Artful Blogger

Twitter Fraud

2010-08-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

The badly spelt tweet was a sure giveaway but any how I clicked on the tweet with it's too good to be true offer. An iPad, for free, why certainly I'll sign into this survey using my Twitter account. Bad move.

After entering my details into this survey, all my followers were bombarded with the rogue tweet. And if they too were foolish enough to enter their twitter details they too would pass on the message to their followers. Luckily I have only around 40 odd followers soo not too many people were affected.

I don't quite understand how the scam worked. I think maybe it might be aiming to gather sensitive information. I don't know but I immediately changed my password and tweeted a shame-faced tweet to my followers admitting to be a naive idiot.

But it raised an interesting point about how we put ourselves in jeopady of being defrauded by putting our implicit trust in services like Twitter. The message being be vigilant on Twitter even if are messaged by a friend and never let a site log you via your Twitter account unless you are completely certain it is legitimate

Philips Livable Cities Award

2010-08-11T02:36:00.001-07:00

The Philips Livable Cities Award is an initiative designed to generate practical, achievable ideas for improving the health and well-being of people living in cities. Individuals, community or non-governmental organizations and businesses are eligible to participate in the Award program that comprises a total prize fund amounting to 125,000 Euros.

With the aim of developing simple solutions to the complex challenges faced by the residents of cities today, the program consists of three distinct award categories:

Well-being Outdoors: initiatives that will help citizens feel safe in public spaces or help create city identity and foster a sense of belonging;
Independent Living: initiatives that will help the growing number of elderly people living alone to feel secure and comfortable in a city, with appropriate access to healthcare;
Healthy Lifestyle at Work and Home: initiatives that will support a healthy body and mind, whether through a person’s surroundings or via other essentials such as exercise, sleep and diet.

Digital stupidity

2010-08-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

Bet she wish she had an iPhone on her

However much I love the convenience of technology I have a nagging worry that it is actually making us stupid. Think of how much we depend on spell checks, GPS, Outlook calender, phone books to organise our lives. As we rely more and more on technology to sort out the simplest aspects of our lives, potentially we might forget vital skills.

For instance think about the time before you had a mobile phone, scary right. Now I bet you could remember your home phone number, your friends' numbers, your parents' office numbers along with alarm codes and lots of other numberical strings. To this day I can recall at least 3 or 4 of my secondary school friend's land line numbers. These are numbers I haven't dialled in 10 years. Yet I know none of my friends mobile numbers, I barely remember my own. I am dependent on my phone memory to keep these numbers safe. Every time I lose my phone I lose access to all my contacts. This can be particularly tricky. When I lost my wallet in a festival recently I was very nearly stuck in Suffolk as I didn't know any number I could ring for help save 999. Luckily my phone had the tiniest bit of battery left due to a fortuituous decision to use it sparingly.

This is a particular instance of how technology can make us dumber. But I think it is the general expectation that technology creates which is more dangerous, our very mindset. With a smart phone constantly linked to the internet, any question can be answered, any fact can be retreived. This access makes us complacent and intellectually lazy. Why bother to study anything, why bother to learn because any fact can be easily retrieved at the flick of a thumbnail. This raises a paradoxical situation whereby we are hungry for facts but unable to remember them because our short term memories are shot die to over-dependence on technology

Dibbing.com

2010-08-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

Dibbing.com is a sort of backwards auction whereby participants reduce the price by 'Dibbing' an item. When a user 'Dibs' an item, the price is revealed to them for 10 seconds. The more people 'Dibs' an item the cheaper it becomes and you might even find yourself a bargain, especially if an item is popular.

The advanatage of 'Dibbing' is that prices on the site are in line with some of the best online retailer sites, so you are bound to find a bargain.

So what are you waiting for, get 'Dibbing'.

When Social Media Goes Wrong

2010-07-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of lessons to be learned from the fallout of Coke dropping Lean Mean Fighting Machine as their digital agency for making references to porn on their Facebook page.

No matter how edgy social media strives to be and the boundaries it tries to push, the people paying the checks are by and large very conventional, and generally don't like their brands being associated with infamous scat videos. People can be so square! Brands are even less likely to find it amusing if underaged kids are exposed to said explicit references and go searching the internet to understand them.

Social media is completely unpredictable. The very openess of it, the way that consumers and brands interact mean that it is hard to forsee and prevent such catastrophes. Mistakes cannot be contained and before you know it, the whole world knows about what's gone down.

This is the risk inherent in using social media for promotion and the very fact that I can think of two other scandals resulting from social media errors (Vodafone and Habitat) proves how careful brands have to be

Amplify

2010-07-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

I first stumbled across amplify through one of the bloggers I was working with. To look at it, it looks rather like a microblogging platform such as Tumblr or Posterous. But in actual fact the concept is far more clever.

Amplify's aim is maximise the impact of our daily social media wanderings. With Amplify, you can share your content across the social media world, allowing users to update their Twitter, Facebook, blog, or micro blog in one-fell-swoop. It is like Hoot Suite on steroids.

Amplify is a very useful tool for bloggers who want to maximise i.e. 'amplify' their voices across a crowded and noisy web. The blogger I was working with said it helped him increase visits to his blog. I assume after he wrote a post he would update his Amplify page and have his content shot out through various social media platforms.

The major failing of amplify is it's inability to integrate video other than YouTube on to its site. Maybe this is a security feature to stop video marketers using the service to distribute their content. But is a massive failing considering the importance of video on people's sites. Although YouTube is huge is hasn't yet cornered the market in online video.

I would be interested to know if anyone uses Amplify and what is your feedback.

Times loses almost 90% of online readership

2010-07-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

And how do I know this fact because I read it in the Guardian online for free. The Guardian and The Times are both facing the same cataclysmic decline in sales. The Times reacted by trying to claw back as much money as possible from its most popular area by charging to access the site. This strategy truly is trying to close the door after the horse has bolted, or trying to squeeze the genie back in the bottle, any number of futile similes to state the fact, it's too late.

The Guardian pursues the concept of free content to its most logical conclusion. Instead of just providing content for free to their readers, the Guardian is now generating free content through deals such as Baby Barista. BB still creates original content for his own blog but now also has to blog on behalf of The Guardian, providing them with high quality editorial for nada.

If you look at how the Guardian has developed its online offering in recent years it has started investing heavily in blogs and contributions from its ordinary readers. This strategy is much like the Huff Po's off the bus strategy which encouraged citizen journalists to report on the 2008 election for free. The Huff Po effectively galvanised an army of free journalists for their site. (Interestingly enough this army actually broke some important stories throughout the campaign). If the Guardian were able to pull off such a feat, to create a steady stream of free, high quality journalism, they will be able to cut costs and increase readership in one fell swoop.

In the meantime, both The Times and The Guardian are haemoraging money. While The Times, in a self-defeating gesture is trying to change their reader's reading habits, The Guatdian has seen the potential of this new world of free content and is changing the way it plays the game accordingly.

My Space Visits Plummet

2010-07-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

According to Tech Crunch: 'The number of visitors to MySpace UK has halved in the last six months, TechCrunch Europe has learned, leading to a fresh round of layoffs at the London office of the social networking site.'

Many see this as a direct result of Facebook's international success but it is probably just as much to do with the way that people now consume music.

MySpace was one of the first globally successful social networking sites but its appeal was largely down to it being a source of free music. It was a place where music fans could listen to their favourite bands and connect with the artists that they admire.

Since the advent of music streaming sites, Last FM, Spotify, Hype Machine, Mixcloud all which allow visitors to listen to music for free, My Space is no longer important. Plus these services offer superior service to MySpace which only allows users to listen to a handful of set tracks.

If My Space simply offered the best social networking experience or the best way to discover new music it would still popular. But in reality it provides 2 separate services better achieved elsewhere. Facebook is a superior social network, Spotify et al provides are better music platform. In reality it is probably too late to pull back to focus its energy at being the best in one field, it is fighting a multi-pronged battle which it will lose.

Facebook is better at social networking and other sites mentioned above provide a better way of discovering new music. My Space has fallen between two stools. With no clear

@earlybird

2010-07-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

Today Twitter has launched @earlybird,another effort them to monetise the popular microblogging platform. Basically Twitter will pass on offers to their users via the @earlybird account. Twitter will probably charge advertisers for passing on their offers.

To get the full lowdown, check out Twitter's Early Bird page -

http://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/111-features/articles/208505-what-is-earlybird

To keep up to date with Twitter's selected offers follow @earlybird

Flattr

2010-07-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

When creating a new social media application the name is of the upmost importance. Flattr's positions itself firmly in the web 2.0 camp, sounds a bit like Twitter but drops its 'e' like Flickr or Tumblr. Although it screams social media the concept is wholly original and unlike a swathe of quirky but ultimately useless web 2.0 concepts it may offer a solution to the problems of how to finance online content.

Flattr is a social micropayments system that lets users reward websites they like through transferring small amounts of money. Like a 'Digg' a Facebook 'Like' or a retweet button, users can show their appreciation for a piece of content but with actual money. Every Flattr a piece of content receives represents a micro-payment.

Why Flattr is different to PayPal is that users pay a set amount this month which is then divided equally between all the sites the user Flattred - the minimum payment is 2 Euros. This system makes Flattr users much more likely to make payments as the process is much more immediate and they have already made a payment. It is immaterial whether they Flattr one piece of content or 10,000.

So there we have it a system that supports online content creation, incentives journalists and creates a credible payment model away from advertising. All this from the people who developed one of the most notorious file sharing websites of recent years - Pirate Bay. Maybe its their way of making amends for all the free content they distributed.

Flattr

2010-07-06T08:06:00.001-07:00

Test