Twitter Changes the Question and Improves Its Content

Finally, Twitter is depersonalized! They changed the question (or "prompt"), and it promises to be a huge improvement. Hopefully, everyone will pay attention and slavishly obey the new inquiry.

I blogged, in a comical manner, about "Changing the Twitter Question" back in February 2009. Twitter has finally seen the error of their ways. Follow me on Twitter, I'm: @vaspersthegrate

"What are you doing right now?" was the original question that greeted Twitter users, right above the small text entry box that permitted only 140 characters per message or "tweet". This Twitter inquiry was mocked by detractors."Who cares?" and "How narcissistic!" were common responses by those who did not "get on Twitter" and wanted to emphasize the frivolity of such an application.

Sarcasm and disparagement directed toward Twitter and Twitter users mirrored the attacks on blogs years ago when they were called "web logs". Old fashioned "slomo" (slow motion) blogs were derided as "online journals" that only myopic, self-centered teenagers would ever care about.

When CEOs began to use them, and mainstream journalists got "Ratherized", starting with Dan Rather, and individuals as well as organizations realized that blogs were great as mini-websites they could design, update, and control all by themselves, they gradually gained acceptance.

Twitter also entered the fabric of daily life as cable news networks began using Twitter and incorporating tweets as timely, spontaneous, average folk feedback on news items.

Tragic events like school shootings, the Burmese massacres of Buddhist monk dissidents, the corrupt Iran elections, the Balloon Boy Hoax, and the Ft. Hood lone terrorist massacre brought Twitter into the limelight as a viable means of interpersonal communication and first hand news reporting by citizen journalists.

But, in spite of occasional good uses of Twitter vanity question persisted in generating boring personal drivel, reducing the overall value and relevance of Twitter content.

"What are YOU doing right now?" spawned endless geysers of private details to bloat the Twittersphere. Many users could not think outside that dreadful box. We had to hear about what they ate for lunch, what con artist blog conference they were attending, and what airport they were at.

No more!

"What's happening?" is the new question.

Interpretation: Twitter no longer cares about what you and I are doing. Or what we are thinking. Twitter now enlists us all to be citizen journalists. We are commanded to report on what's going on around us, or being done to us (by the government or whatever?)

Twitter wants you to be a news source, probably due to how rich and valuable such content is to the mainstream media and other interested parties. Perhaps now the quality of tweets will skyrocket!

Another benefit: spammers will not be as likely to hype their junk! It may be more difficult to tweet a sales message. Commercial usage of Twitter may wane and completely disappear. Nobody joins a social network to receive hype or corporate PR anyway! Purity and joy are within reach once again!

It may be harder to reply to "What's happening?" with relentless inspirational quotes!

It may be harder to reply to "What's happening?" with announcements of dubious investment opportunities, Twitter Follower Acquisition Automation apps, and declarations of private affairs and vague feelings that nobody wants to clutter their mind with!

Eureka!

Twitter finally figured it out!

We want to know "What's happening?" and NOT "What are you doing?"!!

Prediction: Eventually, the Twitter question will be changed to "WTF?"

LOL

FURTHER READING: Brian Solis post "On Twitter, What Are You Doing? Was Always the Wrong Question".

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interstitial ads vs below content ads

Interstitial ads (also called transition ads) are advertising that comes between you and the web page to which you're trying to navigate. Or they appear in your transition from one webpage to another webpage within the same website.

The word interstitial means "coming in-between two things".

It's a form of browser hijacking. They annoy people. Don't do it.

MarketingTerms.com "interstitial" definition:

A full-page ad that interrupts sequential content, forcing exposure to the advertisement before visitors can continue on their content path.

Interstitials are a form of interruption marketing. This quality appeals to advertisers who feel Web advertising needs to be more like a broadcast medium to be effective.

Interstitials often draw an above average amount of response and resentment. The high response rates typically translate into higher CPM rates. The high level of resentment may translate into consumer backlash, although the exact long-term effects are unclear.

For example, you do an internet search, see a promising link, and click on it. But instead of seeing just the web page, you see an ad overlaid on top of the web page, partially or totally obscuring it. It's a commercial intrusion that interrupts your web browsing.

You want to see what you believe is relevant, interesting, or entertaining web content. But you're rudely confronted with an irrelevant ad instead! The ad may be relevant to the topic, but it's irrelevant because you are seeking information, not products related to a topic.

You're not shopping for anything. You're not in the mood to buy. You feel insulted and offended. You've been tricked into viewing a video commercial with loud, horrible music. Or a digital print ad that's hyping something you don't care about. Even if you might care about such a product, the way it's imposing itself on you turns you off.

Instead of successfully selling the product, you get pissed at both the product and the website that lets these interstitial ads come between you and it.

Irony of ironies! The BusinessDictionary.com definition of interstitial advertising is itself interrupted by an interstitial: an ad for their email newsletter (a very common content type for interstitials).

Interstitials are similar to pre-content video ads, that force you to watch a short commercial prior to enjoying a movie, news report, or other video content. You have to endure the commercial to get to the content.

While the pre-content video ad runs, you're probably resenting it, and making a note to boycott the company behind the commercial. Bad will and negative word of mouth are generated instead of increased sales.

Ads that are unexpected, unwanted, and disruptive to web browsing are counter-productive. They backfire. And they may increase the webpage's loading time.

What's the answer?

Below Content Ads.

These are sales messages that come AFTER the content.

You get the content you want. Now you're happy, in a good mood. When you see an ad below the content, you may be curious. Interested. Prone to investigate a product that's possibly relevant to your interests. Like a book or DVD that expands upon the content you've just consumed for free.

Below content advertising is natural, non-annoying, non-intrusive, endurable. You may skip it and move on, but at least those who do click on the ad or respond to an email newsletter sign-up form, are not antagonized. They will be more qualified, more likely to buy something or receive something free that carries more advertising.

There is also Above Content Ads, which are treading a fine line between Interstitials and Below Content Ads. While they're unexpected and unwanted, at least they don't block your view of desired content. You just have to scroll down a little.

Don't use interstitial advertising no matter how they're hyped to you. Go with below content ads and generate good will as well as increased sales.

Wikipedia article on interstitial webpage.

Smart Computing article on interstitial ads, with Above Content Ad.

"10 Online Ad Formats People Hate Most" from Catalyst Group, as seen on Silicon Alley Insider:

They are:

* Banner ads below headers

* Ads that look like content

* Dancing ads

* Auto-expanding half-page ads

* Banners next to logos

* Billboards in the top right corner

* Google text links interrupting content

* Ads with hidden close buttons

* Interstitials

* Page Take-overs


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How to Embed Flash Slideshow into Blogger

This is just a demonstration of an embedded slideshow on Blogger. A client asked me today how to embed a single .swf Flash file into a blog post.

You have to first make a Flash Slideshow with one or more images. A
Flash image cannot just be embedded like a JPEG. It needs a widget, something to transmit the image to, or render it within, a web browser.

Use a free software program like Flash Slideshow Maker.

http://www.flash-slideshow-maker.com/

Install this program. Then use it to Create Slide Show. Select the image or images you want in the slide show.

When you get the Publish Now dialog box, be sure to give it an HTML title and SWF title (default is "myalbum", I changed it to "Str8 Sounds CDs").

Once Published, you have to then upload the slideshow to a host site.

You'll get a prompt to upload to SkyAlbum. Click on that. Create an account with username and password.

Here's the "Str8 Sounds CDs" slideshow on SkyAlbum.

Once the slideshow is hosted on SkyAlbum, you'll get embed code and swf code.

Highlight the embed code, copy it, then paste it into Blogger > Create New Post (or Edit Post if you want to embed the slideshow into an existing post) > Edit HTML > paste that embed code in > change the dimensions.

You'll see

object width = "____" height="_____"

at the start of the embed code, and for my blog I use w=380 and h=400.

You'll also see it again, toward the end of the embed code. Be sure to change the dimension values at both spots in the embed code.


Publish Post.

corporate websites vs social media

Many companies, despite the advice of so-called social media gurus and blog conferences, still fail to prominently display their Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blog, and other social network links.

You will notice how I display a link to my Twitter profile near the top of my sidebar, and links to other online presences are further down. You can find my web activities in my blog sidebar, without having to Google my name and go hunting all over the internet for them.

Marketing blogger B.L. Ochman tackles this odd deficiency in a recent post.



"Why are companies hiding their social media involvement"

[QUOTE]

While thousands of companies have either experimental or well-established presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites, those communities remain invisible on all but a tiny fraction of company homepages.

Why do companies hide their social media efforts from visitors?

My guess is that their reasons include

* fear that they'll lose control of their brand if too many people know they can have a say;

* lack of cooperation between marketing and IT;

* and perhaps pressure from lawyers who are nervous about new-fangled new media.

It's hard to find a company website whose homepage easily and clearly allows visitors to see all of the its social media initiatives. You'd have to be Nancy Drew to find the company blog on most websites, or its Facebook page, or all of its YouTube videos.

[END QUOTE]

I think the reason social media is not integrated with the main corporate website is simple incompetence.

Corporate websites do many things wrong. It's only natural that they would forget to have links to all their other sites, Twitter, YouTube channel, blog, etc. They're inept.

Here's another failure that's common. Corporate websites should include embedded videos of current and classic commercials, with HTML code to enable people to embed the commercials in their own blogs, especially if the commercial is funny or innovative.

Why would a company NOT upload their tv commercials to YouTube? This would make it easy for marketing bloggers to display the commercial and comment on them.

Are companies afraid they might get negative reviews? They shouldn't fear this if they're confident in what their ad agencies are doing, and paying them big money to create good work.

For example, I wanted to show my blog readers and Twitter fans how the current Ditech Refi Rate Sales tv commercials are almost identical to the Twitter graphics, the bird, the blue color. But this new commercial is not on YouTube or the Ditech corporate site.

Even though my purpose was to point out how Ditech seems to be imitating Twitter in their use of a bird and blue color, my article would also provide more exposure for their tv commercial, and would promote their Refi Sale.

These companies are just plain clueless. It seems amateur and childish to resist the new ways people are interacting with products and promotions.

If you seek competitive advantage, start integrating your social media presences with your corporate website. Also, be sure to include videos of recent commercials on your corporate website, and upload them to YouTube. Provide embed code so people can post your commercials on their blogs.

Don't fear criticism, which only makes us smarter. Don't thwart praise, which helps distribute your message.




*** B.L. Ochman, one of the first marketing bloggers I ever read, consistently posts thoughtful articles about corporate internet marketing and social networks. Follow her on Twitter: @whatsnext

FBI warning on spear phishing

SPEAR PHISHING E-MAILS TARGET

U.S. LAW FIRMS & PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS

11/17/2009—The FBI assesses with high confidence that hackers are using spear phishing e-mails with malicious payloads to exploit U.S. law firms and public relations firms.

During the course of ongoing investigations, the FBI identified noticeable increases in computer exploitation attempts against these entities.

The specific intrusion vector used against the firms is a spear phishing or targeted socially engineered e-mail designed to compromise a network by bypassing technological network defenses and exploiting the person at the keyboard.

Hackers exploit the ability of end users to launch the malicious payloads from within the network by attaching a file to the message or including a link to the domain housing the file and enticing users to click the attachment or link.

Network defense against these attacks is difficult as the subject lines are spoofed, or crafted, in such a way to uniquely engage recipients with content appropriate to their specific business interests.

In addition to appearing to originate from a trusted source based on the relevance of the subject line, the attachment name and message body are also crafted to associate with the same specific business interests.

Opening a message will not directly compromise the system or network because the malicious payload lies in the attachment or linked domain. Infection occurs once someone opens the attachment or clicks the link, which launches a self-executing file and, through a variety of malicious processes, attempts to download another file.

Indicators are unreliable to flag in-bound messages; however, indicators are available to determine an existing compromise.

Once executed, the malicious payload will attempt to download and execute the file ‘srhost.exe’ from the domain ‘http://d.ueopen.com’; e.g. http://d.ueopen.com/srhost.exe. Any traffic associated with ‘ueopen.com’ should be considered as an indication of an existing network compromise and addressed appropriately.

The malicious file does not necessarily appear as an ‘exe’ file in each incident. On occasion, the self-executing file has appeared as other file types, e.g., ‘.zip’, ‘.jpeg’, etc.

Please contact your local field office if you experience this network activity and direct incident response notifications to DHS and U.S. CERT.

-- public domain information "Spear Phishing Emails Target US Law Firms & Public Relations Firms" at FBI Cyber Investigations unit.

It's time to get smart about cyber crime and cyber war techniques. This is the realm of blogocombat on steroids. In regular blogocombat, words are used to attack, defend, and debate issues or personalities.

In cyber crime/war, the combat is waged against your personal computer or corporate network. They use highly seductive or relevant phrases, like the name of a fellow employee or a family member, or a topic related to your job or personal interests.

A Twitter friend, Michael Koby, (his blog: Michael Koby - Commentary on Technology, Media, News and More ) recommends this book (Amazon item page):

"The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security" by Kevin D. Mitnick

Mitnick is the "reformed cyber criminal hacker" whose exploits inspired the movie War Games. He was the Most Wanted Computer Criminal at one time. See the Wikipedia article on Kevin D. Mitnick.

Social Engineering article on Wikipedia.


[QUOTE]


Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery or deception for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or computer system access; in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim.

All social engineering techniques are based on specific attributes of human decision-making known as cognitive biases.^[1] These biases, sometimes called "bugs in the human hardware," are exploited in various combinations to create attack techniques.


[END QUOTE]

7 keys to success in social media

You create a profile, upload photos and media files, personalize your page to reflect who you are, but then what?

Social interaction comes next.

Depending on the contextual relevance of the site, your involvement with other members of your network can be anything from intense and nearly constant -- to casual and sporadic.

For example, I might spend hours on Twitter, RTing (retweeting) and @ing (replying to) various Twitter users. It could be joking, advising, debating, self-expressing, self-promoting, other-promoting, or just plain chatting about whatever.

However, on MySpace Music, I rarely interact with other musicians, aside from an occasional comment or private message. I often update the content, adding new tunes to my mp3 player, or new photos and videos. While I keep my Str8 Sounds page fresh and always changing, I don't spend a lot of time interacting with others.

I do more than most bands probably. I at least comment back when another band posts a comment on my page. And I make a point of complimenting bands that I really like and admire. I'll post a photo of me holding their new CD, as a comment, for example. Or mention some specific song or musical style of theirs that I enjoy greatly.

So my social interactions on MySpace Music is sincere and steady, but not all that frequent or intense. I never debate anything over there. I don't seek advice or express my thoughts like I do on Twitter.

Twitter interactions are rather well defined. Norms and netiquette sprang up spontaneously, with services like Twitter Fan Wiki to codify and keep pace with the site. Then we develop our own pet peeves or idiosyncratic practices.

To succeed in being human, or a humanized organization, on social media depends on several considerations. You will judge your ROI in social media according to your own goals. But the basic social media ideology remains the same.

Social media is fundamentally about caring and sharing. Not sales. Not viral marketing. Not investment opportunities. Not spam. Not positive affirmations.

To simplify: success in social media depends on being social. Not contrived. Not scripted. Not trendy. Not self-impressed. Not corporate fluffy. Not hype-driven.

Nobody joins a social media network to receive sales messages or corporate PR.

If you act human, caring and sharing, some few may be interested in your product or organization. But social media is not "just another communications / advertising platform." If you see social media participants as dumb sitting ducks waiting to waste their money on your junk, you're doomed.

We see the spammers do this. They lure you into Following them by using relentless inspirational quotes from other people. Or they try to act like a normal person, posting trivial details about their life, then every 10th post will be about some product or "opportunity".

Here's what it takes to succeed in social media, the kind of personality and behavioral qualities required to interact effectively with others online.

7 Keys to Success in Social Media

1. Value

You, or your organization, have plenty of knowledge or talent to share. Provide your insights, expertise, links to relevant sites, news, facts, questions, experiences, trials, struggles, triumphs, humor, skills, education, training, dreams, art, music, poetry, whatever you have to contribute to others.

Share links to sites you know about, but most others probably don't. What web tools do you use that others could profit from? What sites are authoritative in your field? Link to them! That's how you prove you're an expert, and people are attracted to those who share nice things.



2. Authenticity

Be yourself, don't quote others constantly. Emphasize what your friends or customers say are the good points of yourself or your product.

No ghost-posting! Don't position yourself as an individual, then have a staff pretend to be you as they interact with others. You'll be hated for this fake and insincere approach.



3. Altruism

Genuinely care about others. Prove it by interacting kindly, sympathetically, inspirationally with fellow members of your network.

Are you pushing something that will really help others, or are you selling something just to make yourself rich?

In social media, we discover your orientation a lot faster than you realize.



4. Articulation

You have to be a fairly good writer. Much social media consists of micro-content, short bursts of text, encapsulated contexts, abbreviated ideas, condensed thought.

As you practice, you'll gain marketable skills in communicative brevity.



5. Strength

You must be tough, able to take criticism, flaming, trolling, and assorted abuse. Some people think debates are things to "win" at all costs, rather than a mutual search for truth. Google the word "blogocombat" to learn more. Most of what you'll find was written by me, as it's one of my specialties.

For the definitive work on internet trolls, see Troll Guide: The Return.

Never let an online statement, especially if it's anonymous or from a total stranger, bother you or make you react in an immature or unprofessional manner.

Express your opinions or product claims firmly, but remain open to questions, challenges, and hostile attacks. Respond calmly and methodically. Provide links to substantiate your assertions.



6. Revolution

Realize you're a revolutionary, a ground-breaker, a pioneer in the midst of a communications upheaval. Never before in human history have ordinary people possessed a global platform to publish text, image, sound, music, art, etc.

Have patience with yourself, your online community members, and the technology itself. We and the technology are evolving together. The faster and further you go in social media, the better positioned and prepared your organization will be, as the new media reinforces or replaces the old media.


7. Goals

What do you wish to accomplish in social media? It can be anything from making real friends, gaining a virtual advisory staff, entertaining people, collaborating with colleagues, providing better service to customers, promoting an idea, campaigning for a candidate, or selling a product.

No matter what your ultimate objective may be, keep the overt actions to a bare minimum. Promote your seminar not with pushy hype, but by freely and abundantly sharing your expertise, valuable insights, how-to tips.


For better view, CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW -- "Conversation Prism" by Brian Solis, social media expert, author of The Conversation:

Personal Media vs Social Media

On Twitter, "Beyond Social Media", a post by pioneer blogger and tech guru Doc Searls is getting lots of RTs (retweets). After reading it, I thought a good sub-title would be "Personal Media vs. Social Media".

Doc Searls, one of the first bloggers in the blogosphere, and one of its most brilliant and tireless theoreticians, states that when Social Media is controlled by companies, and cannot evolve apart from them, they are not really empowering the personal.


[QUOTE]

Later questions in the survey assume is that social media is something that happens on private platforms, Twitter in particular. This is a legitimate assumption, of course, and that’s why I have a problem with it. That tweeting it is a private breed of microblogging verges on irrelevance.

Twitter is now as necessary to tweeting as Google is to search. It’s a public activity under private control.

Missing in action is credit to what goes below private platforms like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook — namely the Net, the Web, and the growing portfolio of standards that comprise the deep infrastructure, the geology, that makes social media (and everything else they support) possible.

.....

Tweeting today is in many ways like instant messaging was when the only way you could do it was with AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and ICQ. All were silos, with little if any interoperabiity. Some still are. Check out this list of instant messaging protocols. It’s a mess. That’s because so many of the commonly-used platforms of ten years ago are still, in 2009, private silos.

....

Computers are personal now. So are phones. So, fundamentally, is everything each of us does. It took decades to pry computing out of central control and make it personal. We’re in the middle of doing the same with telephony — and everything else we can do on a hand-held device.

Personal and social go hand-in-hand, but the latter builds on the former.

Today in the digital world we still have very few personal tools that work only for us, are under personal control, are NEA, and are not provided as a grace of some company or other. (If you can only get it from somebody site, it ain’t personal.)

That’s why I bring up email, blogging, podcasting and instant messaging. Yes, there are plenty of impersonal services involved in all of them, but those services don’t own the category. We can swap them out. They are, as the economists say, substitutable.

But we’re not looking at the personal frontier because the social one gets all the attention — and the investment money as well.

Markets are built on the individuals we call customers. They’re where the ideas, the conversations, the intentions (to buy, to converse, to relate) and the money all start. Each of us, as individuals, are the natural points of integration of our own data — and of origination about what gets done with it.

Individually-empowered customers are the ultimate greenfield for business and culture. Starting with the social keeps us from working on empowering individuals natively. That most of the social action is in silos and pipes of hot and/or giant companies slows things down even more. They may look impressive now, but they are a drag on the future.

[END QUOTE]


The key phrase from Doc Searls is "Starting with the social keeps us from working on empowering individuals natively".

My interpretation of this aligns with the Sitting Duck Theory of Social Media Marketing.

Many businesses think of social media participants as easy targets for sales hype, investment opportunities, and PR. Malware promoters try to trick Twitter users into clicking on links in DMs (direct messages). Spammers use deceptive tactics like kitty tweets (inspirational quotes and fake personal trivia) to seduce people into thinking they're normal, average users.

Few companies recognize that social media is where they can provide customer service. Instead of pushing products, they should be handling complaints, responding to questions, sharing insights, linking to relevant web pages unassociated with their company -- in short, being non-productively altruistic.

That's how good will can be generated, which will ultimately increase sales, but in a nice way.

Social media as "not empowering the personal"?

This concept leads me to another tangent: what happens to the sociability of social media participants when they step away from their computers? How sociable will we be if the internet went down forever, and we had to go back to social interactions via direct contact with real physical persons?



My comment posted at the Doc Searls post:


Wonderful analysis, by a pioneer blogger, on Personal Media vs. Social Media.

I also think that Social Media, if there really is a deep socializing element in it, should make all participants more friendly, compassionate, and extroverted in the real world.

If all "social" interaction is happening on the social media sites, but we're surly, sour, and asocial in our daily offline affairs, then Social Media is a Grand Illusion.

In blogocombat, my primary technique is to respond with text to text. I don't make it personal. I fight bad ideas with good ideas, hopefully. But in blogocaring, I try to connect my heart with the hearts of the people who seem to reside behind or beyond the text.

I've noticed that I indeed have become more sociable in the offline world, as a result of intense social media interaction, as typified by RTs, @s, :^) and sincere kindness to those who ask questions or provide me with comfort and support.

But to many, social media may be just another video game where points accumulated are Followers numbers and now Listings.

And, back to your point, if social media platforms are controlled by companies, then we are only slightly empowered personally.



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Stealth Spammers and Kitty Tweets on Twitter

Stealth Spamming and Kitty Tweets are popular new techniques of con artists. These criminals are phishing for usernames and passwords, offering to sell you automated programs to "Add 10,000 Followers weekly", or promoting Get Rich Quick schemes.

Sometimes they trick you into revealing your password, so they can hijack your account and send out spam to others using your username and Twitter account.

On Twitter, the Stealth Spammers either tweet messages with their silly claims, or go "under the radar" and send you DMs (Direct Messages), private communications, with links. These links lead to a variety of scam sites, which typically shout at you to "Register Now. Enter Your Password. Start Earning Big Money!"

They typically skip such standard features of credible websites as About pages, FAQs, links to reputable sites, and Client Lists.

READ MORE

"Stealth Spammers & Kitty Tweets on Twitter" at OpenSalon