Tag Archives | social networking

Tr.impending Doom

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 9, 2009 at 6:25 pm

trimTr.im, one of umpteen URL-shortening services used by Twitterfans and other people who needed to compress long URLs into as little space as possible, is now the first major player among those umpteen servers to call it quits–it’s being shuttered by parent company Nambu. The company says it couldn’t figure out how to make money with Tr.im, and couldn’t find anyone interested in taking it over–and that Bit.ly‘s stance as the default URL-shortener used by Twitter itself means that Tr.im would fail in the long run no matter what.

Tr.im was a worthy contender, but there are plenty of other perfectly good competitors out there, so its closure wouldn’t be a huge issue for new URLs that need to be shortened by Tr.im users. What’s worrisome is the status of existing Tr.immed URLs–of which there are scads all over the Web, and which people are continuing to create right now even though the service is closing. If Nambu shuts down the servers that forward the short URLs to the original long ones, the Tr.immed versions won’t work. The company doesn’t say what its long-term plans are for existing URLs, but it does A) guarantee that they’ll still work through the end of 2009; and B) say that running the servers is prohibitively expensive. I assume that’s a hint, at least, that Tr.immed URLs will likely stop working sometime next year. (Unless someone else steps in to save the service–which doesn’t seem unthinkable given the attention the shutdown is getting.)

If Tr.im does go away completely, it’s a wake-up call we all knew would come eventually, if we gave the matter any thought. Non-shortened URLs will work forever–as long as the page they’re in and the page they link to exists, they’re good. Shortened ones live and die at the discretion of the company that shortened them for you, assuming it doesn’t go out of business. And nearly everybody in the URL-shortening game is a very small company without a proven plan for economic sustainability.

All the information contained in millions of tweets with shortened URLs is tremendously valuable–but many of them simply don’t make sense if you can’t click through to the URL that’s been shortened. Sooner or later, Tr.im’s vanishing act is going to remove all the context from vast numbers of tweets, and the folks who suffer won’t be the people who shortened the URLs, but the ones who want to read those tweets.

I don’t have an inkling what Twitter’s long-term URL-shortening strategy is–hey, are there any clues in those stolen documents?–but I hope it intends to start squeezing down its own URLs. For one thing, I have more faith in Twitter being around for the long haul than I do in the viability of existing URL-shortening services. Also, if Twitter goes out of business, than all those tweets containing shortened URLs may disappear anyhow…

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Twitter Goes Down, Down, Down

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 6, 2009 at 9:23 am

Twitter goes downWhen Twitter is having reliability problems, the site is usually able to at least summon up a cheery FailWhale by way of apology. This morning, however, the nation’s  hottest social networing site has been the victim of a massive and effective Distributed Denial of Service attack. The problems apparently started around 6am PT this morning, and continue on–I’m only able to get in sporadically at the moment.

The site is hiccuping back to life, though, which is good, since it lets Twitter fans tweet about the unavailability of Twitter:

Twitter down

Here’s hoping that the trouble ends soon, and that we learn what happened–and that there aren’t too many Twitterhaters out there who are openly or silently gleeful this morning…

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TWTRCON Hits the Nation’s Capital

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 5, 2009 at 8:00 am

Twtrcon DCBack in May, the first edition of TWTRCON–the conference on Twitter for business which I’m proud to have come up with–was held in San Francisco.  It was a hit. And Modern Media, the events’s organizers, are taking the show to Washington DC. TWTRCON DC 09 will be held at the Grand Hyatt Washington DC on October 22nd; the keynote speaker is Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, and folks from Dunkin Donuts, the NHL, H&R Block, Intuit, and PepsiCo have agreed to share their knowledge, with more to come. As before, the topic is how to leverage the power of Twitter to make your business more successful, but given the venue, there will also be discussion of Twitter and government.

It should be a productive, provocative time–I hope you’ll attend if you’d like to learn what some very smart people are doing with the country’s hottest social network. Check out the TWTRCON site for ongoing updates on plans for the event.

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Why Twitter Didn’t Conquer Comic-Con

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 28, 2009 at 3:25 pm

Action Comics #1Contrary to current received wisdom, Twitter doesn’t change everything. At least it appears not to have changed the venerable San Diego pop culture extravaganza known as Comic-Con very much. Variety’s Marc Graser is reporting that the Hollwood moguls who thought the con would be all a-Twitter with discussion of the blockbusters previewed to audiences of thousands were disappointed by the volume of movie-related tweetage that actually happened. Unlike South by Southwest Interactive, Comic-Con remained a largely real-world event.

I’ve been attending the convention off and on for more than twenty years, including this year’s edition, and I’m not surprised that it didn’t turn out to be that much of a tweetfest. Here’s why:

Comic-Con isn’t necessarily rife with technogeeks. Movie and comics geeks, yes. But in three days of con, I was the only person I spotted using a laptop in any of the panels and previews. Actually, I saw only about three or four computers, period. It’s true that the overlap between fantasy fans and Web addicts is large, but perhaps even Web-savvy congoers weren’t in technonerd mode last week.

Comic-Con itself isn’t that tech-savvy an event. Thanks to sponsorship by iGoogle, it did offer free Wi-Fi this year, but that fact wasn’t widely promoted. (Last year, Wi-Fi was pricey, and in years past the rates were designed to gouge exhibitors.) As far as I know, the con doesn’t do things like offer an iPhone application or send out the sessions as an RSS or iCal feed. It’s just not an event that puts the Internet front and center.

Comic-Con is incredibly jam-packed with stuff to do. There are dozens of things going on at any given moment, and the pace is far faster than the laid-back SxSW atmosphere. If you attend every preview, panel, and party you find enticing, there’s no time left to tweet.

Comic-Con doesn’t involve breaks. The previews and panels run back-to-back, and if you’re going to one of the most crowded events–which includes all the major movie previews–you’re lucky if you get in at all. You can’t tweet while you’re rushing down a hallway from one end of the convention center to another.

Actually, standing in one place at Comic-Con long enough to tweet is hard, period. The show floor, in particular, is one of the most bustling places I’ve ever been–if you stop moving, you’re likely to be flattened by a squadron of Stormtroopers.

Tweeting at the movie previews is tricky. They’re held in darkened halls, and the illumination of your phone might tick off nearby fellow attendees. The previews are also accompanied by repeated stern warnings about the prohibition of phototaking and audio recording; I’m paranoid, but I tend to keep my phone in my pocket for fear of being mistaken for a pirate and getting dragged off by San Diego Convention Center security goons.

Comic-Con is a sensory experience. South by Southwest Interactive is mostly conversational. Comic-Con involves movies and comics and people dressed as Batgirl and Boris Badenov, plus the opportunity to meet folks such as Ray Bradbury and Stan Freberg–neither of who, I’m guessing, spend much time on Twitter. It’s possible to tweet about it (I did some of that myself) but less satisfying than being there.

Will Twitter have more of an impact at Comic-Con next year? Maybe so–I’m guessing that we still haven’t seen the service peak as a cultural phenomenon. But the convention, at its best, is a pretty wonderful event even sans Twitter. Hollywood may be disappointed, but the low-volume tweeting may simply have been evidence that those 120,000 congoers were having a really, really good time.

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Best Buy’s Interesting, Imperfect Experiment in Customer Service Via Twitter

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 28, 2009 at 12:09 pm

TwelpforceOver at Zatz Not Funny, blogger (and frequent Technologizer commenter) Dave Zatz has blogged about Twelpforce, Best Buy’s interesting experiment in aggregating the knowledge of hundreds of its “blue shirt” staffers into one Twitterstream of advice for Best Buy customers. Dave points out that some of the blue shirts’ tweets (both on Twelpforce and their own Twitter accounts, which you might stumble across while reading) are a tad odd. He also says that the Twelpforce feed’s method of aggregation eliminates the “in reply to” links that make it a lot easier to read a Twitter conversation.

Perusing Twelpforce led me to a couple of other conclusions:

1) It’s increasingly clear that Twitter sees the use of its service as a customer service tool to be one of the keys to its long-term success. But Twelpforce is, among other things, a reminder that Twitter just isn’t a very good platform for customer service. Even if it did preserve “in reply to” links, it would be tough to reliably follow a discussion, in part because Twitter still doesn’t provide true threaded discussions. Twitter is generally pretty guarded about telling the world what it’s up to, but I’m wondering if it plans to roll out the features that would make it easier for companies to help their customers via Twitter. (The fact that folks such as Frank Eliason and the @comcastcares team do so much is a testament as much to their hard work as the power of Twitter in its current form.)

2) It’s fascinating to see Best Buy let the blue shirts do their thing in an open, largely uncensored venue. Oddly enough, the blue shirts in Best Buy commercials are consistently smart, courteous, and generally with it; the real blue shirts I’ve dealt with over the years have been a lot less consistent. (I recently had a question about a car-stereo component at my local Best Buy. The guy in that department shrugged and told me he couldn’t help, and directed me to go to the installation center for assistance. Which was across the store, behind a locked door When I got there, another rep told me…to go back to the car stereo section and ask guy #1 for help.)

Up until now, customer service with Best Buy or any other retail chain has been an essentially private affair. (Unless you like to go to electronics stores and eavesdrop on other shoppers’ experiences…which, I admit, I like to do as a source of story ideas.) With Twitter, it’s all out in the open. A blue shirt who knows his or her stuff can become a star; one who’s clueless will embarrass him or herself in public. I’d like to think that over the long haul that might help improve the quality of customer service, period…

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Facebook Relents a Little on No-Name-Change Policy

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 23, 2009 at 12:25 pm

Facebook LogoLast month, Facebook began letting members choose vanity named-based URLs and told them that they wouldn’t be allowed to change the names they picked.

Now ReadWriteWeb is reporting that the site has backpedaled and says you’ll be able to change your name–once:

It appears that Facebook has quietly launched a new option in the settings area called “username” where you have the option to change your Facebook username. To find this option, go to “Settings” at the top-right of the Facebook page and then click on “Account Settings.” The second option from the top is “Username.” Press “Change” to enter in your new username and then click “Confirm” when you’re ready to set it.

Seems reasonable–if nothing else, Facebook should allow folks to change their Facebook name when they change their names in real life, via marriage or other means.

The name-change restrictions presumably have less to do with technological limitations and more to do with Facebook’s fussy insistence that the people on Facebook should be real people going by their real names. In a Web that’s rife with anonymous trolls, pseudonymous jerks, people posing as other people, and fictitious characters, I sort of admire its stance. (And hey, I go by the very real name of harrymccracken on Facebook–feel free to friend me there if you’re a friend of mine or feel like one…)

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Facebook Crushes E-mail When It Comes to Sharing

Posted by Jason Meserve on July 21, 2009 at 10:07 am

Facebook LogoGiven Facebook’s immense popularity, it comes as no surprise that it is the top place to share information, according to Mashable and sharing widget maker AddToAny. Facebook accounts for 24% of the sharing of links to articles, videos and other content, far outpacing second-place e-mail at 11%. E-mail’s hold on the second slot is in jeopardy though, as Twitter quickly rises through the ranks. The microblogging site accounts for 10.8% of information shared, AddToAny says.

E-mail’s demise as a sharing medium is not a surprise either: Its use among netizens stands at 65.1 percent, while “community sites” reach 66.8 percent. That data seems a bit odd, given that to do anything online, you need an e-mail address. Try signing up for Facebook without one. My guess is that figure refers toactive e-mail users.

At last week’s New Hampshire Social Media Breakfast, John Herman, a teacher at Epping (New Hampshire) High School, said his students barely use e-mail, mainly as a way to sign up for other services before forgetting their passwords and never checking e-mail again. Herman’s story is anecdotal, but does show e-mail’s decline as a central hub for information sharing.

Good or bad, e-mail is not going away. Corporations are not going to share vital company data via Facebook or other public service. But, social networks are perfect for sharing non-critical information with group of people and then aggregating responses from the recipients. Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the social networks could be the antidote for the dreaded “reply-all” disease. Rather than in-boxes cluttered with “Me too” and “That’s great!” replies from a litany of people you may not know, social networks are serving as the catchall for everyone’s need to chime in and giving hope to those that desire to “zero” their inboxes.

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Twitter’s Security Problem is Our Security Problem

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 20, 2009 at 12:36 am

Twitter VaultHow did French data thief “Hacker Croll” break into accounts and swipe the 310 internal Twitter documents which he leaked to TechCrunch?  TechCrunch’s Nik Cubrilovic has a long post explaining what happened–or at least what “Croll” says happened–in surprising detail. Even if you have serious issues with TechCrunch’s ongoing use of stolen documents–as I do–this story is worth a read.

Basically, “Croll” didn’t do anything particularly brilliant–and there were no chinks in Twitter’s security armor that aren’t pretty much universal. Mostly, he took advantage of  (a) Twitter’s use of other Web-based services to run its business; (b) the fact that every organization has employees who use the same damn password for multiple accounts; and (c) password recovery systems that can make it absurdly easy to break into someone else’s account.

Companies aren’t going to stop using Web services, and if there’s a way to prevent employees from using the same password for disparate services from unrelated companies, I can’t think of it. The one aspect of security breaches such as the Twitter break-in that’s addressable is the lax state of password recovery. I’m worried it’ll stay lax, since the easier Web companies make it for users to get back lost passwords, the less costly it is from a customer service standpoint. But I dearly hope that Twitter’s embarrassment services as a wake-up call for the whole industry–one that’s about a decade overdue.

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With Online Passwords, Dishonesty Can Be the Best Policy

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 15, 2009 at 8:11 am

Twitter VaultWell, this is embarrassing: A hacker who apparently broke into various online accounts associated with Twitter executives and employees has sent TechCrunch hundreds of documents he purloined, including everything from user-growth projections to staffers’ meal preferences. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington says he’s going to publish the stuff that has a lot of news value.

I’m not that interested in sensitive Twitter documents, so the most interesting aspect of all this is how easily the hacker was apparently able to get into Twitter’s online accounts. Actually, he doesn’t appear to have done any true hacking–he was just able to determine or reset passwords at Gmail, AT&T, MobileMe, and elsewhere.

Observers are rightly saying that the pilfering is a potentially useful reminder of the risks associated with storing sensitive information on the Internet. And most specifically, it may show that some Web services’ password-recovery features are inherently dangerous. It’s possible that some Twitter employees chose passwords or password questions that were too easy to guess, but it’s also possible that they followed the advice and instructions at the services in question to the letter, and their accounts still weren’t safe.

When someone broke into Salma Hayek’s MobileMe account in April, I wrote that using easily-obtained information like a user’s birthday or the maiden name of his or her mother to protect an account is unacceptably risky. It’s alsodangerous to provide password recovery tools that let someone reset a password in one browser session, without having to access information sent by e-mail.

Even after the crummy publicity of Salma’s security breach, MobileMe is still suggesting to users that “What is my pet’s name?” is a reasonable secret question:

MobileMe

If you know (or can guess) a MobileMe user’s account name, birthday, and the answer to his or her secret question, you’re in.

Bottom line: It pays to be paranoid online, especially since some of the companies whose serves you may use are probably way too nonchalant. If a service asks for easy-to-find information, it’s not a bad idea to simply lie like a rug. Any fool can determine that your mom was a Benson, so why not decide that for the purposes of your online security, she was a McGillicuddy–and then never tell another living soul? Even when you can specify your own “Secret Question,” specifying an answer that’s wrong isn’t a bad safety measure.

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