Likejacking Using Social Media Spam

Social media spam is taking off and it is not good. Up until a year or so ago, spam was primarily delivered using email. As email spam filters have improved - spammers have turned to an easier target - social media sites including Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

How bad is it getting? Mark Risher, CEO of Imperium is quted in a recent Business Week piece claiming spammers create as many as 40% of the accounts on social media sites. He also says about 8 percent of messages sent via social pages are spam. This is twice the volume of six months ago.

Here's how it works in Facebook - it can be as simple as liking or sharing an image or page which could allow a spam app access to your profile and friend list. Many are now referring this as "likejacking" or "clickjacking". Pinterest is extremely vulnerable with spammers embedding links in pictures - click a thumbnail to view a picture and you may end up linked to someplace you do not want to go.

Social media sites are playing catchup now, hiring hundreds of programming specialists and security experts to protect users from spammers. It will get better.

Last January, Facebook sued Ascend Media, an advertising firm that, according to the same Business Week piece, is pulling in around $960 thousand per month.  In addition, Twitter recently sued alleged spammers Skootle and JL4 Web Solutions.

Bottom line - don't friend, like, share, click, users and things that look spammy.

Facebook IT Operations Director: Improving ICT Education in Challenging Times

In January for the past few years, our NSF funded National Center for Information and Communications Technologies has been co-sponsoring a Winter 2012 ICT Educator's Conference in San Francisco in collaboration with the Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies Center. 

This year the conference was held at the Microsoft offices in downtown San Francisco and we were fortunate to have Facebook's Director of IT Operations, Steven Ruggiero as one of the keynotes. Heres his presentation - it's really good.  



Thinking about a technical career or know someone who is? Good stuff for students, parents, educators, guidance counselors, etc. 

Facebook Friends and Frenemies Report - Why We Add and Remove

There's a new Facebook research report from Nielsen McKinsey's NM Incite titled Friends & Frenemies: Why We Add and Remove Facebook Friends that's pretty interesting. The report looks at the factors that help Facebook users decide whether they want to add someone as a friend or remove an existing person the their friend list. Here's a few details:

• Knowing someone in real life is the top reason cited for friend-ing someone (82%)
• Offensive comments are the main reason someone gets the boot (55%)

Additional report details suggests that real world interactions drive online friendships. Meanwhile, sales-oriented and depressing comments help drive friend removals. Facebook etiquette also plays a role, with updating too often, too little or having too many friends a consideration for some Facebook users.

Regarding gender, the report research indicates that men are more likely to use social media for careers/networking and dating – while women use social media for a creative outlet, to get coupons/promos or to give positive feedback. More men add friends based on business networks or physical attractiveness and women are more likely to friend based on knowing someone in real life or remove them due to offensive comments.

Here's an interesting infographic from the report.

Who And Why I Follow Back on Twitter

Catching up on some work this morning and going through new people that started following me over the past two weeks.  I've got my account setup so I get email notification when someone follows me and I look at each one, determining whether I want to follow back. Out of the 302 new followers I picked up in the past couple of weeks, I followed back only 27 this morning. That's only 8.95% and it is pretty typical.

Here's how I personally sort this stuff out:

When someone follows my feed I've got Twitter setup to send me an email notification.
I've got my email client (Thunderbird) setup to automatically move those Twitter email notifications to a separate Twitter folder. When I have some time (like this morning) I go through the notifications, determining whether I want to follow back. Here's my follow-back determination procedure:

1. I've got Thunderbird setup to preview email. The first thing I look for is a name (a person) attached to the account. If I don't know your organization and there is no name listed, I'm probably not going to follow back. Some details:

• I try and only follow back those with similar interests, these interests can be both work and hobby related. If you are a business, organization, academic institution or individual involved in Science, Technology Engineering or Math (STEM) I'm definitely following you back. I'll also follow you back if you are focused on one of my hobbies - for example - saltwater flyfishing. 
• Sorry but religion and politics are always a do not follow back red flag for me. I know many use Twitter and other social media for this kind of stuff and I don't have a problem with that. It's just not what I personally use it for.

2. If I like what I see in the email preview I'll click the link to your feed and take a look at the last 5 or so posts. If it is junk - spam, any hint of profanity, etc. Done - I'm not following you. The best chance for a follow back is if you have something posted I'm interested in. Maybe it is a short description with a link to an interesting post on the web. If it is something I really like and retweet it, you are definitely getting a follow back.

3. There are some exceptions and I typically follow back the following:

• Local businesses (not based on religion or politics). This includes my favorite Pizza shop in Western Massachusetts. 
• Known organizations, like the National Science Foundation (of course!)
• Some celebrities - how could you not follow back someone like Weird Al Yankovic? 
• Old friends and sometimes friends of friends if I can sort the connections out. 

4. Once I start following you - if I do see any spam, profanity, religion, politics I'm un-following you. I also occasionally go in and cull the list of people I follow and this is the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

 So..... back to my experience today - only 27 follow backs out of 302 new followers..... 8.95%. Yes - there is a lot of junk out there but..... mixed in with the junk there is a lot of good stuff.

You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gsnyder

Mike Elgan On Why He's Loving Google+

This is a great Google+ post from tech writer Mike Elgan. Mike is in the middle of a Google+ experiment he's calling his Google+ Diet. He's using Google+ for all of his online communication and has stopped using Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, e-mail and several other services. Here's  Mike's July 15 Google+ public post summarizing what he's experienced on the Google+ Diet so far:

Here's what I love about Google+ in general and the Google+ Diet in particular:

Instead of saying, "I'm going to write a blog post now," or "I'm going to send an e-mail" or "I think I'll tweet something" you simply say what you have to say, then decide who you're going to say it to.

If you address it to "Public," it's a blog post.

If you address it to "Your Circles" it's a tweet.

If you address it to your "My Customers" Circle it's a business newsletter.

If you address it to a single person, it can be a letter to your mother.

I'd say this is pretty revolutionary.

I haven't personally ditched any of my other social media yet but I do find myself going to Google+ more and using Facebook and Twitter less frequently.

You can follow Mike's Google+ Diet experiment here. My Google+ public stream is linked here.

Google+ Project Takes on Facebook

Today, Google unveiled the Google+ project. It's similar to Facebook in some ways with some nice additional enhancements. One of the nicest features (which technically you can do with Facebook but it's not as easy to do) is Google+ allows users to create "circles" which are separate groups of people. Users can then post circle updates that members of that circle can see.

Another nice feature called "Hangouts," allows users to connect with friends using multiperson video.

Google+ can also be setup to automatically upload mobile photos into the cloud so you can easily move them from device to device.

Here's a short introductory video from Google on the project demo'ing some of the features.

Google+ is in limited Field Trial right now and is being tested with a small number of people. You can leave your email address here and they'll make sure you're the first to know when they're ready to invite more people. Get more information on the Official Google Blog and take a tour. 

I like what I see so far.

Have an iPhone and Kids? Then You’re Probably An iParent!

I’ve written here in the past about helicopter parents who are in almost constant contact with their older children using mobile devices but iParents seem to be taking things to a whole new level.

Retrevo.com, the consumer electronics shopping and review site, is running an ongoing study of people and electronics and then using this information to publish the something called the Retrevo Gadgetology Report. The most recent study,  involved over 1,000 online individuals in June 2011 and takes a close look at the use of social media by parents. Here’s some of the study highlights:

• 18% of parents say they feel like they couldn't stop using Facebook/Twitter even if they wanted to.
• 47% of parents of kids under 19 say they've used Facebook to learn more about their kid's friends.
• iPhone owning parents (iParents) are twice as likely (28%)  to get anxious when they don't check Facebook/Twitter as most parents (14%).
• Dads are more likely (13%) to use Facebook to learn about their kid's dates than moms (10%).
• iParents are twice as likely to use Facebook to learn about their kid's dates than Droid owning parents.
• Phone owning parents are four times LESS likely to have under 50 Facebook friends.
• 32% of iParents have over 250 friends (compared with 23% of other parents).
• Up to 34% of parents admit to using Facebook to check on their kid's friend's parents, by the time their children are between ages 13 and 19 years old.
• 12% of all parents feel they could not stop using Facebook and Twitter. This number more than doubles when looking at iPhone owning parents (19%).
• 11% of parents said they've given up activities they used to enjoy because they spend time on Facebook or Twitter. 18% of iPhone owning parents feel the same way (compared to only 12% of Droid owning parents).
• iPhone owning parents are twice as likely to get nervous or anxious if they don't check Facebook/Twitter (28%).

Pretty interesting stuff. Check out the June 2011 Gadgetology Report along with earlier reports linked here.

What I Read (And How I Like to Read It)

I'm guessing maybe 20 years or so ago I had the chance to sit in on a two-day communications workshop delivered by a former University of Vermont computer science professor. During the workshop I asked him what he likes to read to keep up to date. His answer - Wired and Businessweek magazines. He was pretty sharp, impressive (wish I could remember his name) and when I got home I ended up ordering subscriptions to both.

I've kept those two subscriptions over the years with Wired keeping me up to date and entertained with new and emerging technologies and Businessweek keeping me posted on where business is going.  If I'm on the road you can bet the latest issues of each are in my bag.

Which of the two do I prefer? I've always believed business drives technology so Businessweek has been incredibly valuable to me. Some will argue it is the other way around but I've seen enough technically superior products that have flopped because the market was just not ready for them.

Last year Bloomberg purchased Businessweek from McGraw Hill and now the magazine is called Bloomberg Businessweek.  It's changed some since the purchase - there is a little more fun stuff (a la Wired) - but the business content is still really good.

Just last week Bloomberg launched a very nice iPad app called Bloomberg Businessweek+. Since I subscribe to the print version of the magazine, I get app version issues for free. Non-subscribers pay $2.99 a month - not bad since the print version is $4.99 on the newsstands. New editions come out on Thursday evenings at 10 PM and are approximately 30 megabytes each (relatively small for fast download). The app itself is the best "magazine" app I've seen so far - you can search for content across issues, clip articles and post to Twitter and Facebook. Even the "media-rich" ads are interesting to take a look at.

Will I keep my print subscription to Businessweek?  Yes - for now.

If you have an iPad, be sure to check out the Businessweek+ app.

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook Video

Alex Trimpe has an interesting video up on Vimeo about Facebook. He made it using Adobe After Effects at The Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) for a class. Here's the video:

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.

Can you believe 750 million pictures were uploaded to Facebook just over New Year's weekend??

Community College Blogging: A Conversation with Dr Troy Swanson

On Thursday I had the pleasure of talking with Dr Troy Swanson, an Associate Professor / Teaching and Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, IL. In December Troy completed his PhD in Community College Leadership at Old Dominion University. His dissertation is titled The Administration of Community College Blogs: Considering Control and Adaptability in Loosely Coupled Systems. In the podcast, Troy discusses some of his findings.

Here’s some dissertation background from Troy:

Web 2.0 technologies present an unlimited potential for outreach to the public by college employees. This presents a conundrum for community college administrators that David Weinberger calls "the conundrum of control." This conundrum is that organizations need to find a way to organize people around technology to ensure that it is used to further the organization’s mission. Yet, in terms of 2.0 technologies, the more controls that are put in place, the less useful the tools become.

There is also a second conundrum around technology that challenges mangers. This is that the more controls that are in place around a technology, the easier it is to communicate and transfer that technology across the organization. But, the more difficult it is for organization members to adapt the technology to meet new needs.

As one of oldest form of 2.0 technology, the management of blogs presents lessons that we can use for other, newer, 2.0 technologies.

I interviewed administrators and blog authors at community colleges across the US to see how colleges were managing their blogs. The focus was on administrative blogs as opposed to course-related or faculty blogs that discussed their research.  The larger purpose of the study was to see how easily the technology could adapt to new needs and whether campuses were restricting the use of blogs. What kinds of guidance were campus leaders giving to bloggers who were representing the college?

The study’s findings offer a peak into how the administrative structures of community colleges impact technology and Web 2.0. Listen to the 30 minute and 40 second podcast in your browser by clicking the play button below.

  

Here's how to contact Troy:

Troy’s Email: swanson@morainevalley.edu
Troy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/t_swanson
Moraine Valley Library Link (includes blogs, podcasts, Facebook, etc): http://www.morainevalley.edu/library/

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If you have iTunes installed you can listen to and subscribe to our podcasts by clicking here.

EMarketer Report: Corporate Blogging Goes Mainstream

I get asked a lot about blogging - especially by academic people. Typical questions/comments are usually along the lines of:

• Is it worth the time?
• I started a blog and wrote a few posts but nobody looked at it.
• I'm not sure what to write about.
• What's the value?
• What's the return on investment of the time it takes to post?
• Do you think other apps like Twitter and Facebook have replaced blogs?
• Is blogging dead?
  

I've found my blog to be one of our NSF ICT Center's most effective dissemination and marketing tools but still have a hard time answering these kinds of questions.

eMarketer just made it a little easier with a new report titled Corporate Blogging Goes Mainstream. I have not seen the full report but was able to pull some interesting information out of the report press release:

• Blogging has grown into a vital marketing tool for all types of companies, including Fortune 500 marketers and mom-and-pop retailers.
• 34% of US companies will use a blog for marketing purposes this year, a proportion that will continue to grow to 43% by 2012.
• While blogging still tends not to rate such high usage as newer forms of social media like Facebook and Twitter, it still has many strengths, including full control over branding and advertising, integration with all corporate web properties, no limits on post length and the existence of a full, easily searchable repository of information. And studies have noted blogging’s usefulness for lead generation.
• By October 2009, according to a Cision-led study, nearly two-thirds of US journalists reported they used blogs to publish, promote and distribute what they wrote. And according to PRWeek and PR Newswire, about a third of journalists used corporate blogs as research sources in 2010, up from a quarter last year.

Here's an interesting graphic from the eMarketer report showing the growth in marketing blogs from U.S. companies.

Blogging is not going away - it is just going mainstream. Looking to market your business, academic program or establish yourself as a subject matter expert? Don't forget about the blog.

Be sure to check out the eMarketer report press release.

Comcast's Fancast

I've been meaning to write about Fancast for a while. Fancast is an upcoming Comcast product (this summer) that, according to the website:

" With Fancast, you will be able to search for your favorite shows, movies, actors, or simply enjoy videos on the site. Fancast will provide you with a place to discover when your favorite shows or movies are on, and where you can watch them via television, video on demand, online or on other devices".

On April 11, Comcast purchased Fandango, an online advance movie ticket sale site and it looks like Comcast will be using Fandango to list Fancast shows. Mike Sachoff, a staff writer for webpronews.com, quoted Amy Banse, President of Comcast Interactive Media:

"Adding Fandango to Comcast Interactive Media and creating Fancast.com will enable us to leverage our combined assets to offer consumers an outstanding entertainment experience."

AppleTV, XBox Live, Tivo, your favorite network dot com, etc, etc..... and the list goes on.... any place, anywhere, any time......