Sociosophy

I still think I should just register Twitterosophy and call it a day. We review more sites built from the ground of Twitter and Twitter’s API than I could shake a stick at. Really. It’s gotten so thick of Twitter out there, that there are now awards for Twitterers, or Tweeple, in the Twitterverse.

ShortyAwards, a simple shout message over Twitter to @shortyawards formatted like thus: @shortyawards I nominate @twitterperson for a Shorty Award in #whatever [reason]

Like magic, shortyawards starts to follow you, your nomination gets posted to their timeline and their website. Apparently this will end in a few days, December 31st, and a ceremony will take place after in New York City. I imagine an event like this would be filled with people glued to their mobile devices dressed in black tie… Pretty much like a Tweetup, minus the fancy garb. (more…)

Please, for the love of God and the grace of this beautiful Internet, people – Stop crossing the line of being a spammer in hopes to leverage a few dollars from your friends via ad revenue. We’ve run this blog for over a year and never had the need to treat our friends and followers like they need to see more ads than expected with a blog…

Adjix is a service that creates a tiny URL, but embeds an ad along the top of the page, forcing you to click the “eject icon” in the upper left of the frame to get rid of it. There’s no doubt this company is running affiliate benefits, and tracking your activity online, that’s a given. What really bugs me is… People I know are using this garbage, immediately devaluing my perception of their judgement and despiration to turn a buck.

These types of services, much like that God forsaken “Mudpie” crap Twitter people started using last week, are environment hazards for the Internet we’re trying to EVOLVE. So, please… Don’t use this junk. Want to shorted a URL? Try is.gd – they’re a great service and available from Twhirl.

Oooooooh, Twitter. How awesome and bountiful your spin off applications and various website doodads have become. MrTweet is something that never seemed like a pretty good idea until we actually found out about it. Need a social media consultant? Well, a fake one? MrTweet will tell you who you should be following.

Yep, you read that right. MrTweet is a site dedicated to growing your newb network into a noisy cluster of tweet-o-rama awesomeness so you can basque in the glory of Twitter in all of it’s wonderment and outright tweet-chatter.

How’s it work?

Simple – Follow MrTweet.

They give a little bit of what’s up with MrTweet on the site:

Who created this? @mingyeow / @ambivalence
Why? Cause Twitter can be even better with some insights and discovery
Really? We think so, but you tell us how to make it work for you
What is next? Kick ass features that make you productive and smart!

Sounds good to us! Give it a try, we just did.

What a horrible, horrible idea. Be a Magpie is an advertising network that turns you, or the people you follow, into potential ad-cannons. What does this mean?

This is up there with your friends sending you ad-banner links via email, or Viagra spam email forwards from their junk-mail inbox, and turning a dime for it. Twitter has gone through a few interesting and awkward phases as the user base grows wider and farther. But Be A Magpie (which we’re not even going to link to because we don’t believe in promoting this service) missed the boat completely of what Twitter is all about.

It is true that Twitter, and other micro-blogging communities, define their own core culture and sub-cultures, but never have I seen one of them be leveraged for advertising in such a grotesque and selfish manner. People that follow others on Twitter do so because that person specifically finds something of value worth sharing, it’s not some bot telling their time line what to spill to their friends.

Who would use this service?

1. Someone who doesn’t understand Twitter at all
2. Someone who doesn’t understand Social Media at all
3. Someone who has no problem using their friends for revenue
4. Someone who doesn’t mind watching their Twitter follower count drop like Brits during the Black Plague

We usually want to maintain a happy disposition within our reviews of our Internet findings, so mark this down as the real, authentic, first time we’ve ever voiced truly HATING a service that exists. Magpie is an utterly and completely despicable service. It’s a smart, HORRIBLE idea.

Congratulations to the creators of this and other services like this… Turn your creativity into something that harnesses Web 2.0 and the Social Realm positively instead of filling it with this Web 1.0 mentality and muck.

Logo & Links were not posted to this article with intent & on purpose.

Update: I’ll be posting stories I find of Mudpie-Fallout like this:

http://bub.blicio.us/ – The Fastest Unfollow in the Midwest

This morning, I went on a simple quest, “Delete the some thousand plus Direct Messages I have on Twitter”. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why I wanted them gone, just felt like there was something I needed to clear up on Twitter whenever I looked at my account… and now I have.

After some searching on Google, I came across a  Bookmarklet for deleting Twitter Direct Messages on DCortesi.com, a blog by Damon Cortesi. The blog typically covers the ins-and-outs of tech-life in the trenches and often features some pretty slick snippets. In the case of Twitter, the DM Whacker Bookmarklet:

Drap & drop the below into your Bookmarks Toolbar:

For information on the Bookmarklet, check out DCortesi’s post here. I highly recommend clicking around a bit through Damon’s blog. Every programmer that’s ever had a question about manipulating things they use or find will associated with DCortesi immediately, “I wonder if X and Y play nice together, and if I can do it like this…”

It’s inspiring to see awesome stuff come from sheer curiosity and drive to do groovy stuff with it. 5 stars for Damon on this one.