Great visual by David Armano at Edelman Digital
Archive for the ‘Social media’ Category
02.26.2010
Twitter spammed by company in China
Over the last few days Twitter has been spammed by direct messages (DMs), such as:
hhey, i've been having better sex and longer with this here <link>
haha. This you? <link>
The messages seem to come from users we might know in real life and at first look fairly innocent.
Account compromised
Firstly, it wouldn't be fair to blame the users we are getting the message from. Unfortunately knowingly or unknowingly their account has been hacked. This is how it typically happens. On clicking the link, it takes a user to a page which looks like a Twitter page but hosted on http://twitter.login.kevanshome.org owned by Xin Net Technology Corporation in Shanghai China.
Once a user enters their Twitter username and password, the company has access to their details and starts spamming their followers on their behalf. This has hence spread like wildfire, people expecting messages from their friends and opening it to find nothing. The scam continues on kevanshome.org where the home page has been disguised into a Myspace, grrr.
Xin Net Technology Corporation
The company is renowned for it's spamming activity and has a whole wiki page talking about their malicious activities. Xin Net Technology sites make a user agree to a set of terms and conditions, which include:
Users need to strictly abide "the People's Republic of China Computer Information Network and the Internet Interim Provisions on the Management" "China's Internet Internet Management." "China's Internet domain name registration interim management approach," and other relevant laws and administrative regulations;
In essence these spam sites expect you to follow Chinese law, which unfortunately are not as severe as Western laws for hackers and spammers.
What you should do
Firstly, if your account is compromised change your password. If your login details are different they won't be able to enter your account and spam your contacts. If you are really upset with the company, here is Xin Net Technology's contact details (public information available on whois site):
Phone:+86.02142552594 FAX:+86.02142552594 Email: lixing688@gmail.com
Lastly, as social networking gets popular, more and more spammers will start using it. We have already experienced it on the emails, brace yourself for social networking spam. As a community we need to be aware and not click on any suspicious links, be careful especially when a site asks for your username and password.
02.25.2010
How to build useful niche social media communities
For the last four years I have been building social media platforms almost exclusively. I have reviewed and worked on some high profile social networking projects. What interests me is what works and what is a total waste of time. Prior to social media I have been working on mobile game, medical software, augmented reality systems etc. LinkedIn profile
Although Social media is different, its' all about Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS), innovation, common-sense and not reinventing the wheel. Over the last few years the projects which have hit the limelight are the ones which do one task well and then make it available to various audience in an easy to consume format. Examples:
- WordPress Blogging (powers roughly 202 million blogs)
- YouTube Embeddable videos on the web (average 12bn videos watched a month)
- Foursquare Clocking in and out (More than 1 million check ins per month)
Decision making
The above platforms are social media superstars from yesterday, today and tomorrow. A lot of hard work has gone in launching these platforms and making them as popular as they are, although they just do one things really well. This is what any social media site should do, one thing but extremely well.
So if you are building a social network and want to blow everyone's socks off, I would say don't just get a whole range of blogging, forum, mobile apps together, instead take a stand. Ask yourself: Who are we? What do our members want? What is the one (or maybe two) feature which is a must. Then just build that, for the rest link it to their existing social media properties.
For instance as a knitting networking group, we will allow users to upload knitting patterns and organise coffee morning events. For everything else we will use member's existing social media platforms, like Facebook.