The Industry Review

Click on the image to see the full statistics

Ok.. the title is slightly misleading (only slightly). But you’ll have to forgive me for that.

 
As I’ve mentioned earlier in this blog, I like using TwitterCounter. It shows interesting statistics about my Twitter activities, not to mention, it can be used to manually update the number of followers that appear on the top right corner of this blog (otherwise it updates periodically).

 
In the past few days TwitterCounter seemed to have a few issues. I kept getting error messages whenever I tried to access it. Yesterday when I was eventually able to, it told me I have 26 followers. Pretty amusing – it brought me back in time to April 2009 (back when I did have 26 followers).

 
What I find particularly funny is that TwitterCounter hasn’t compensated for that. So according to the application’s logic, I gained more than 76,000 in a day.

 
Based on this rate, I will have 1,230,729 followers in 30 days. You think it might happen? I’m crossing my fingers! That would be SO awesome! 😀

Since it’s a four part story, here are links to the other parts.
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media (Part 1 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: The Sting (Part 2 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: Cybercrime (Part 3 of 4)

This is the conclusion of the events that took place in 1991.

 
One day, right after I logged in as Solarwind, I found myself in a large room filled with wizards. What was going on? A wizard by the name of Destruction (whom I knew and was even my friend!) claimed that they know what I’m up to, that I’m cheating by helping a user. They demanded an explanation!

 
I was shocked! I got caught! In retrospect, I know they caught me easily. It wasn’t that hard to see that a wizard and a player were constantly together. Turns out that Destruction was sent on a mission to spy on me: he followed me invisibly and saw what I was doing. Of course, there was an easy way for Solarwind to see invisible wizards… but I didn’t know it at the time.

 
However, my paranoia did pay off. Because I logged in from two separate countries (separate continents, actually), they still believed these are two individuals: one Israeli and one American. I still don’t know how this fooled them: couldn’t they see we never talked? ever? What, we were telepathic?!

 
So I confessed, yes, I cheated. Yet I still didn’t tell them I was just one person.

 
The council of wizards told me that my punishment would be given within 24 hours. In retrospect, these wizards were pretty formal… I imagine a group of chubby computer science geeks/student corresponding about technicalities and legalities. Though that was in the “real” world – in the MUD they were powerful and almighty entities.

 
I believed that they would delete both Solarwind and Thor. Consequently, I still had a day to be a wizard – so I decided to use my powers for good, to make the MUD a better place. From now on, I am not Solarwind… I am Solarhood (y’know, like Robin Hood?). I shall steal from the wealthy and give to the poor.

 
I went out and found people to help. I went to the shop – which was magically shielded, but could not stop me – and stole all the weapons and armor and gave it away. I created vast amount of gold and gave it to the people. I healed the weak, cured the blind, turned frogs to humans, kissed babies and hugged widows. I did a lot of good things that day. I wanted my downfall to mean something.

 
Then I bid farewell to Solarwind and logged off.

 
The next day I connected and heard the following story: apparently the council had no plans of deleting either Solarwind or Thor. They planned to return Thor to – roughly – the state he was in when Solarwind started helping him, and just issue a warning to Solarwind.

 
However, since I caused quite a riot, they decided to permanently suspend Solarwind (for my nefarious activities. They did NOT approve of my benevolent actions!), and “only” demote Thor to his previous level.

 
Oh yes, I was told, they had to laboriously go through all the MUD logs and nullify everything I’ve done: cancel all the gold I created, take away all the weapons I handed out. It was hard, but they were able to do it.

 
All my good deeds were stripped away. Solarhood was caught, the Man won.

 
I could still log in as Thor but from that moment I lost all motivation to play. I never became a wizard in that MUD. Though, as I briefly mentioned, a few years later I did become one in other MUDs (the internet connection dramatically improved by then – and apparently, most MUDs were vastly easier).

 
Sometimes I wonder what happened to the real Solarwind. My guess: nothing. I’m pretty confident the original player probably never even heard of this episode. And if he did, he must’ve been quite amused of this story.

 
Strangely, after these events I took on myself the Solarwind persona. To this day – two decades! – I often register in forums and other sites as Solarwind. I guess I liked the Solarhood aspect so much I decided to take it with me.. It just feels right. Though I do plan to return it if the original Solarwind wants it back…

Since it’s a four part story, here are links to the other parts.
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media (Part 1 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: The Sting (Part 2 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: Crime and Punishment (Part 4 of 4)

 
(I’ve decided to speed up the posting of this event. Since it’s long, I will still chop it to one more part, and will post this and the other post today. There are other things I want to discuss and I don’t like posting more than a post a day…)

 
This time no recap. If you’ve gotten here, I assume you read part 2.

 
As I was saying, I was becoming increasingly nervous that I won’t make it, so decided to pull a sting.

 
Note that the following took place in 1990-1991, when I was already familiar with MUDs for a while. Also note that this was prior to the creation of the World Wide Web, so the whole concept of cybercrime was pretty much in its infancy. And also, I was a minor 😉 I would not have done this today.

 
With that in mind, I will continue.

 
As I mentioned before, there were many MUDs. The vast majority of them originated from the same code. Every MUD creator took the code, made changes, and expanded on it. However, in almost all of them there were regions that were identical – these were the areas that were created in the original MUD.

 
Usually MUDs grew a lot like real world cities do. The first domains created by wizards would surround the original city, and every new addition was placed farther and farther away. Though some wizards used to outsmart this by doing something creative, like placing a closet in one of the original rooms which would take you to their realm if you entered it (obviously, inspired by the Narnia series).

 
In my MUD, one area was right next to the entrance. I was playing for more than a year at the time, and during the entire period there was no change – it was clearly abandoned. There was absolutely nothing going on there. After investigating this, I found out it was created by a wizard name Solarwind whom I knew (there was a way of checking) had not logged in for years. Since at the time virtually all internet access originated in academic institutions, my guess was that he simply graduated and moved on. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure that was the case.

 
Considering his vanishing and the fact his area was so close to the entrance, my theory was that Solarwind must’ve been one of the original founders of the MUD.

 
I decided I would try and “borrow” his account in order to help Thor reach Wizardhood – and then I would abandon it. I’m not going to say “steal” since I genuinely intended only to use it to advance my own character. Time was running out and I had to do something!

 
Since it was obvious Solarwind was long gone, I was certain he would not even know it, and where he was he probably wouldn’t even care. Listen, I was under a lot of pressure, I had to get this done! We’re talking addiction here.

 
I didn’t know how much information MUD administrators had on users, so I decided to be cautious. I had access to an American account (through a friend of my father) and I used telnet (nice to see some things haven’t changed in 2 decades – telnet is the same as it was back then) to log in to the MUD from that account.

 
This is a good time to mention that every MUD had a God. Meaning, the person who literally owned the MUD – set it up and maintained it. I imagine most MUD Gods were geeky, computer science students in real life. But to us… they were gods! They could do everything! They could even raise the dead – NOTHING was beyond their reach.

 
I guessed that Solarwind must’ve been a friend of the MUD’s God because he was one of the original founders. Yes, this was all a series of speculations, but I decided to risk it.

 
So one day, when the God materialized in the MUD, I logged in through my American account, and created a user by the name of “Solarwin”.

 
I sent the God a message “Hey buddy, long time no see! How are you?”.

 
[my heart was beating like crazy]

 
He responded: “I’m good, and yourself?”

 
[I couldn’t believe it!]

 
I said: “Things are great here. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I haven’t been here for so long that I can’t remember my password anymore. Can you help me out?”

 
[Every second felt like hours]

 
He responded: “Sure, no problem”.

 
And before I knew it… I was Solarwind. I was an immortal force of nature, I wielded powers beyond even the mightiest of mortals. I logged in and found myself in Solarwind’s personal chamber (all wizards had one, it’s where they had guests come over. Seriously). My plan worked!

 
With the year’s 2010 perspective, I know that what I did was Phishing. I don’t know when this term was coined, but I probably did it way before. This was 1991.

 
Again, just so you won’t judge me: I was just a teen at the time, it was a victimless crime, and I intended to abandon Solarwind’s account once I’m done. And don’t they say addicts will do everything to get their next fix? I just had to do this.

 
Immediately I proceeded with my plan. To my great disappointment, I found out that it’s much harder to be a wizard than I realized. And worse, I could not ask anyone for help. There was no one to guide me nor were there tutorials.

 
A few years later I became (legitimately) a wizard in a different MUD, so in hindsight I know what I did was incredibly clumsy and awkward. I could’ve accomplished my goal so easily – but I barely knew what I was doing.

 
What I did was log in to both Thor (my real account) and Solarwind simultaneously – each from a different country – and have Solarwind constantly provide information to Thor on how he could defeat monsters. Even then I knew that in principle Solarwind could’ve made weapons that would kill any monster on a hit – but would be caught. He could heal Thor – but would be caught. He could bring every monster to the point of death and allow Thor to “finish it off” – but would be caught. So I did the only thing I knew is safe.

 
I also used Solarwind to gather intel and objects from places unreachable. I even manufactured one of the items needed for a quest – I suspected this won’t raise any red flags.

 
Slowly – yet much faster than before – I was approaching my goal… Thor was becoming very close to becoming a wizard. Then I could really do things the right way.

 
Yet I failed. I was caught.

Since it’s a four part story, here are links to the other parts.
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media (Part 1 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: Cybercrime (Part 3 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: Crime and Punishment (Part 4 of 4)

 
This is the sequel to “The Prehistoric Times of Social Media” post. Quick recap: in the previous post I elaborated why social media is not a new phenomenon and in fact, was already alive and kicking back in the mid 80s in various forms, notably BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems) and MUDs (Multi User Domains). MUDs are the prehistoric ancestors of massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPGs) like World of Warcarft, in the sense that every user created a fantasy character, fought monsters, gained experience, solved quests, cast spells, etc – all in order to advance in levels and become more powerful. However, MUDs had a huge advantage over modern games: once a user got to a certain point (level 20) he would become a “Wizard”, the MUD equivalent of an administrator. Then he would be allowed to program his own realm in the MUD universe with any theme or concept he had in mind.

 
This background, while interesting in its own right (I hope?), was necessary in order to share this story.

 
Just like many modern gamers are obsessed – even addicted – to these games (I even dedicated a post on how to break this addiction). I became obsessed with becoming a MUD wizard. I just had to! There was something almost magical in becoming one. Whereas previously you were just a player – as a wizard you could do anything: teleport anywhere you wanted, become invisible, pull pranks (well, you weren’t supposed to), be invulnerable. Since I spent so much time in the game, gaining these… super powers.. would’ve felt almost real. I planned to be a kind and benevolent wizard. Create easy and imaginative areas that would be fun and reward players.

 
Since I was living in Israel at the time, playing MUDs was a major problem. The internet connection of the entire country was flaky and unreliable. Often the connection would just die for a while. Could be a few minutes, could be a few hours. But it happened a lot. Therefore, playing the game was not easy.

 
Some MUDs required a LOT of effort in order to reach “wizardhood”, in particular, the one I describe. I had to skip class a few times. Quite often I used to spend the entire night playing. Unlike today, I had to physically go to a local university and connect from there (I still remember the expression of the night guard who caught me one night… utter shock. He just looked at me and went away). There was even one missile attack sent by Saddam Hussein during the first gulf war… instead of sitting home with a gas mask, I was at the university, trying to kill monsters. Death by biological and chemical weapons? Ha, worth the risk if it means I become a wizard.

 
Because of the unreliable connection, death was a sad fact of life. I always became furious when in the midst of a terrible combat, the connection died, and when it returned a few minutes afterwards, I found myself as a ghost hovering above the body of Thor (my character). Yes, MUDs had an amusing concept of ghosts.. it was necessary to go to a location and pray in order to be resurrected. Every death resulted in a major setback and it particularly frustrated me since often it was not my fault at all!

 
A friend and I came up with a solution: we will establish an Israeli MUD! We sent a proposal to the person in charge of the internet connection in Israel at the time. He got so angry at us for even coming up with this suggestion, that he blocked port 2000 – the port used for MUD connection – for the entire country. Imagine a single person pulling off something like this now… Of course, we easily found a way around this limitation and continued playing, but till this day, there has never been an Israeli MUD to my knowledge.

 
So I continued playing, often dying for reasons out of my control. And time went by.

 
As you probably know, in Israel military service is compulsory. By the age of 18, everyone must enlist for 3 years (men) and 2 years (women). I became increasingly nervous that despite my best efforts, I will be drafted and still not become a wizard.

 
Therefore, I decided to take action. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

 
I decided to pull a sting.

 
It was dangerous and risky, but I just couldn’t accept my dream not turning to a reality.

Ashton Kutcher with 0 followers

Yesterday, I logged on to my Twitter account and was horrified to discover that all my followers have gone – and I’m not following anyone else. Shouts and screams all over Twitter – well, I imagined them as shouts and screams – confirmed that I am not alone. I went to the page of the King of Twitter, the mighty Ashton Kutcher, and it seemed he too was afflicted with this disease.. this..illness…

 
At that point, I realized that it is not an illness but rather a blessing, that finally, finally we are all equal on Twitter. Ashton, Britney Spears, me, Joe the plumber – even the spammers. We were all equals. None was above the other. In many ways it was truly an utopia.

 
Later I found out this was merely Twitter’s clumsy attempt of fixing a long time bug which allowed users to add themselves to your follower list without your approval (a bug I was aware of, then again, there are many other bugs I’m aware of Twitter is not fixing).

 
After a while this was resolved, Twitter returned to its normal rhythm, and Ashton was king once again.

 
I’ll always remember – even treasure – these precious few minutes (more like hours, actually). The time we were all equal. Perhaps one day this will happen again.

 
I keep wavering back and forth whether to publish this post. This was originally written in November 2009 – half a year ago – and I have hesitated whether to publish it since then (and like I said, I’m still not sure I should’ve). But it’s almost 4am and usually my judgment is a bit clouded at these hours… and I can always remove it later (if you think I should: please comment below? I won’t be offended).

 
Most people who know me realize I have an unconventional sense of humor – though I usually tone it down depending on circumstances. I’d like to think most people “get” my sense of humor, but not everyone do.

 
The following events took place when I was trying to work and do something very hard and very important and just felt I couldn’t concentrate. Sometimes in similar situations, I need something sweet… badly. That day, there was nothing at home, and I felt I would go crazy unless I get something. I felt I need cupcakes.

 
So I let loose… didn’t tone myself down at all.

 
You may ask why am I posting this in my blog? Good question. This, in my opinion, is the perfect example of Twitter for people who don’t use it (in a non-business context). It demonstrates.. the appeal.. of this medium: the fact you can have group chats in real time and people can jump in and out of conversations without you knowing them beforehand. You couldn’t do this in Facebook or Google. Only a real time social media network would enable you to do something similar. Even a chat room wouldn’t enable that, as the number and diversity of people listening would be far more limited.

 
Interestingly, I lost some followers during these events, but I gained many more. This later encouraged me to do much much more of these on Twitter. Yet I haven’t published any of these (mis)adventures on this blog. Note that people kept sending me pictures of cupcakes for months after these events.

 
Hopefully my readers will think it’s both amusing and relevant.

 
..and like I said, I reserve the right to remove it..

 
Thus started the cupcake saga. Here’s a summary of the twitter messages that took place on that day. It started like this

 
(each line is a tweet)

 
me: Anyone has cupcakes they can send me? I really need some #cupcakes #goodpeople #please

lefinley: in the oven now…..address please? 😉

me to lefinley: #chocolatechipcookies will do too. How soon can you make it??? This is an emergency

me to lefinley: you aren’t serious, right? :((((((

lefinley: sorry – can’t get 2 NJ in time….plan ur emergencies in the future please! 😉

me: Where do I find cupcakes in Jersey City on a Saturday? The place is desolate on the weekend. ARGHH!!! Help!

ColleenBurns: found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery”

Me to ColleenBurns: RT found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery” -> probably closed and far from my place, but if I start

Me to ColleenBurns: RT found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery” -> running like a madman, I may make it. I need cupcakes.

Me to ColleenBurns: RT found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery” -> Oh, and forgot to say: THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me to lefinley, heykim: Thanks for trying to help, much appreciated!

Georgia_Teacher: Why in the world are you in Jersey City on a Saturday looking for donuts?

Me to Georgia_Teacher: Not donuts. Cupcakes. Donuts would be like giving Tylenol to a terminal patient. I need cupcakes.

Me: If I don’t get cupcakes soon,something terrible will happen, not just to me, but to everyone in the area, if I don’t get cupcakes soon.

Me: I suspect I’ll implode and start sucking everything around me, kind of like a mini-black hole. But that’s just an unproven theory

 
[noticing people are unfollowing me]

 
Me: Nice to see my cupcakes threats are make people unfollow me. This is not an idle threat. Bad stuff will happen. I need cupcakes!

Me: Even my English is breaking down as apparent in my last few tweets. Ok, that’s it. I’m going outside

lefinley: no problem – good luck on your search = YELP rocks!

Me to lefinley: As things should. I’m sure some disaster movies have started with a guy desperately needing cupcakes.

Me: Ok, got the address of a cupcake place. Leaving now. If this works I’ll tweet a picture. If this doesn’t, you’ll hear about this

Me: “Man mysteriously implodes, police are investigating. Looks like a cupcake deficiency caused this natural disaster”

 
[Walking for an hour randomly]

 
Me (through cellphone): I must be miles from home. Found a Dunkin Donuts place. No cupcakes. Danger now spans NYC as well.

 
[Walking for 2 hours, bypassing my house by at least 25 minutes, half delirious, eventually I got home with some loot]

 
Me: So here’s what happened (BTW, I think this episode cost me quite a lot of followers. Have mercy people, I was in distress)

Me: I walked for miles and miles and got completely lost (no shoprite). Every place I asked, no cupcakes. I could tell people were afraid of me.

Me: Eventually I got to a shop. By then it was really bad. I asked for cupcakes but all that came out was grunts. I must’ve appeared deranged

Me: I tried to say “I have a Ph.D., I won prestigious awards, I used to work for Goldman Sachs”. But nothing coherent came out of my mouth

Me: Eventually I pointed out at the hostess cupcakes and paid for them. I knew by then this would not be sufficient to prevent the upcoming doom

Me: The poor people of NJ and NY didn’t realize what will happen unless I eat quality cupcakes.

Me: So I got hostess cupcakes, 16 brownie bites, ice cream, marshmallows and an Oreo cake.

Me: I hope this will save us. May god have mercy on our souls.

 

Aftermath

 
me: I’ve eaten them, feel much better now.

carribean_skye: were you looking scary too?

Me to caribbean_skye: I think I looked a little bit like when Bruce Banner starts the transformation to the Hulk

Me: Well, I’m back to work. I think the disaster has been averted thanks to my heroic efforts. Unsung heroes, now I understand the meaning.

Recently I noticed that an increasing number of visitors get to my blog searching for answers about the notorious Twitter Jail. Clearly these resulted from my previous article on the subject.

 
Quick recap: Twitter Jail is a period of ~1-3 hours where you can’t tweet, and occurs if you exceed more than 100 tweets per hour. Twitter DM Jail takes effect if you send more than 250 DMs a day, and results in you not being able to send DMs for the day.

 
The following are search phrases that brought people to my blog in the past month. I was surprised how many variations exist. When I took a closer look, I noticed that these can be broken down to four groups.

 
First: Those who seek answers:

• twitter jail
• how long does twitter jail last
• what’s twitter jail
• twitter jail limit
• is there really a twitter jail
• how to tell if in twitter jail
• how are you put in twitter jail
• how do you tell if someone is in twitter jail
• what happens when you go to twitter jail
• how many tweets a day to get in twitter jail
• i can’t post on twitter twitter jail
• what happens in twitter jail
• how many tweets to go to twitter jail
• how to know if your in twitter jail?
• tweet jail

(Is it just me or some sound almost metaphysical? i.e. “what happens when you go to twitter jail”, “is there really a twitter jail”)

 
Second: those who are interested in outsmarting the system (…if only I knew a way…)

• how to get out of twitter jail
• get around twitter jail
• What is twitter jail and how can you get out
• how to get people out of twitter jail
• how to break out of twitter jail
• how to get someone out of twitter jail
• im in twitter jail how do i get out?
• how to get out twitter jail
• how do u someome out of twitterjail

 
Third: this is what made me write the post, are the malicious types, those who want to get someone thrown into Twitter Jail (you fiends 😉 )

• how to put friend in twitter jail
• put someone in twitter jail

 
Fourth: I can only describe the last group as masochistic

• how to get sent to jail on twitter
• how to get in twitter jail
• how to get in twitter jail fast

 
This just demonstrates that this is a real issue. Come on, Twitter. Stop with the whole jail thing – in my previous article I suggested ways to solve what you’re trying to do without resorting to such ineffective methods. Let my people go!

 
Edit: after writing this post I actually discovered yet a third type of Twitter Jail: Twitter Jail: Yet Another Type…

 

Here I was, sitting and thinking about the product I want to create. It’s going to be either a Twitter eBook, online course, or both. But how do I call it? I’ve done some research and it seems that the most successful affiliate products follow a very precise formula. While I can’t claim I was perfectly able to reverse engineer it, I think I am quite close.

This is how it works: the name has 5 parts, some optional. Note that it’s possible to have multiple items from each category.

 
[1 – optional]: Prefix. It’s a verb that expresses simplicity. For example: Auto, Instant, Easy.

 
[2]: Product type. This is the actual subject the product is about. Sometimes it’s specific, for example: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Affiliate, List, AdSense, AdWords, CPA and other time it’s more arbitrary like: Commission.

 
[3]: A form of destruction or control. For example: Domination, Annihilation, Conquest, Mastery, Control.

[3b]: Alternatively, it could be a form of understanding. For example: Blueprint, Formula, Secrets, Decoded.

[3c]: Rarely, this category uses growth (which is also a form of understanding, one may argue): i.e. Evolution.

 
[4 – optional]: Suffix. For example: Method, System.

 
[5 – optional]: random words thrown in, usually dealing with monetary value. For example, Cash, Money, Profit.

 
Based on the above, I can easily come up with a few winning names for my Twitter course.

1. Instant Twitter Domination System.
2. Auto Twitter Profit Method
3. Twitter Cash Mastery

 
What do you think? I think all are winning names! Now I just need to create it and I’m done.

 

For two weeks now I keep planning to write, but life has been keeping me way, way, way too busy. There are already three posts in my head that I want to write, but no time. However, I decided to take this quick break since this will be a short post.

 
Ever since I wrote my article, Five Different Types of Spammers, I noticed that the post keeps getting spammy jokes (always one liners), something that I never got before. More interestingly, it’s only that specific post.

 
Clearly, some spammer/s saw my post and is/are joking around with me. I don’t think this is in ill intent, as actually most of the one-liners are pretty good. If they didn’t include links to drug sites, I might actually approve them. However, maybe it’s just my (at times) weird sense of humor, but I find this situation hilarious. So I’ve decided to include those I find amusing.

 
The point of this post is – the comments below are all spam comments I’ve received. Every single one.

 
This will be a repository for the spam jokes I get (those I think are good, at least). The people sending them are clearly making an effort! In fact, they’re invited to contact me – I’m curious to know their story 🙂

 
It’s a shame I erased most of the comments. But here goes. I get 2-3 a day, and about half are good, so this list will grow (edit: it seems the pace is greater than I remember – I get more like 5+ a day). Starting with only 3 5 14 26… 30

• What did one ocean say to the other ocean? Nothing, they just waved.
• What is the biggest ant? An elephant.
• What is the most popular wine at Christmas? “Can’t we open the presents yet?”
• Why do birds fly south for the winter? Because it’s too far to walk. [got it twice!]
• What kind of coffee was served on the Titanic? Sanka.
• Why did the man put wheels on his rocking chair? He wanted to rock and roll.
• Why did Willie Nelson get hit by a car? He was playing on the road again.
• Why do bees have sticky hair? Because they use honeycombs!!
• What does it mean when the flag’s at half mast at the post office? They’re hiring.
• What do you call it when worms take over the world? Global Worming.
• Why was Santa’s little helper depressed? Because he had low elf esteem.
• What’s happening when you hear “woof…splat…meow…splat?” It’s raining cats and dogs.
• What do you use to redecorate a baby’s bathroom? Infantile.
• What city has the largest rodent population? Hamsterdam.
• Why does Santa have 3 gardens? So he can ho-ho-ho. [this one is pretty lame, I know]
• How would you clean a tuba? Try a tuba toothpaste. [this one is pretty lame, I know]
• What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.[got it twice!]
• What’s green and red and goes 1000 miles an hour? A frog in a blender. [got it twice!]
• Where does all the pepper go? No one nose.
• What do you call a crazy blackbird? A raven lunatic! [I have a feeling this one came from someone else]
• What do you call a crazy baker? A dough nut.
• Why do hurricanes travel so fast? If they traveled slowly, we would have to call them slow-i-canes
• What is the difference between a photocopier and the whooping cough? One makes facsimiles and the other makes sick families.
• Why do bagpipers walk when they play? They’re trying to get away from the noise. [I got this one twice! Hmm. The guy is starting to repeat himself]
• Why is the letter A like a flower? Because a Bee comes after it!
• What do you call a bee born in May? A Maybe.
• What is a zebra? 26 sizes larger than “A” bra.
• What do you call four bull fighters in quicksand? Quatro sinko.
• Where did King Tut go to ease his back pain? The Cairo-practor!
• What kind of bird can write? A penguin. [didn’t really get this one..]

 
Edit: Unbelievable (to me), but the jokes stopped. That’s 3 days in a row now. I guess the spammer follows my blog and doesn’t want to give me material? Oh.. but it was really in the best of intentions. Like I said, he’s more than welcome to send me an email, I’m curious to meet the fellow!

 
Edit2: No, they’re back. I’m actually feeling relief. It made checking spam more fun.

 
Edit3: Ok, I think 30 is a good place to stop. I made my point, and some are starting to repeat themselves…

After you’ve used social media sites for a while, you start finding common patterns, specifically, annoying patterns. Although each one of us is annoyed by different things, usually there are commonalities that annoy each and every one of us. I’ve decided to create my own list of pet peeves and share it with you.

 
Originally I was hesitating whether I should call this article ‘Pet Peeves in social media’ and have one section for Twitter, one for Facebook and one for LinkedIn, all sites I know really well. However, considering I have fewer LinkedIn pet peeves, than say, Twitter pet peeves, I think I need more time to get a list worth reporting. So for now this is only for Twitter.

 
Second, after I came up with this subject I met a great guy on Twitter, Darren Williger (@Williger). Not only he’s extremely witty and hilarious, but it turns out he also created – a video – that (can you guess it?) is about Pet Peeves in Twitter. I thought that I can’t seriously write an article on the subject without including his video. I am fully aware that no matter what I say, people will remember Darren’s video (which is awesome) as the point of this post. Oh well, I bow down before you, Darren – absolutely brilliant video!

 
Here’s my list of Pet Peeves. Feel free to add some of your own.

1. Many users have some kind of auto-follow script – so when you follow them, you get a direct message (DM) “Thank you for following me, blah blah blah”. That’s fine with me. However, the thing that irritates me the most (more than spammers!) are the users that send you the DM – but don’t follow you back, so you can’t respond! It goes along the lines of “Thank you for following me. Here’s my blog. Can you tell me about yourself?” (remember, all automated). But I can’t answer! Because you haven’t followed me! I’d much rather not get anything, and not be followed than get a message I can’t reply to!
   
    

2. Following the previous item are the users who have an auto-follow that sends you to some kind of unrelated sales page. Sometimes the description is even deliberately misleading like, “learn about me in this link” or “read my blog here” but when you press the link, it’s a sales page! Dude, we just got to know each other, and you’re already asking me to buy something from you? What are the chances this is going to work? Occasionally these links are broken and don’t even work – which truly makes these users look ridiculous. I used to respond to them “your links are broken” but never received a response. Not even once.
   
    

3. Bots, particularly the sophisticated ones. I don’t know whether these are real people who do 90% automation, or bots that occasionally have a real person controlling them (there’s a subtle different in my opinion). But do any of these sentences look familiar?
   • 140 cramping your style?
   • Apu Akhbar?
   • Ma Shlomkha?
   • Como está?
   • Hur är det?
   • What’s everyone talking about?
   • Robin Williams survived open-heart surgery; has new role in film – and life
   • Too many tweets. Too little time to reply.
   • Why is Twitter a verbal gym? Stress relieve for the mind.
   • The day ends with a tweet.
   • iphone is always ringing. standby
   • Random tweets
   • Is Obama doing a good job?
   • Ogenki desu ka

   I’m sure some at least look very familiar. Guys, I understand you want to automate things, but for crying out loud, get a better list. All these are real messages I’ve seen over and over and over and over. The ironic thing is that one of the messages is ‘random tweets’. My guess is that someone made a list of things to tweet, and the title was ‘random tweets’, and somehow this got into the actual list of things being tweeted about.
   
    
   I tend to retweet them with a smart ass comment, and never, ever, received a response. i.e. “Ma Shlomkha? -> Do you even understand what that means? Of course you don’t, you’re a bot” (it’s “what’s up?” in Hebrew).
   
    

4. Spammers: I won’t elaborate. They annoy me less than most people. I even find them funny at times (read my post 5 Different Types of Spammers).
   
    

5. Users promoting products in an idiotic way. Personally, I have no problem with people using Twitter as a vehicle for promoting products – not at all (hey, I may do this too at some point). But come on, be smart about doing this. Don’t say “Want to learn how to make $158,081 in less than 8 hours?” or “Gain 1,500 followers in the next 21 minutes!”, be smarter about this. No one in his right mind will take you seriously. And if they do, I assure you, they don’t have a credit card or a way to pay you.
   
    

6. People doing #FollowFriday for people they don’t follow themselves. Quick explanation: #FollowFriday is a very nice Twitter Tradition. Usually every Thursday/Friday people will tweet a list of the people they recommend for following. Some just include names, other give lists with brief titles “amusing conversations” “sweet and funny”, etc. This is what gives Twitter its personality.
   
    
   However, some people do #FollowFriday for people they don’t follow themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s okay to retweet someone’s FollowFriday tweet even if you’re not following the person (since you’re basically just saying “listen to this guy, he knows what he’s saying”), but don’t publicly recommend following someone when you’re not following your own advice. It’s like a health guru eating junk food in secret – do what you preach!
   
    
   In particular I was irritated by a guy I tried to converse with a while ago (we have some things in common so I thought he’d be interesting to chat with). He ignored 2-3 tweets I sent him. One day I RTed two of his tweets. he ignored these too. Ok, I get it, he doesn’t want to talk. However, the next Friday he included me in his #FollowFriday. He wasn’t talking to me (at all), or following me himself, but he publicly recommended that people follow me. How hypocritical is that?
   
    

7. The last one is pretty mild: Direct Messages (DMs) that require 10 separate messages. Yes, I understand the whole 140 character limit (that’s the point of microblogging), but at times you want to say more, and the only alternative is to use 10 consecutive messages. My friend Suzanne gets a phone call for every one of those and it can become really annoying. I would’ve much preferred if the direct message system was not limited to 140 characters (blasphemy, I know!), or alternatively, it could send you to an extra app that allows you to write one long email which will automatically be broken up. Or even just use real email (which is my preference).

 
That’s my list. Any ideas for more?

 
Edit: Although Twitter is still crawling with thousands of bots, they did take out the bot network I mentioned in #3 about 1-2 months after I posted this (not that I think there’s a connection…).

 
Edit 2: After writing this post I befriended Darren (the funny guy in the video). This friendship was a catalyst for so many positive things in my life. One of these is Social Media 201.