POST
All I ask is that before you wish me a happy birthday please just give this production one measly dollar. I follow thousands of you online between the many social networks. I am only asking for one little dollar so this production can happen. If they make their goal I will unlock my wall for 24 hours and let you all post away as much as you wish. Deal? One dollar. Can we do it?

You can also check out this video for a sample of what this Opera has to offer NOT just for metalheads, but fans of good art.

Foursquare

My Life Sucks Too Much For Foursquare
So Foursquare keeps growing and growing eh? Fine, but I don’t think it can ever be as big as Twitter or Facebook. The reason is that most of us are boring. I include myself in this category. I used go from home to work and then a few hours latter I go from work to home. Well, I’m not going to announce where I live so the only thing I would ever post is my workplace. Sure there is a rare time that I go out to a restaurant with my wife. A few times a year we go to the movies. About 5 times a years I go to a concert. Other than that I might go to a friends house, but I’m not going to post that. Ok, I also go to the store. So let’s say 20 times a year I go to a restaurant, 5 times a year I go to the movies, and 5 times a year I go to a concert. That’s not exciting at all! Is that worth posting?

Most Peoples Lives Suck Too Much For Foursquare
With 30 postable locations a year other than my workplace, this is less exciting than if I posted what I’m eating for dinner every night. Sure I post a photo of a really awesome meal every once in awhile, but for the most part I make fun of people that post boring crap like that. Sure people in Silicon Valley go to all kinds of exciting places all the time. Of course people with a really good job can go out to all kinds of interesting places every weekend, but most of America is poor as hell!

Foursquare Will Be Friendster In A Year
Can Forsquare really survive on people posting updates of work, Wal-Mart, home, work, Wal-Mart, home? That is most of America with very little diversity. The amount of people that can afford to go beyond that are a small percentage of the country. According to most internet ranking sites Foursquare ranks inside the top 1,000 websites on the internet. I think this is about as far as it is going to get. Yes, it will get a little higher for a short blip of time. They will make some deals to get those home, work, Wal-mart, home level users. But those users will get bored of the site really quick since they don’t have the exciting updates that the top users post. It will only remind them that their life sucks and is boring. People don’t like that and they will stop posting updates. Once this final spike of the site is done even the cool kids will leave and the site will be the latest Friendster.

Mark my words… At this time next year Foursquare will be looked back on as a failure.

Social

This could also be titled, “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” I follow a ton of people on social networks. So many that there is always someone asking me to go vote for their photo in a photo contest, their baby in a baby contest, and of course their band in a battle of the bands contest. Why should I care about the thing you care about?

Understand what you are asking me to do. Most of the time I have to register to some site I don’t care about, give them my personal info (so they can sell it to some spammer), and then vote for this thing I couldn’t give two shits about.

Now it may seem like I’m saying this just to be an asshole, but I do have a point. Keep in mind that people will feel like they have to go vote for that “cute” baby picture if you have voted on their stuff. Have you been active on their site? Have you shared a link of theirs? If so they will probably be active on the stuff you want them to be active on. That is what social media is all about. So go post a comment on their blog. Spread a link to someone else’s site on your Twitter and Facebook. Scream it loud and proud. Make sure to make a big enough deal about them that they want to return the favor.

Oh, and if you want me to feel the need to help promote your stuff just be active on HeavyAsHell.com. That is what I’m passionate about. If someone was to start submitting links there and spreading the HAH link around to get votes, I would have no choice but to do everything in my power to help them with what they needed help promoting. I say this only to make a point. In social media, cheerleading begets cheerleading. If you work your ass off to promote others, they will work their ass off to promote you.

In closing, if I didn’t vote for that thing you wanted me to vote on there might have been a reason. If I go out of my way to help someone and they do not return the favor, I don’t do shit for them until they do. Most won’t admit it, but they are the same way. So don’t forget the social part of social networking. I don’t give a shit about your thing, but I’ll pretend to if you pretend to care about my stuff. Deal?

Shorty Awards

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?

1. http://shortyawards.com/category/idiot

2. http://shortyawards.com/category/douchery

3. http://shortyawards.com/category/douche

4. http://shortyawards.com/category/annoying

5. http://shortyawards.com/category/ignorance

5. http://shortyawards.com/category/dork

6. http://shortyawards.com/category/asshole

7. http://shortyawards.com/category/curmudgeon

8. http://shortyawards.com/category/narcissism

9. http://shortyawards.com/category/deleteyouraccount

10. http://shortyawards.com/category/asshat

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?

Twitter Fails Again

So it seems that the Twitter gods do not even understand their own site. This shouldn’t shock me as these are the same people who had thought it was ok for a staff member to pick “happiness” as their password. These people obviously know jack squat about security and stopping spammers.

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.

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.

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!

@ZNdqLa
@vyghnggmvhxw
@Rafn0145
@freefreebies5
@purebreeze
@TracyLewis79
@amazongoldenbox
@08Taste244
@clencher11k
@1644webdesign
@health777
@mikepowell01
@jhollyhu89
@bella9968
@wampyr
@mistakepunk
@yobird
@she0foreclosure
@lessthanlaura
@VicmesClothing
@svarogg
@YolandaBolducY
@ilovepartyingg
@gbeautig
@Tweetreferrals
@drivingpoints
@italian4you
@monatwt
@dinusha
@aaataa
@pmband
@suit_sunlighta
@Sexylady1999
@teamnastymerch
@Grasternal
@xiaopan1
@osen
@oeg572
@xhanne_mizz
@Y2Yqlg
@Pseudorant
@shortyawards
@jon_getmuscle
@DeathTollRecs
@herIKE
@1000000
@DannyEdwards
@LizzyG1984
@ThirteenPills
@CodeRad
@FDR666
@hannh78
@Uragany
@mrachievement
@klaAz0r
@Nukenband
@tlawmusic
@BestDJSets
@sxswtweets3
@48hourprinting
@kiara_white
@pdxfreelancers
@OutletThruNoise
@AptHunt
@cutiebootygirl
@millionfollower
@06ceasefire
@mediamavens
@minervaband
@CorsetPrincess
@1stChurchOfTwee
@DestinyWW
@ubmerch
@Radioblogger
@soremfamchiro
@garygover06

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?