Online reputation: Why social media tells us so much

January 31, 2010 By 1 Comment

Social media creates a powerful impression of the person behind the ‘front’

This is a relatively famous person tweeting a couple of days ago. Some of you may be following her and you may recognise the profile or the tweets.  I’ve hidden her name and face because the purpose of this post isn’t to attack her reputation. However, despite going some way to disguise her identity, anyone with 20 seconds to spare can find out who this is.

That’s how social media is.

What impression do you get from those two tweets?

Maybe this person was trying to be humorous but forgot to put a self-effacing ‘lol’ or smiley at the end. Having followed her for a few weeks, however, I doubt it.

The point is that it doesn’t matter.  In social media, the damage is done the minute you hit the ‘tweet’ button.

Filed Under: online reputation management, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

Expo Guide and World Business Directory: Could Twitter kill off these nasty scams?

November 5, 2009 By 2 Comments

Could the wisdom of the business crowd decide the fate of Expo Guide and World Business Directory?

TwitterMonsterThe challenge

You’ve arrived here because of my Tweet about the Expo Guide and World Business Directory scams.  First of all, thanks for coming.  Second, I’d like to invite you to take part in an experiment.  Could Twitter kill these nasty scams stone dead?

Have a look at the evidence (below) and if you want to play a part in stopping these scammers, then please RT the Tweet that brought you here to people in your network and let’s see if we can help stop people getting ripped off.

The Scam

As some of you may already know the world of business is still being swept by a family of scams which deliberately set out to fool people into inadvertently signing expensive contracts they don’t want.  An early and well documented version of this is what’s known as the “Construct Data scam” originating from Austria.  The most recent variants of this scourge are European City Guide, Expo-Guide and World Business Directory.

How it works

  • You get a letter in the post (or email with pdf attachment) from the company.  It’s designed to make you think they’re offering you a free listing in their online directory.  It asks you to sign and stamp the form.  You do and send or email it back
  • Nothing happens for a while
  • A couple of months later you get a demand for something in the region of €3,000
  • Their demands direct you to the form where – for the first time – you notice to your horror the tiny, faint small-print saying “signing and stamping this form constitutes a contract for 3 years entry into our directory at c. €900 per year..”.
  • A couple of months later, you start getting various demands.  Eventually, you get formal letters from a debt collection agency.  Now you start to worry.  What if they take you to court?  What if your boss finds out?
  • You write back to the company saying it’s a rip-off and you don’t feel you should have to pay.  Eventually, they graciously agree to let you off with just one year’s fee out of three.  Maybe you pay up so you can put this whole traumatic episode behind you.

This scam has been running for years and shows no sign of stopping.  Why?  Because there will always be enough people out there who can be bullied or shamed into paying some – if not all – of this extortionate fee.

Governments seem to have little or no interest in stopping it.  Watchdogs aren’t particularly bothered.  It’s down to a few individuals like Jules Woodell to campaign against it – see http://stopecg.org/ and http://stopecg.blogspot.com/ for a thorough history of all the main mutations of this scam.  For my own posts on the subject (and to read more than 50 comments from victims) click here.  You’ll get some idea of the kind of worry and distress this scam causes.

This scam is real and current and it’s costing business people like you and me a lot of money, stress and worry.  This site gets 20+ new visitors every day searching for help on this issue – most of whom are new victims of the scam from all over the world.

Personal

For your information, I didn’t get stung personally by these scams (too long in the tooth!).  However, like millions of others, I regularly receive their scammy emails.  My motivation is to use the blog / Google platform to mess up their operation a bit and prevent others from being ripped off ;-)

Filed Under: scam, scam warning, Scambusters!, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Even Twitter will die….

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Twitter WILL pass away

It will.  One day in the not too distant future, we will look back and cringe.  One day, Twitter will be history.

Personally, I’ve suddenly lost interest in Twitter and I’m at that ‘I think I might just de-activate’ stage’.  One more foot firmly OFF the social media bandwagon.

So what’s the matter with Twitter?  Well, nothing, really.  What’s wrong is me.  I’m just bored with the same people talking the same stuff every day.  No offense, everyone, but I’ve had it up to here with the endless chatter about social media.  And that includes me, by the way.  I’m fed up reading Tweets from people whose lives consist of lurching from one drink after another (do they really have no idea they have a problem?) and I’m tired of the whole undercurrent of small businesses looking to Twitter as a kind of Holy Grail of how to make money.

And the problem with Twitter is that if you’re bored with reading (or writing) the same stuff every day, it seems that there are only two real options open to you: either follow more people or get off the bus.  Since I don’t want to do more of something that doesn’t interest me any longer, I guess the only option is to get off.

And that’s ok because as I get older, I find I like solitude, peace and stillness more and real life as opposed to life experienced through piddly little screens.  And I also have less and less important or grandiose to say and less of an urge to say it these days.  I’m less concerned with how popular I am  or how many followers I’ve got.  I’m not sure I can even be bothered to blog any more or worry about a website.

Eckhart Tolle says that things aren’t a problem until we start seeking ourselves in them.  A work colleague of mine in London the other day spontaneously announced she had suddenly woken up and realised how much she hated the person she had become since using Facebook: vain, egotistical and self-obsessed.  Hungry and addicted.

I think I’ve reached a point where NOT doing things is becoming much more attractive than doing them.  Like NOT having to upgrade;  NOT talking about ‘social media’ all the time; NOT Tweeting; NOT needing the latest laptop or the newest phone; NOT chasing top Google spots; NOT worrying about followers, subscribers and hits or how to monetise traffic.

Ahhh. Can you imagine it?

Filed Under: critical approach to online media, Twitter, what do you think? Tagged With: , , , ,

Newsletter on holiday

August 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The Mu! newsletter has gone on holiday – thanks to all who subscribed

We’re taking a break from writing the newsletter for two reasons: firstly, our newsletter plugin has become extinct and secondly, we’re in a period of evolution here at mukaumedia.

breakThe plugin issue is typical of working in this kind of open-source blogging environment: a piece of software designed to add functionality made by a developer who then loses the motivation to upgrade his plugin in line with the development of the WordPress platform.

The result is something that worked well for a couple of months progressively breaking down and becoming unusable.  Moral of the story?  Don’t bank on anything in the open source world.  Why? Because most people developing for it haven’t worked out how to ‘monetise’ what they’re doing.  No money, no customer service or inclination to support their software.

With regard to mukaumedia, some visitors will know that I’ve been working more and more with Delta7 Change Ltd in London.  That’s been hugely rewarding and exciting so it’s taken up a lot of my time and created the space to have a re-think about what we want to do with mukaumedia in the longer term.  We’re planning on a review towards the end of this year (ideally on a beach somewhere warm).

Meantime, this blog will still be the home of critical feedback (about all things digital, marketing and customer service).  Expect me to carry on the crusade against nasty online ripoffs like Expo Guide and World Business Directory as well as pointing out the kinds of do’s and don’ts that we’ve learned (usually the hard way!) from our 3 years in this business.

Once again, many thanks to those who’ve subscribed to our newsletter over the last year.  If you’d like to stay in the loop, then please feel free to follow me on Twitter here.

Filed Under: news, Scambusters!, Twitter

LinkedIn: Social media as ‘Walled Community’?

July 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

LinkedIn wants you to share stuff with it’s community first, your community second

I’ve said this many times before, but I think LinkedIn makes social media hard work.

Why? Not least because of its clunky ‘what do I do now’ functionality.  But also because it wants you to stay within its walls more than it wants to recognise the way you want to use social media.  It has something of an AOL feel to it.

I keep getting the occasional invitation to connect and the odd link from LinkedIn.  I go to there, accept the invite, say hello sometimes… and then sort of grind to a halt thinking ‘what can I do now?’

This morning, I got a link from an online reputation group I subscribed to in LinkedIn.  I went there, had a read and decided ‘I’d like to Tweet that’.  I clicked the ‘Share this’ button and found myself being offered the opportunity to share the link with people in my LinkedIn network.  Pity I wanted to share it with my Twitter network.

And there you have it.  Social Media as walled community.  This network versus that network – all vying to own the member pool.

So long as there’s revenue to be dreamed of and grasped, will there ever be a totally open social media network?  One which sets out to seamlessly interface with every other network of choice?

Personally, I doubt it.  What do you think?

Filed Under: critical approach to online media, Twitter, what do you think? Tagged With: , , , , ,

Conversation Studio: video blogging meets Twitter

May 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Is Conversation Studio any good for Twittering video bloggers?

‘Conversation Studio’ is a Twitter-enabled video & image & audio podcasting site by Michael Bailey (who created the cute little ‘MyChingo’ audio widget a few years ago).

Seems to me it’s easy to use from my macBook.  What do you think?  Any good?

Or is it an evolutionary dead end just waiting for a video-enabled iPhone to come along and kill it off?

God this stuff rushes on at a pace! How anyone (Michael included) makes any money trying to keep up is beyond me.

Filed Under: news, podcasting technique, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

Tweview: using Twitter for a movie review

January 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Tweview: the Twitter moview review. Ok – I just made it up.  But why not?

A cutting movie review in 140 characters.  There’s already an online art form called ‘Twaiku’ – Twitter meets Haiku.

I just posted ‘my routine’ in 140 characters on Twitter – in which I mentioned that part of my routine was commuting, watching recommended films and writing scathing reviews.

I noticed it felt like a Haiku.  So I Googled ‘Twaiku’ – to find it was (of course) a well-known, well-practiced art.

Which led me to the idea of the ‘Tweview’ (puke).  An idea which Google reports nobody else has thought of. So the Twitter film review is born.  And just like Haiku has to contain some reference to season in order to create a setting for the central idea, the ‘Tweview’ must somehow let the reader know what the movie is. It should also start with the word ‘Tweview:’

Here’s my first one:

Wall-e Tweview: We’re going 2 ruin the planet & get fat but don’t worry technology will save us & teach us how 2 relate 2 each other again.

Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: , , ,