In early 2008, Chuck and I started planning our wedding. As I sifted through our engagement pictures for our “Save the Date”, I found that many of the pictures showed me with my mouth closed and not showing a big shiny smile. The reason for that is that I was unhappy with the way I smiled, so I wouldn’t smile. Knowing that a wedding would involve many more pictures, and wanting to look my absolute best that day (what bride wouldn’t?), I decided to ask my dentist, Dr. Gina Ostrand, if there was anything that she could do to “brighten it up”. She took on the task and I’m happy to report, did an outstanding job of creating a beautiful smile on my face – both outwardly and inwardly. I felt wonderful, beautiful and confident and was ready for that walk down the aisle! 
Feeling good about yourself and your image is crucial to portraying the confidence that is within you to others. When you FEEL like you look good, you DO look good! In business, this is not only about your personal appearance, but it is about the look of your brand. Your website, your business cards, your ads or banners, your Twitter background or your Facebook Page all send a message about you and your business. How do you feel about your brand today? Are you consistent through all of your media? Is your look old and outdated? Are you feeling good about it?
I’ve just updated our Twitter backgrounds (@MVPSusi, @MVPChuck and @MyVirtualProj) and I feel good about them. This will propel me forward to re-designing our landing tab in our Facebook Fan Page and working harder to get My Virtual Project’s website to the place I think it should be. I’m comfortable with those things right now, but I would rather be ecstatic! Wouldn’t you?
I’d love to help you on your journey too! My Virtual Project has a contest each year for something graphic. Last year it was logos, this year it is Twitter backgrounds. Hey folks – this is a freebie! All you have to do is sign up. Refresh and renew yourself – take your look to the top!
Perils of Puppy – Volume 2
By · CommentsIf you’ve read Susi’s previous post about how having a new puppy affects your ability to run a home-based business, you know that not only is it difficult, it’s a huge challenge. Now that the puppy is nearing 5 months old, things have gotten a bit better. She can be convinced to take a nap while we both get some work done, at least for a little while.
OK… on to Volume 2…
On January 4th, Susi underwent some fairly major surgery (no details necessary) that resulted in her being required to stay in bed (or on the couch), take pain killers, antibiotics, can’t lift anything over 10 lbs for six weeks, and such. So here we were, puppy wanting to jump on mom, dad trying to corral the dogs, take care of mom, keep the house in order… AND try to work.
As you can imagine, this effort was destined to be a mission impossible. There was not a moment available to spend time on the business to try to get a bit of work done. Every time I thought there was an opportunity, and was just sitting down to work, I heard the dogs wrestling and had to don my striped shirt and be a referee to the free-for-all. Thinking I was smarter than the dogs, I put up the baby gates to keep them separated, which only accomplished having a constant and nerve-stomping “whine” emitting from each of them because they wanted to play. Dohhhhhhh.
Blissful Naptime for All
The days went by (very slowly), the business limped along on auto-pilot and we resolved ourselves to the fact that the next couple of weeks would be “down time” and we’d have to catch up after Susi was strong enough for us to be a solid tag-team again.
So here we are 3 weeks later, both sitting at our desks, dogs under feet (sleeping peacefully at last) and finally getting something done again. We have a meeting scheduled for this morning to strategize on how to recover from the last couple of weeks as well as plan for the next quarter and upcoming year. Things are slowly getting back to “quasi” normal again.
I can say now with conviction that having a puppy, a partner that is recovering from surgery and an overall household routine in shambles definitely upsets the “Let’s get er’ done” attitude of our home based business. That being said, I do love the new puppy and I love my wife/partner/best friend more than ever, but I’m SOOOOO happy that things are getting back to normal a little bit at a time. Onward and upward we go.
Thanks for listening.
A little over 2 years ago, we lost our beloved Golden/Lab mix to old age. She was 14-1/2 and it was certainly the most humane thing for her to go. But even though we still have a wonderful 13-1/2 year old Black Lab/Terrier mix at home, I felt the void of the sweet Golden and kept eyeing up the puppies on Petfinders.com. We thought we might wait until Spring, but as it turned out, my daughter found this beautiful girl that looked exactly like the angel we dreamed would be our next puppy. I filled out the application, got approved, and sent my daughter to pick up “Flower” (now Stardust) in Illinois – sight unseen.
I knew that getting a puppy was going to require some work. I knew she would cry at night, have to be let out frequently, probably get into some chewing episodes or have accidents. But we are virtual and work from home – so no problem, right?
Flower - aka Stardust
WRONG – Oh so wrong.
For the last 8 days that our little Stardust has graced our presence, she has shown us her sweet, cuddly, “moosh her wittle face side” and we have totally fallen in love. But she has also shown us that she’s our new baby who not only cries in the middle of the night, but every time she’s left alone. She’s not only biting but she’s like Kujette drawing blood with rough play. She’s not mean, she’s.. well… a PUPPY. I’m afraid someone is going to find me murmuring in my sleep “no bites, no bites, no bites”. I might start correcting my Twitter friends with “Pssst” – (we are becoming total Cesar Millan Dog Whisperer types).
Grrrrrrough!
She terrorizes our Black Lab by jumping, biting, barking, chasing, and attempting to steal every bit of attention or morsel of food she can get from the old girl. At first, Sam was confused why we would bring such a little interloper into the house and was a little rough, which we corrected. Wrong thing to do because then our little Marleyette decided she was boss. It took a bit of allowing whatever rough play needed to happen and eventually our good old girl took back the reigns and “put her in her place” a couple of times with a firm but gentle nudge, growl or nip that has allowed them to become fast friends.
BFFs
We walked around like zombies for a few days trying to get all of this into some sort of normalness, but since neither one of us remembered what it was like to have a PUPPY for 13 or 14 years, we were rather jolted into a reality of an upside down world that didn’t even come close to resembling the life we were used to. Not only that, she happened to be adopted in a particularly busy week for us so it has meant late nights, a little crabbiness and an agreed upon “whose turn” schedule to hold, train, love, scold, and pay attention to details. We had to get into a mode of who had the most important tasks and let the other one care for puppy. So if you haven’t seen me on Twitter for a little while, you now know the reason. If I wasn’t taking my “turn”, I was working on projects that needed to go out the door.
8 days – keep it in mind – there has been no sanity here for 8 days.
But now, as we settle in, things are getting much better and we’re getting back to life and work. We have just about finished the book “How to Raise the Perfect Dog Through Puppyhood and Beyond” and are paying very close attention to being calm and assertive (thank you Cesar!) It’s made a world of difference and I highly recommend the book. Just make sure you get it BEFORE YOU GET THE PUPPY.
I was right – she is the perfect girl for us. She’s a good mix of breed, the right size and perfectly adorable. And now she’s becoming obedient, loving, and actually can sit on command and sleep through the night at 11 weeks without one accident. Make no mistake, the lessons are still being learned. The instincts of the dog have always been there. It is we, the humans, that are being trained. But we’re all learning something about relationships, socializing, love, respect and hard work. And isn’t that just life?
Our Perfect Stardust
Social Network Dating – Does it Really Work?
By · CommentsFour years ago, you couldn’t have gotten me to even THINK about trying to date someone I met online. That option was the furthest thing from my mind. I had been divorced for 
about ten years and had one “relatively long” relationship during that time. I was so focused on my work (which took 60+ hours of my time per week) that I didn’t have time for anything else. When my company was bought out, I hung around for a while but didn’t like the way things were going so I opted for early retirement. My focus after that was to relax, play golf, play music and have fun. I took a part-time job at a local golf course, got free golf and got half off on my equipment. I played in two bands and had life by the proverbial you-know-what. THEN, I had an accident at work. I fell and broke my left ankle in three places (my orthopedic surgeon hadn’t seen a break much worse than mine) and I was laid up for three months in a cast, then in rehab for six more months, which pretty much killed my golfing hobby.
It was then that I decided to “consider” the idea of online dating. I didn’t go “out” very often, resulting in not meeting too many new people, so it seemed to be a plausible option. I signed up for Match.com and began scanning the profiles. I was getting rather disillusioned with the whole process but I agreed to meet one woman for coffee. When I saw her, I was already late for the door. Her picture could have been posted as the definition of “False Advertising”. That pretty much did it for me so I decided to quit the dating scene. Before I was able to cancel my subscription, I got a “wink” from an attractive woman. She liked the same things I did, had the same professional background as I did, AND… she lived 8 miles away. Was this too good to be true? We exchanged several lengthy emails and then a few multi-hour phone calls before we decided to meet in person. We agreed to meet for a drink at a local Irish Pub. We were talking for a while when I realized that it had been 3 hours. We said goodnight, made plans for another date and from that point on were inseparable. We continued dating for a year and got married the following summer. We’ve never been happier and vowed to give each other 50 years. So the answer to the question is YES, social online dating does work. Statistics now show that 1 out of 8 marriages start online.
Did it work for you?
Hey It’s October 2 and It’s Follow Friday on Twitter!
By · Comments
OK, so I know I promised each Friday, but that is proving to be a challenge. I’m more of a Tweeter than a Blogger, but I will try to do this monthly. Notice I said “try” 
. Here are some great Virtual Assistants that you should follow. VAs have an unbelievable range of skills and these are a few on Twitter that send out valuable tips or tweets on a regular basis:
@mmangen - Michelle Mangen is a Virtual Assistant who is based in Wisconsin. She is a very generous tweeter with tweets ranging from Excel tips (she is the “Excel Queen”) to social media to local events. She is always grateful and promotes YOU! Love this girl!
@vajburgess – Joanne is a fellow classmate of mine from VAClassroom. She is always very engaging and active with administrative and marketing tweets. You’ll find her out there often with a very lively tweet stream!
@DediKatedVA – Deborah Reynolds is a super nice person who tweets positively 100% of the time. She has always got an inspirational quote or a tip to share, re-tweets others regularly and is truly “DediKated” to her followers! She’s an awsome VA specializing in administrative and internet marketing services.
@LegalTypist – Andrea Cannavina is an awesome virtual assistant who is an attorney’s best source on Twitter! She is interactive with her tweeps and always has an opinion to share on the latest in legal or tech!
@melanieokane – Melanie O’Kane is Director and Managing Editor of IVAACast, the official online magazine of the International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA). She tweets great links very useful to small businesses as well as Virtual Assistants who are trying to run their business or just starting out. A great resource!
There’s my list for now – do you have a Virtual Assistant you’d like to recommend?
Twitter Clients – My 3 Favorites and Why
By · CommentsFor those who are on Twitter a lot like I am, there are lots of tools available to make your tweeting manageable. There are some, however, that do a better job than others. Of course, which ones do a better job is really up to you and the way you use Twitter. I’ve been trying out many of the popular applications, but I’ve pretty much narrowed down the three Twitter clients that are my favorites: Mixero, Tweetdeck and Seesmic. Mixero is a little less known, and requires an invitation to use it, but I believe it’s fairly easy to get.
In general, all of these clients provide you with the basics you would expect – the ability to re-tweet (RT), direct message (DM), follow a user, favor a tweet, etc. Here’s a highlight of a few of the features that are a “must-have” for me and how some of them differ from client to client.
Tweetshrink
I use this. A lot. And the reason I do is because there are many times I’d like to re-tweet someone, but their tweet is just too long. A great solution would be for Tweeters to make sure they leave enough characters for their post to be re-tweetable, but that doesn’t always happen (leave 5 + username). And even if they did leave the characters, if it gets re-tweeted by many, the characters are used up by all of the RT @ (usernames). The more RTs, the more characters used up – and we only have 140. So, to me, a tweetshrink feature is mandatory. And yes, I realize that it isn’t always professional looking – but if the tweet is good, I don’t want to re-write someone else’s words and I do want them to get credit. All three clients do offer this important feature.
URL Shortener
This is another feature that all three clients offer, but not all in the same way. They all three offer different url shortener services, with bit.ly and is.gd being the common denominators.
Seesmic has several options listed in a drop down window.
Seesmic URL Shortener Options Window
The options are also listed under their Services on the left side of the option window along with their image sharing services.
Mixero URL Shortener Options Window
All three clients do have image sharing services for sharing photos in your tweets.
Tweetdeck URL Shortener Options Window
Grouping Features
Again, all three clients offer this, but visually, Mixero is different. Seesmic and Tweetdeck both have columns, which to me is a little cumbersome. Mixero has a center column that allows you to add multiple groups to it. When you select the group, all of the tweets from that group are displayed in your main tweet window. They call this ActiveLists. I like it because it allows you to switch between them to read what is going on in that particular group or go back to your “Home” or “All” tweets with ease. You don’t have to scroll between columns. You can also pop out a window of a specific list or group. Pretty cool.
Viewing User Profiles
Tweetdeck allows you to view a user’s profile by clicking either their name under the photo or by hovering over the User features in the bottom right corner of the user’s picture.
Seesmic has you click the user name to get their basic Twitter profile information with many options to filter tweets or search for another user.
In Mixero, if you just double-click the user’s picture, you get their entire timeline (tweet stream) as well as tabs for “Chat” (which is your Direct Message conversation with that profile user) and a “Profile” tab, which gives the basic information of their Twitter profile plus the listing of groups that you have set up where you can easily add or remove them from the groups.
These are just a few of my favorite things. I guess I’d have to say that Mixero is leading the race right now, but who knows? Things change rapidly and there will probably be something new out tomorrow that will be the latest and greatest. So what are your favorite clients? What do you love about them? I’m always curious – I do tend to gravitate to those “shiny objects”.
Hey It’s Follow Friday on Twitter! My Recs Are…
By · CommentsI love the #followfriday hashtag on Twitter, but it sometimes feels a bit rote. I want to mention everyone that I follow and appreciate, but I feel like I might occasionally leave someone out and really don’t want to offend them.
I would, however, like to point out a gaggle of peeps in this post and why I do follow them. Each Friday, I hope to make a few more recommendations. For now, let’s start with these 5:
@unmarketing – OK, I know lots of people follow Scott Stratten. He’s popular and there’s a reason why. Not only does he share content that is valuable, he’s hilarious. He’s got just enough sarcasm and wit going to crack me up and cause me to do an @reply often. He gets RTs from me many times because of his information, but also many times because I like to share a good laugh. Fun guy.
@VAinParadise – Dawn Riley is an Online Business Manager and shares lots of great stuff for small businesses, virtual assistants and entrepreneurs. She always has the latest in links and is always grateful and acknowledges RTs with a heartfelt thank you. And I just love her website!
@BobButler – I’ve known Bob a long time because he is the founder/developer of Time Matters® software, which I have supported for 15 years. I follow Bob because I truly believe he is genius inspiration. His recent ventures @BestThinking and @ReallyWho are two examples of that. He’s also a really nice guy and a great mentor for me.
@bkmacdaddy – Brian McDaniel is such a cool guy. I just love this guy. Mostly graphic/web design tweets and tips but they can run the gamut from funny to design to social media to world news. He’s also one that is a grateful tweeter and very responsive as well. A true social networker kind of guy!
@mashable – ‘Nuff said. If Twitter is down, they’ve got the answer. There’s so much information here that it’s hard to keep up.
So – that’s my list for this week and I’m stickin’ to it. Of course, there’s always next week so don’t feel left out. If we’re talking on Twitter, you know who you are and I’ll be shouting out your name soon.
I’ve got a very techie (geeky?) background and it’s in my nature to always look for new and/or better or more efficient ways to do things. I have beta tested lots of applications in my time, which is why I’m often compelled to sign up in many places for tools that I find appealing. I’m forever reading Twitter posts and Mashable, which has lead me to some great new social networking sites and some sites that leave me with this word leaving my lips – “SERIOUSLY?” I have recently come across a couple of good sites (IMHO) as well as one that appears to have great potential. They do seem to be worth the time to investigate.
Tweetimonials – I don’t think this cool Twitter tool is really new, but I wonder if you know how cool it is when you add it to your website. The way it works is that it takes your tweets that you’ve marked as favorites (and that would be the ones where your peeps have posted kind and complimentary things about you ) and puts them into a running list. You add the widget to your website and it’s like a marquee that runs small testimonials for you! What a great concept. As an example, here are my Tweetimonials for @MVPSusi on the My Virtual Project Resources page.
GizaPage – I’ve just recently signed up for this and you can view my GizaPage at http://susischuele.gizapage.com/. If you take a look, you can see all of my profiles that I’ve opted to publish on GizaPage. If you’re like me, that’s a lot of profiles! But it’s extremely convenient to give others this one link to your entire social identity instead of 40. You can keep yourself up to date through the “My Organizer” button, and your friends can stay up to date through one site. Not to mention that you can promote this site through email and manage privacy. The screenshot here shows a great dashboard that creates a tab with each update you do for easy reference. I will probably use this in combination with Tweetdeck for Twitter because although they do provide the Twitter profile, I like all of the features with Tweetdeck.
All Of Me – Although I’ve just briefly taken a look at this and am currently beta testing it, it looks like it could be something pretty great. It basically provides you with an automatic personal timeline of your life from any digital assets you have, such as pictures, videos, blogs, documents, or any internet page that you can view as a kind of moving graph. You can also view timelines on friends and family as well as other featured timelines like Mashable and even TV Shows such as Desperate Housewives. You can also run the timelines in a slideshow, although the images don’t always come out well. It’s great for Twitter posts though. All in all – Pretty cool.
Of course there are hundreds of social networking tools available, and it’s really a personal choice. However, these 3 did stand out for me.
Client Relationship Management in Today’s Online World
By · CommentsWe all know that customer relationships are vitally important in any business. Most people will agree that it’s easier to provide great customer service when you do business with someone face-to-face, compared to when you’re dealing with a person virtually. When you’re face-to-face, you get that familiar “warm and cozy” feeling when you can look into someone’s eyes and feel the emotion emitting from them, either good or bad. You have a natural talent to interpret the meaning of spoken words, process information and respond to most any situation. But, when you conduct business virtually, all you have to make someone feel comfortable are your words and your actions.
I went to the mailbox the other day to get the mail, and in it was a personally addressed envelope with my wife’s and my name on it. I opened it and it was a very nice, high quality greeting card. It was a thank-you card from Tom, the husband of one of our clients, for meeting with him. On the inside was a personal photo of him, his wife and their young daughter. Along with the photo was a very nice hand-written (or so it looked) message thanking us for meeting with him to discuss a business opportunity. A smile came across my face, as I’m sure it does yours when you receive a nice card from someone for your birthday, anniversary, holiday or other special occasion. You feel gratified that someone took the time to not only think of you, but to send you a personal greeting card. “What a nice thing to do” we said. That’s when it became clear that we should look at this as a way to create and promote a more personal relationship with our clients.
The business opportunity we discussed with Tom was “Send-Out-Cards”, an online application that allows you to send a printed card from a huge library of available greeting cards for almost any occasion. How many times have you wanted to send someone a card for a special occasion? You have to go to a store, browse the racks for an appropriate card, purchase it, drive home, fill it out, address it, stamp it and put it in the mailbox for pickup. With Send-Out-Cards, the process is; login to your online account, select your card, pick the recipient from your contact file and press send. That’s it. Send-Out-Cards does the rest. They print it, stuff it, address it and mail it, and all for less than you would pay for a card in the store… including postage.
Send-Out-Cards has a few special features that I should highlight:
- You can upload your own digital photographs into the Send-Out-Cards system so you can access them anywhere and at any time. This way you can further personalize your card with custom photos of yourself, your family, your pets, a vacation spot, your business logo, basically any photo you want to share with someone. Here is our graphic for inside our thank-you card to prospective clients after we meet with them.
- You can enhance your cards with borders, captions and word bubbles.
- Send-Out-Cards provides a ‘handwriting and signature form’ that you can fill out and mail in. They load it into your account and your cards can then be printed with your own personal handwriting and signature to make the card even more special.
- Not only can you use one of the over 10,000 available cards, but you can create your own custom card with your selected photo on the front and draft your own text for the card in one of many available fonts and colors (or your own handwriting). You can say anything you like to let the person receiving the card know how you feel. Here’s another example of a custom graphic that we put on an invitation for a party we’re having.
- There are a number of different card layouts and formats to choose from to make you selection even more personal.
- You can create campaigns that will remind you of the event and then automatically send out Thank You Cards, Birthday Cards, Holiday Cards, or Promotional Postcards.
- If that isn’t enough, you can also have Send-Out-Cards include a nice gift along with the card. There are many gifts to choose from such as; gourmet foods, books & magazines, seasonal gifts, gifts for pets, gifts for children, gifts for baby, gifts for the home, gift baskets and gift cards.
You can typically pay $3.00 – $5.00 for a nice greeting card at the store, sometimes more, and that doesn’t include postage. At Send-Out-Cards, there are three options provided to send cards:
- Retail Package Plus: a card costs an average of $1.00
- Wholesale Package Plus: a card costs an average of $.82
- Entrepreneur Package Plus: a card costs an average of $.68
Each package requires an up-front membership fee, and varying levels of commitment. If you only send cards to your family on special occasions, or send cards a couple times a month, or if you send cards regularly to your family, friends, business associates, clients and prospective clients, there is a package combination that matches your needs.
And one final point, probably one of the more important points to Send-Out-Cards. This is a Network Marketing business so if you are looking for a way to make residual income by helping other people use Send-Out-Cards to enhance their life and the lives of the people they touch, you can sign up for the Entrepreneur Package which provides you with the rights to distribute this application and sign up other individuals that are interested in making residual income. The more people you sign up as an Entrepreneur the larger your team becomes and the more residual income you make.
Here’s the bottom line; Send-Out-Cards is an absolutely awesome way to automate your personal and business relationship management. When did you ever NOT like receiving a greeting card?
See their website at http://www.sendoutcards.com/. If you would like to try the system FREE, send us an email at info@myvirtualproject.com and we’ll give you a code to send one free card so you can see how the application works. Also, it you have any questions once you get into the site, you can give us a call and we’ll walk you through the screens.
Thanks for visiting our blog. Come back again soon.
Is Training Necessary to Use Social Networking Sites?
By · CommentsIn a word, “NO”. You don’t need training to use social networking sites. The profiles are relatively easy to complete and there is no cost. That being said, I would like to voice my own opinion on this (and I can, since this is our blog).
I’ve heard numerous stories of people signing up on Twitter and after a short time saying “I stopped using Twitter because it provided no value to me. I don’t care what you’re having for dinner. I don’t care that you’re taking your dog for a walk and I don’t care what you did Friday night.”
Posting nothing but these kinds of comments is an example of how NOT to use Twitter, and why the abandonment rate for Twitter is as high as 70%. Obviously, these people are either following the wrong peeps (Twitter language for people) or they don’t know how to follow the right ones. If you’re in it just for the social, fun, entertainment aspect, then fine, talk blather to people. But, if you’re using your expertise on Twitter to help people and want to connect with people that can help your business, it makes sense to get some level of training to get a jump start on how to use Twitter correctly. Learn how to find the right types of people to follow by using a tool such as Twellow. Learn the “culture” of Twitter by observing long time users or social media enthusiasts. Learn how to create relationships with those that could eventually become a business or joint venture partner.
The same principle goes for Facebook, LinkedIn and a myriad of other social networking sites. Yes, eventually you will get the hang of things by watching, reading, finding tidbits of useful information on blogs and articles about the sites you are using, but it takes time and energy. Many people get frustrated and give up before their invested time and energy become fruitful.
The bottom line is that if you get some level of training before you jump in with both feet, your chances of success will be much greater… and you could even help Twitter lower their abandonment rate (hey, do you think they would pay you for that?… oh, okay, never mind).
By the way, if you know someone who would like some training on any of the aforementioned social networking sites, it just so happens that we do provide training as a part of our array of attractive service offerings (end of plug).
Thanks for stopping by our blog. Come back again soon.
Amidst the Shiny – Will I Read Your Blog?
By · CommentsI know I’ve been 
a bit remiss about blogging – I admit it. I would imagine that’s because I’m somewhat of a victim of “Bright Shiny Object Syndrome” and I get distracted by other things, but… I digress. I’m telling myself that I need to get better about posting regularly so, here’s the deal. I’m going to blog more often, but they’re going to be very short. Two to three paragraphs mostly. I’ll do the occasional lengthier blog, but for the most part, short is the operative word. Even the long ones won’t be over four or five paragraphs.
And here’s why. I’ve discovered that when I click on a link through Twitter or Facebook and I am taken to a blog, I scan the blog first. If it’s a scrolling operation and the text is tiny taking up the entire page, chances are, I’m out. I won’t read it unless it totally captures my attention because, frankly, I just don’t have the time. I imagine that many people feel the same way. So I’d love to bring you to my blog to hear what I have to say, but I’ll save the articles for Ezine or some other article writing service. What do you think? How do you feel about reading long posts? Am I off the mark?
Social networks can be full of crazies. Almost daily, I receive notification of someone following me on Twitter that is obviously a spammer. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could tell from that email or notification whether this was a verified and legitimate person worthy of a follow back or a hacker with nothing better to do? Wouldn’t you like to know that the person requesting to be your friend on Facebook is a professional? I have better things to do on social networks than weed out spammers.
And voila, almost as if the lamp had just been rubbed, a Web 2.0 Identify Verification genie appears. ReallyWho.com is a site that verifie
s that “You Are Who You Say You Are” through public records identity verification technology used by financial institutions. Their CEO, Bob Butler, states in their Press Release:
“We are protecting Web 2.0 identities with the same proven technology that has been used for years by the financial industry. People have invested thousands of hours blogging, messaging and Tweeting to develop online personas and reputations that are increasingly important to protect.”
Once you have gone through their process and become verified, ReallyWho adds a green verification bar with a checkmark to the bottom of your profile picture. It also lists all of the sites you work from on your ReallyWho personal profile, which you create when you sign up. The other great feature is that once you have your personal profile established, it comes with a personal URL that you can use in your social network profiles. This link creates an “identity loop” because it takes your friends and followers to the verified profile, where they can then “loop back” to your social network profile – thereby confirming that “you are who you say you are”. Their tutorial video does a great job of explaining ReallyWho’s innovative approach.
All I can say is… It’s about time and thanks Bob.
Mobster World on Twitter – aka… Social Spamming
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I got a message from one of the people I’m following on Twitter that said “Hey, I just added you to my Mafia family. You should accept my invitation! Click here: (link to game – not provided for obvious reasons)”. I thought, “what the heck is this?”. So being a curious sort of guy, and trusting the person the message came from, I clicked on it. The first thing it asked for was permission to connect to my Twitter account, which reluctantly, I approved. Upon entering the game, I didn’t see anywhere to access the person who sent me the initial message. SO…. I just fooled around a bit with the game, bought a baseball bat, committed a burglary, got some cash, bought a gun, did a drug deal (all of which was a bit weird as I felt like I was actually committing a crime). After playing with this for about 15 minutes or so, I got out of the game and went back to Twitter. HOLY CRAP… every one of my actions in the game became a Tweet in my tweet-stream. Not only that, but the game, without asking my permission, sent a Direct Message to EVERY one of my followers saying “Hey, I just added you to my Mafia family. You should accept my invitation! Click here:(link to game)”.
SO… now I begin to understand how this Mafia (spamming) game works. I sent a Tweet to my followers apologizing for the “Mafia” tweets, that I was just testing the game and didn’t realize that it was Tweeting all my actions. I wished all the players good luck and left it at that.
OK, so let’s fast forward to this morning… at 5:00am the game, again without my permission, sent ANOTHER direct message to all my followers “Hey, I just added you to my Mafia family. You should accept my invitation! Click here: (link to game)”.
I was LIVID. I immediately went into my Twitter account Settings tab and revoked the Mafia Game’s access rights. For all those that received the DM, I apologize (again)… and I leave you with one last word of advice:
WARNING WILL ROBINSON…. STAY AWAY FROM THIS GAME.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. My Blog, My Rules.
Signed,
Totally-Frustrated with crap like this
