It’s only been a day since Facebook announced sweeping changes to their platform at their F8 conference, but already the implications are being seen around the web.  Check out what Levi’s is doing on their site…very cool stuff.  Essentially, they are personalizing each web page you visit based upon your Facebook friends and their preferences.  As I’ve pondered and discussed what this means to marketing, to brand and to consumers, one question comes up again and again…what if I don’t want to participate?

It’s a fair question.  As it stands right now, if you do connect to a web site that is using the new Facebook Open Graph Protocol you are sharing a lot of information by default, including your activities & interests, your birthday, photos you’ve been tagged in, even your family and relationship status! This can present a fair amount of concern for many people when it comes to their privacy, especially since the 24 hour caching requirement has been removed, effectively getting Facebook out of the way of the relationship between developers and their users.  In other words, your information can be stored and used in ways that are only limited by the mind of the designer and developer of a site.

If you do not want to expose your personal data to sites outside of Facebook, there are a couple of things that you need to do.

1. Log into your Facebook account and go to the privacy settings, which are under Account–>Privacy Settings–>Applications and Websites (you can find this in the top right corner).
2. At the bottom of the page is an area called “Instant Personalization”.  Uncheck the box that says “Allow” UPDATE: The checkbox is no longer on this level.  Instead, you now need to click “Edit Setting”, which will take you to another page.  If you wish to opt out, uncheck the box at the bottom of this page, it will say “Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites”
3. Also on that page Click back one page to Privacy Settings–>Applications and you will see a section called “What Your Friends Share About You”. Click “Edit Settings”.  Once inside, uncheck every box you see, all 16 of them! Yes, sixteen. Don’t forget to click “Save Changes” at the bottom.
4. While you’re at it, go to Account–>Privacy Settings–> Profile Information and make sure that everything is set to “Only Friends”.  Anything that you have set to “Everyone” is open to be viewed by those outside of your immediate network of friends.

You personal details are now as protected as they can be.  Of course, if you are truly concerned about your information being shared without your permission, remember that Facebook and all other social networking sites are opt-in…meaning nobody is forcing you to use them; the choice is yours as far as what you do and do-not publish.  Think twice before publishing private information, because the internet never forgets…

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Phishing spam on Twitter

Dear Twitter,

You have done an incredible job of responding to a massive influx of new users, especially over the last 8 months.  With growth reaching 1400% month over month, the need to react and support quickly has been critical, and for the most part I would say you have done so better than just about anybody else has that has seen such rapid growth on their platforms.   With the recent roll out of Twitter lists you have also added value to the community by providing a tool that people can use to pull some signal out of all of the noise.  Many are finding the lists as the place to discover and follow new people.  Thank you for all of your work.

A new phenomenon has bubbled up from the user community, and it’s something that I would like you to take quick and decisive action on.  Phishing scams have torn through Twitter on an almost daily basis for the last several weeks, with unsuspecting users clicking links and turning over their credentials.  The results have been painful to deal with…I’m receiving dozens, and sometimes hundreds,of direct messages from real people (not bots) every single day with messages like, “hey. do this iq quiz for me http://quiz6545.info” and “i found y0u http://videos.twitter.shjjiwe.com/?vpgdzxiaq”. This is phishing that is perpetuating too rapidly and it’s starting to ruin the communication platform for me. Here is what needs to happen to fix this…

When I mention this on Twitter, most people reply by telling me that I shouldn’t follow spambots.  I want to make something perfectly clear: this isn’t a problem with spambots, it’s a problem with real people clicking links that they shouldn’t, then handing over their username and password to a malicious site.  That site then sends DMs about funny videos, weight loss and everything else under the sun to everybody that is following that person.

The Problem

The only way to prevent a DM from somebody is to unfollow them.  I don’t want to unfollow these people, they are a valuable part of my community and I want to hear what they have to say.  Granted, I’m disappointed that so many smart people have fallen for such obvious phishing scams, but I still want to be a part of their Twitter life.  As it stands today, my only option is to unfollow them.

The Solution

Twitter already has the solution built in, although within a different area of the service: SMS.  I have the ability to turn SMS notifications on and off globally, and when it is on, I select the individuals that I want to recieve updates from.  SMS is not an “all or nothing” choice right now, and that is exactly what needs to happen with direct messages.

The Big Ask of Twitter

What I am asking is simple, although I know there are plenty of complicated actions behind the scenes if it were to happen: Please give your users the ability to turn direct messages on and off globally, and when on, give us the ability to select who can and cannot send us direct messages. I want to be able to follow people without them having the ability to send direct messages to me.  I understand why this was built in to the original platform as most people that followed each other really did know each other personally.  This is no longer the case, and so the platform must grown and move in the same direction as the community.

Thank you for your consideration Ev, Biz, Alex, Delbius and the rest of the crew.  As the communications within Twitter have changed, so has the need for some of the original services to change with them.  Keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Matt Singley (@mattsingley)

I logged in with a fake email address and password and was redirected to a “504 Gateway Time-out” error.  I’m sure that some bot somewhere is trying to log into Facebook as I type this, using the false information I provided. It appears that as it is spreading around multiple URLs are being used, all (as of right now) end in “.im”.

It cannot be said enough, but please be careful each and every time you log into a website with your username and password information.  A couple of things to be aware of:

• Look in the address bar at the top.  Usually phishing ploys use names that are at least close to the website they are copying…in this case, the URL was very clearly not Facebook.
• Keep your browser up to date.  I cannot tell you how many problems I have come across because a client is using a browser that is 2, 3 or 4 versions old.  Download the newest version of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer or whatever it is you choose to surf with.
• Be very cautious about clicking links in email and from social sites like Facebook.  This particular scheme is moving very, very quickly.  Just because it comes from a friend, it does NOT mean that it is a legitimate link.  When I send links to friends I ALWAYS include a personal message so they know it is from me.
• 

  When you get links in Facebook, Twitter, email or any other digital form it's easy enough to look up the information for the site

  Use common sense.  Rarely, if ever, will your bank or any other site contact you and tell you that you need to change your password.  If in doubt, open a browser and go to the site directly, do not click the link.

The site in question is being hosted in Latvia and is registered by a group in Russia, it’s easy enough to look up WhoIs information, although very likely this is false.  But you never know…some criminals are so stupid they would probably register with their own name!

Please share this information with others you know so we can stop this phishing scame before it gets too out of hand today!

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Tweet and Retweet: A great way to share information with others

UPDATE:  I changed hosting companies since originally publishing this article, and ironically it removed the number of reweets from the plugin at the top of the post. You have to love technology sometimes!

One of the fastest and most effective ways of spreading information through Twitter is to retweet somebody.  When you see “RT” followed by a username in an update by one of your friends, that means they are retweeting somebody else…taking that person’s post and redistributing it to their own followers.  It’s rampant on Twitter, and one of the most common questions I get asked is, “what are some guidelines for retweeting, and how can I get retweeted more?”  I want to address both of those with some simple guidelines and suggestions.

How To Retweet

Retweeting somebody’s thoughts, links or pictures is the ultimate compliment on Twitter.  It says that you think enough of what they have written to share it with your followers, a pool of people that may be completely different than those of the original tweeter! It is a fantastic way to share information and ideas.  Of course you are free to retweet whatever you want, but here are some general guidelines that I think make it easier for you and those that follow you.

1. Keep it short. No need to write out “retweet” when RT will do just fine and most people will understand it.  The etiquette for this is “RT @username: the content of their original tweet”.  I very strongly recommend using a 3rd party app for Twitter as most of them let you retweet in just one click, you won’t have to retype everything like you do in the web interface.  My favorite desktop application is Tweetdeck, my favorite iPhone app is Twittelator Pro, and my favorite mobile browser “client” is Dabr.
   
2. Read what you share. Truly, this is one of my greatest annoyances…it’s very obvious when people don’t read what they retweet.  The two most painful cases of this are, first, when a person tweets a link to an article they liked and somebody retweets them within a minute or two; this isn’t nearly enough time to actually read the article! Second, I see a lot of people retweet others for #followfriday and they often are “recommending” people that they themselves do not follow.  It happens to me almost every Friday.  Please, read what you retweet, otherwise you are adding too much noise to the already busy Twitterverse.
3. Know your audience. You should have a good feel for what your followers are like…chances are, they are like you.  Naturally you are going to want to share things that are interesting to them, but in a global sense.  If all of your followers are your close, personal friends then this probably doesn’t apply to you; have at it and retweet whatever you want.  A lot of people have a mixed bag of followers that include personal friends and acquaintances online, as well as work colleagues and potential employeers.  Keep it real, keep it relevant.  Don’t retweet your 11 year old cousin’s rantings about the Hannah Montana movie just because you think they are cute…chances are nobody else will. (Confession: I saw the Hannah Montana movie this weekend and liked it.  Don’t judge me!)

How To Be Retweeted

1. 

   Some people, like @mayhemstudios, have tremendous RT power. Check Retweet Radar for others.

   Write good content. This is the number one rule for being retweeted, everything else can be worked around.  If you want to be retweeted, then write things that matter to the people that follow you.  Think about what you are interested in, what you are an expert at, or something that you have read that would be helpful to others. Short life updates, although they keep your followers informed about your daily goings-on, don’t make the rounds too often. “I just took my dog out to poop” probably isn’t going to get much retweet time.

2. Include links. Earlier this morning I saw a tweet that interested me, it was about a marketing survey. The problem, however, is that the tweet did not include a link to the article, only a vague reference that wasn’t even enough to Google.  If it had included a link I probably would have retweeted it, I think my followers would have found it very helpful.  As it is, I don’t even know if the statistics included in the tweet are true…a citation would be good.  Make sure you include links when referencing something that includes numbers, or is just interesting.  The best way to include links, since you are limited to 140 characters per update, is to use a URL shrinking service.  It takes a very long URL and makes it short.  I use Cli.gs the most, but also use TinyURL and Is.gd.
3. Know your RT character count. What do I mean by this? This is imporant, so please pay attention. Since Twitter updates are limited to 140 characters, it only makes sense that if you want to be retweeted you will need to write shorter updates than that to accommodate for “RT @yourname:”.  For example, if somebody clicks one of my post to retweet I know that it will take 17 characters (including spaces) to write “RT @mattsingley: “, so I need to keep my updates to 123 characters or fewer (quick math for you if you’re new around here: 140 (character max) – 17 (my RT count) = 123 (length of my posts)).  Just to test my theory about this, some time back I put up similar tweets with content and links, but with one set I exceeded 123 characters, and in the other I stayed under the limit.  I was retweeted 60+% more with the sub-123 character updates!

Good luck!  If you want to see some of the top retweeted info, my favorite site for this is Retweet Radar.  It lists trends, links and people that are being retweeted, and I’ve found some good information there.  If you have any retweet tips or tricks, I would love to hear about them.

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Instead of a full write up I made a quick video.  Check it out, it’s under three minutes.  Let me know if you find TwitterFriends useful!