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Jan 15 2010

Oh Spammy Tweets How Do You Find Me? Shaking Off and Blocking the Creeps

Category: social media — jmacofearth @ 8:41 am

My 2010 Twitter motto: flag the creeps and block the perps.

unfollow and block spammy tweeters

Now I don't actually know Lawrence Bland, but his opening tweet to me, his pickup line if you will, is awful. I think it is our duty to unfollow and REPORT folks we think are abusing the system. Lawrence might be a nice guy, he might be "bland" and he might be a bot.

What Lawrence is not, is he is not a friend or someone I would suggest you follow.  Yours2buy, same story.

So one strategy is to not UNFOLLOW anyone. And certainly not BLOCK anyone. That's one strategy.

Another strategy, which I have been writing about and practicing for about 5 months is follower clarity (paying attention to WHO is following you as well as how many) as well as keeping your following clean.

One way folks get a lot of followers, is ramping up their follows, to the max. Twitter gates you after the first 2,000 "follows." After that there is some mystical ratio. Follow to many people, you'll get an unhappy message from Twitter.com saying you have been prevented from following any more people. This is the process that most people are familiar with.

But as a social media educator and advocate, I think we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. If pornsters and scammers are following you, their idea is that people following you will look at who else is following you and follow that. Does that make sense? Do you follow?

is truetwit spam, or scam?

I have used a number of aggressive unfollowing tools in the last few months. Here are my favorites and why.

Twitoria A simple tool for unfollowing people who don't follow you back.

Friend or Follow (built by local smarty pants Dusty and Ceasar) does a great job of showing you the pictures of all the people who you are following but are NOT following you. You can also see who is following you but you are not following. In the uber.web 2.0 function, you can export the lists as .csv files to use later. Kudos to data portability.

TweetSweeper – a great service for auto-deleting known spammers from your list. Works in the background with or without your help. You might watch the deletions for a while to make sure none of your critical peeps are unfollowed by accident.

TwitBlock.org – my favorite tool for unfollowing folks with a less than stellar rep on Twitter.

delete spammy tweeters - block the perps

TwitCleaner – a very nice service that will do the work of identifying spammy tweeters. You have to pay $5 if you want the owner to do the unfollowing for you. Had some mixups with paypal, and his system. He unfollowed all the people on his report, then refollowed. He tweeted me the second I interacted with his site however, so a great person. I'd work with him again. I think he killed 1,200 followers in one day. NICE!

As you go for quality over quantity, you will begin to see even spammy followers create problems for others. Why not rid more of the spammers and scammers from the tweetstream for everyone? Do your part, flag the creeps and block the perps.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/block-spammy

Note: What about people that block me? Back in the summer I had a TweeSpat with a resident Biz Blogger. And guess what, seems like *somebody* went on a block @jmacofearth jihad. In fact, that person was pretty effective at writing mean things, writing untrue things, and basically starting a campaign of blockage. No problem, but what about people that BLOCK me? Coming soon, the cleaned up version of the TwitterSniper posts, with all the names and players protected to protect the protected. (grin)

Latest Posts from The Twitter Way

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Dec 12 2009

Oh Twitter: What Have I Done to Deserve This? And What is a Twitter LIST?

Category: social media,tech opinion — jmacofearth @ 5:41 pm

So I'm setting up my new mbp, loving the idea of starting fresh. No unnecessary FF addons, no apps I don't use, only what's necessary. And I'm doin my thing this morning and Tweetdeck (one of my essentials) comes up with this message.

Screen shot 2009-12-12 at 3.38.18 PM

Ah, I bet many of you have seen these messages right? Well, I had tweeked my Tweetdeck to poll things more judiciously on my personal machine. So now I'm locked out of my usability tool for Twitter. Yuk.

Okay, so I'll do some reading and responding from Twitter.com. And right there at the bottom of every page is a teaser:

Screen shot 2009-12-12 at 3.50.08 PM

Oh is that right? I wonder. Maybe if you're following about 10 people. I understand that Tweetdeck is available on an iPhone, but I'm a BB thank you very much. So when I go swimming in the river of tweets on my phone, it's useless. I recall back in 2006 when Twitter launched at SXSWi, I, like everyone else that year, subscribed and attached the stream to my phone. But I didn't get it. And I didn't want to get it on my phone. I'm not that interested in where you are going for coffee at 2am. I wasn't back then and I'm still not.

Okay, so what about these lists Twitter has added? What are they used for?

Here's what the Twitter blog says about them. (I'm sure Mashable has a very good how-to about them, but I haven't looked for it.)

Screen shot 2009-12-12 at 4.18.04 PM

So it is kinda cool seeing that folks have added me to lists that they have created. As long as I'm not on one called **sholes! How would Twitter deal with that? As in negative or slamming Twitter lists? Oh well…

So here's the little button that I caution you before you start following LISTS rather than folks.

Screen shot 2009-12-12 at 4.10.41 PM

I tried a few list follows and my Twitter stream went all wonky. Suddenly tweets were showing up and I couldn't unfollow the person. Tweetdeck kept telling me, you are not following "@MoMoney." And so according to the explanation above you can follow lists, but you can't unfollow individuals from those lists that you follow.

So now, lists to me are interesting distractions if I'm looking to see who has put me in a group and who else they have added to that said group. Again, I am just waiting until the negative groups start getting attention. I'm sure they are already out there. But that will be another story. I'm sure we could all think of a few people we could add to a list like that.

Update: Twitter admits folks are getting random tweets in their timeline. Here's the post on their blog about it.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/lists-on-twitter

A few more Twitter-related posts:

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Jul 02 2009

New Twitter Features: Reviewing from the Positive Side of the Brain (Revised)

Category: about me,social media,tech opinion,tech reviews — jmacofearth @ 2:04 pm

UPDATE 7-2-09: OKAY, so the preview content on the new friend or follower pages is GREAT. The implementation has a lot to be desired, but now using the new pages for a bit I can say that ONE THING is worth all the cr** I just gave @stop and company. I am always one to quickly admit my mistakes and correct anything I can. So let the record show that I rate the "preview" content of potential connections to be AWESOME. RATING 10 of 10. [All this other stuff should be addressed to, but hey, for JULY 2 and Fouth of July Weekend I declare the Twitter Upgrades a WIN!]

A dear friend and Twitter marketer, contacted me late last night to voice concerns about my negative tone. I thought I had already had that conversation, but he probably doesn't "read me." No worries. So one of the pieces he pointed to was my recent trashing of the UX/UI changes on Twitter. I DID ping @stop and ask if he was the Creative Director responsible for the NEW TWITTER Friends and Followers pages. Here's what he said.

Picture 38

Okay, so perhaps I was being mean, I don't sense that was my purpose, but I do understand online sarcasm and humor can often be confused for bitterness, anger, vendetta, whateva…

So here goes my ALL GOOD review… Let's see how this rolls.

+++

THE ALL GOOD REVIEW: Thank goodness Twitter has made some needed upgrades to their UX.

So Twitter's got a new pull-down action menu for dispatching some useful tasks.

Picture 14

Here we can see the new pull-down menu for taking action on followers and followees.

With a simple click we can @, DM, Follow or Block any one. And this nifty feature is now available in the same flavor across all the "friends" or "followers" pages you visit. Even when looking at the "friends" or "followers" of other users. Nice!

And convenient that you can see instantly, even without using the drop-down, that this person is "blocked" or "followed." [Oh heck, am I still following that silly old advertising agency that I used to work for. Let's see, CLICK: drop-down, PULL: Unfollow.]

Nice! So now let's look at the new and improved Followers and Friends pages.

Here is a shot of the "You Follow" page in LIST view.

Picture 16

So this pretty much looks like the old "You Follow" page. And conveniently the same drop-down box is available here too. [I wish we could choose the number of tweeps to view per page, cause following 5,600 tweeps using 20 tweeps per page... well that's 280 pages of goodness I have to page through to edit and cull my list. Just a thought.]

And here's the greatly improved "Your Followers" page in EXPANDED view:

Picture 39

Here we can see that @stop and company have added a little contextual information with each tweep. So you can see the person's last tweet, very helpful when deciding if you want to reciprocally follow back.

And again the nice BIG pull-down button. And also a handy, ADD button.

So there are just a few things missing from the new interface. I'm sure @stop and his group are already hard at work on the next iteration.

Picture 40

1. I would like to see a RT option here. This must have been an oversight, cause that's such a simple fix.

2. I would also really like Twitter to add a "-!" Report Abusive Account feature. Where I can fast-track pornsters and scammers to the dustbin of Twitter Hades.

And in the Usability department, here's one more suggestion.

Picture 41

Picture 42

Maybe there would be a good case for a drop-down something like this:

View By List
- 20 per page (default)
- 50 per page (efficient)
- 100 per page (uber user)

And for ultra.uber powerusers, there could be a TEXT LIST mode, with no pics. [That would be really fast, and I bet could relieve some of the server load on Twitter's cloud.]

Carry on @stop and company. Good work and if you need any further advice, feel free to ask. It's what I do, too.

Cheers,

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/twitter-good

The harsh-toned review from last night: Twitter UX Awakens: The NEW TWITTER Reviewed and Dissected for UX and

And my collection of Twitter Posts all in one place: The Twitter Way

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Jun 30 2009

Twitter UX Awakens: The NEW TWITTER Reviewed and Dissected for UX and UI

Category: social media — jmacofearth @ 8:16 pm

Picture 13Ah the revolution has begun. Twitter is getting off their heels and coming to the table with a new feature set in the form of a UI upgrade. And the "social" media (Mashable claims BREAKING) is all over it. Well, let's have a quick looksee. [I have to think smartman Cashmore is amused to be poking the BREAKING stick at Twitter. Is it a foreshadowing? Does Pete like the changes? Does Pete think Twitter BROKE Twitter? Lionsandtigersandbearsohmy!]

I did notice today, as I was going about my tweeting business, I could not get any one's "Follows" page to come up. I just thought it was TwitterFail wonkiness. And low and behold it WAS TwitterFail wonkiness, but with a purpose this time. To launch a new UI for the Followers and Friends pages. All hail the effort.

I did take a moment to visit Mr. Cashmore's BREAKING NEWS and post this comment regarding the BIG NEWS.

And how about letting us decide how many follower(ees) to show per page? Managing tweeps by the handful (20 per page) is dumb and hard. This is an improvement. But I'd settle for less fail whale and more users per page, thank you very much.

So there, even before I've begun I have exposed my hand. I am not sooooo happy with the changes. While they are nice, and many will herald "revolutionary" and "amazing," I am not so convinced that just giving us the ability to affect more followers per page wouldn't have been a better UPGRADE. But enough about my gripes.

So here's a look at how the NEW TWITTER handles porn spam and bad advertising agencies.

Picture 14

So there's the picture of the pretty girl, super00009 and I can see from the info on the new page that she has been blocked. And if I click on the gear I get several drop-down options. I can @ her, DM her, Follow her or Unblock her. Okay, already I see a problem. So the other iconographic button is a PLUS sign and a silhouette. I think that would be FOLLOW. And the "Unblock?" that would probably be Unblock. SO… Why are they repeated again in the drop down? UX 101, you do not need to have repetitive controls in multiple places. Put them in the menu, or as buttons, but not both. In fact, TWITTER UX GURU, How about this

1. BLOCK/UNBLOCK Toggle button.

2. FOLLOW/UNFOLLOW toggle button and

3. GEAR for MORE options.

Or, you have plenty of white space there. If you're gonna do buttons, then do buttons. So

3. @ button for sending a message "about" someone

4. DM button for sending a direct message

5. RT button [uh, herrro, Twitter? Anyone in there? Where's the RT functionality? Okay, I admit I get irritated by bad design. Mainly when I'm forced to use it over and over and over again.]

6. (I'm giving you this one for FREE) a "!" Report button that alerts the Twitter police that super00009 is a pornster using Twitter for soliciting my attention and perhaps money. [I am immune to her charms, btw.]

There, see how easy that was? No muss no fuss, no need for a generic pull-down gear button. And each action takes only ONE CLICK. [Don't you guys have any design people on staff to come up with something a bit more original?]

Perhaps I am being harsh again. But, Twitter is used by millions. Twitter is a force. Don't you think they could get some SERIOUS help on this UX/UI thing?

Okay, so let's get to the overall picture again. The page change IS pretty dramatic.

Here is the expanded view:

Picture 17

Okay, wait… Where did the blocked "unblock?" thing go? And the ADD button?

Alright I figured it out.

Here's a deeper picture of that same "expanded page."

Picture 19

So, let's see what's happened here.

If you are following someone the Follow Button is gone. [This is why a toggled FOLLOW/UNFOLLOW would work beautifully.]

But wait, something is different… Oh, I see. This is the FOLLOWERS page, and these are folks who may or may not be following me. The top page is the FOLLOWING page, so I am already following those folks. So now the UX/UI person created a big UI fail: Control buttons appearing and disappearing. Why not make the set of controls the same for every page. See how nicely  Tweetdeck has a cluster of controls to manage the tweetstream functionality.

Picture 23

But we can't really just copy Tweetdeck now can we? But at least the UX/UI team at Twitter should frackin LOOK AT TWEETDECK as an example. They would've seen the RT button and somebody would'a, could'a, should'a said, "Holy cow Bob, we forgot ReTweet. We forgot to put in RT as a function. Oh damn, you've already pushed it live. Oh well."

So let's look at the LIST version of the FOLLOWING page.

Picture 16

Boy, it's apparent to me more than ever, and I'd have said to the UX/UI guy, "Holy Cow Bob, those are damn big buttons! Do you think the buttons' need to be so darned BIG?"

So the LIST view would be a great place for the LIST button to be a pulldown and have something like

View By List
- 20 per page (default)
- 50 per page (efficient)
- 100 per page (uber user)
- 1,000,000 per page (mr. demi moore only)

But perhaps that would put too big a load on the servers. How about LIST w/o pictures or buttons? Say a TEXT view? Now that would be fast and save us some extra clicks as well. So just when they were at a point where they could've made a really dramatic improvement in User Experience, they pulled back and went with User Interface alone.

So the buttons don't need to be nearly that big, unless the new Twitter demographic is trending towards octogenarians. And if your gonna do buttons then do buttons, but don't mix buttons with text links with pulldowns. It's irritating. [And I was happy before I started writing this review. I guess I will get over it pretty quick to, what with all this venting.]

If you can't say something nice… Okay, here's the WIN behind the NEW IMPROVED TWITTER: In the EXPANDED view I can see the person's last tweet. AND, I get that same EXPANDED or LIST view for everyone I check out. So while I'm not so big on the execution of the new feature set at least it is something. But that dang super00009 is still there. And even after I block her, she is still there haunting me. [Kinda like the real bad advertising agency that follows her every where she goes.]

And the BLOCK screen has much to be desired.

Picture 25

So there she is, another of super00009's aliases, mtraveKittyi! Why the grave concern with me BLOCKING her? Just make BLOCKING with the same REAL WORLD consequences as UNFOLLOWING. Imagine an UNFOLLOW screen saying:

Are you sure you want to unfollow super00009?
- You're gonna miss all super00009's funny/sexy/cute tweets and calls for your attention
- You won't show up in super00009's updates any more [or be counted as one of her pawns!!!]
- super00009 won't broadcast her trash into your tweepstream any more

I would like a way to let Twitter know that I have unfollowed super00009 with a prejudice and believe that she is probably not a 20 yo sex kitten who wants my children.

So there you have it. My somewhat irritated take on the NEW IMPROVED TWITTER.

RATING: 6 out of 10. [Needs improvement.]

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/new-twitter

You may prefer my alternatively toned POSITIVE REVIEW HERE: New Twitter Features: Reviewing from the Positive Side of the Brain

Question: Does it surprise anyone that only 10% of Twitter's server traffic is due to Twitter.com interactions? Why? Because everyone else is using an APP to manage what Twitter can't. If Twitter.com is the 10% solution, then why do we need Twitter.com at all? Give me TWAVE.com or TWITTEROPEN.ORG and I will port my data and settings without shedding a tear for Biz or EV or the Fail Whale Follies.

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future posts

∴ A Collaborative Space: WebEx, Go-To-Meeting, Skype, Basecamp (Teaming/Meeting Tools)
∴ Twitter Problem: How do you find enough interesting people to follow? Then how do you keep up with them?
∴ The Agile Mind: Construction, Evolution, Care, and Feeding Instructions for Mental Flexibility

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