“Every time I turn around there’s a new scam.” Maryanne Bessette
Scams, scams, scams… All around, everywhere… Now and before, here and there!
And for the past few years, scams are spreading even more and taking on a new face for everyone using social media to be seduced and deceived by!
Can you believe that there are websites, such as scambusters.org, dedicated to unavailing scam online?
Therefore, and in efforts to keep you safe, at least from social media inflicted scams, here’s a mixed list of top 8 scams you should know about and probably take to mind when using Facebook, Twitter and social media in general:
1. Free Facebook iPad Offer is a scam, Sophos reveals
iPad FaceBook scam automatically signs you up for a $10 a week premium cell phone service post from: FSMdotCOM.
Social media is what we love to talk about at Thoughtpick. In a effort to allow you to better understand and grasp the right use of social media for your upcoming campaigns, we are dedicating this regular section for you tailored to analyze old, new and current campaigns in terms of audience, success, lesson learned and more so you could learn about social media by example!
Stat Box: Brand Name: VitaminWater “Connect” Campaign URL: Facebook Fanpage Social Media Channels Used: Facebook & Twitter Appeal: Cash prize, sense of belonging & quenching thirst in a healthy way! Target Audience: Mostly US based Facebook & Twitter users, Vitamin Water consumers, both females & males of ages between 13 and 28 Date: 7 January, 2010 Campaign Duration: Mid January
“Vitamin Water has just launched a new Black Cherry-Lime Facebook flavored drink with Caffeine and 8 other nutrients. Now you can hydrate, take your vitamins and connect with thousands of others on Facebook all at the same time”.
First it was Reddit’s Bacon Soap, and now it is Facebook’s VitaminWater: “Connect”! What is going on with those social media sites and venues? Are they going nuts? Trust me, they are not; they are seeking to gain attention and loyalty and further expand their target audience!
“A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the ladies, but a handsome fool is irresistible”. William Makepeace
Inspired from this very statement, we, the two Thoughtpick ladies, decided to spice things up a bit for you and bring those handsome irresistible geeks to you within a top ten list and introduce you to them!
1. Ryan Block — Former Editor of Engadget, Founder of Gdgt (Roba’s pick)
Gdgt founder Ryan Block, former editor of Engadget
The broody eyes, the dirty look, the bad-boy vibes — ah, hotness incarnate.
Ryan Block is the co-founder of gdgt, and the former editor popular gadget blog Engadget. We’re not the only ones crushing on him, Block was named one of Paper Magazine’s Beautiful People in 2006. Beautiful indeed!
Mashable is running its 3rd cycle of its Open Web Awards this year. The Open Web Awards is their international online voting competition that covers major innovations around web technology and achievements in the social media arena. This year, Mashable has created a viral nomination platform that was spread amongst social media enthusiasts all over the web. While the awards are directed towards web innovators in social media, they are not explicit to persons or companies, but also to brands and any page or product online!
Mashable number of unique visitors almost tripled in the last year
Thousands of people – mainly social media experts – have nominated themselves (or have been nominated by others), and each one of them has probably called for votes through his social media contacts and followers to provide Mashable with amazing free advertising. According to Compete.com web stats, Mashable’s unique visitors have almost tripled in the past year surpassing TechCrunch back in April.
One of the interesting moves of self promotion for the Mashable Open Web Awards is DM’s video (who contacted us to have is name removed from this post) over on his YouTube channel. He is nominated under the “most educating” category – same as Stephen Fry – and is now in the top 500. He used a Youtube video to call out for his 18k+ channel subscribers to vote for him.
Calling for votes…
The Open Web Awards have gained much momentum all over the web. The biggest winner is Mashable themselves! The awards web page shows an impressive 109,955 retweets! I wonder if there has ever existed any page that surpassed that number of retweets!
What do you think of Mashable Open Web Awards? Have you participated in giving Mashable some free advertising? Do you think it helped them take over TechCrunch? Let us know your opinion in the comments section
If I were to ask you: Where do you usually go when looking to read web focused news and social media related stories and tips? The answer would probably be one of three: Mashable, TechCrunch or both!
In our first TechCrunch vs. Mashable review post, we compared and contrasted TechCrunch and Mashable in terms of generalstats, interface & reviews. Here in part 2, we will be comparing these two sites in termsof Alexa and Quantcast stats and quality and type of content.
Google Trends: Mashable vs TechCrunch
Mashable vs. TechCrunch on Alexa:
Through a short Alexa search, we were able to deduce the following differences between the two hard-headed opponents: Mashable & TechCrunch. Take a look:
With only a month’s head start for TechCrunch in 2005, it is undeniable that the competition is, and has been, overwhelming for our two “weblogs”!
If I were to ask you: Where do you usually go when looking to read web focused news and social media related stories and tips? The answer would probably be one of three: Mashable, TechCrunch or both!
Just by taking a quick and uneducated look at the graph below, it is easy to clearly assess how TechCrunch and Mashable have been head-to-head on competition for the last year (and more).
Mashable vs. TechCrunch on Compete
But the above figures are available for all and it is not a secret to anyone that those two sites are rough to crack opponents when it comes to dealing with each other! Therefore, I invite you to stay tuned with us while we compare and contrast Mashable and TechCrunch from every possible aspect such as stats, interfaces, content, mistakes and more in a 2 parts review.
Mashable vs. TechCrunch – The Reviews:
Mashable’s Profile:
“Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Networking news. With more than 5 million monthly page views, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web.”.
“It’s informative and important for our keeping up with the ongoing changes in networking innovations. its good to be part of the discussion“. By humanette
“Great resource for what’s happening in social media“. By Jeremy Jaramillo
“Very good site. Lots of news about social media. High refresh rate“. By Casper Maltha
TechCrunch’s Profile:
“It all started on July 15 2005 when founder Michael Arrington opened TechCrunch for the first time. His goal with the blog was to be dedicated about profiling and reviewing companies and internet products. By the time the site turned one year, they had 883 posts, 23,713 comments and 65,00 RSS and email subscribers. They also had 3 other partner sites in their network and have had seven guest post writers and he already hired a co-writer to help him, Marshall Kirkpatrick”. [read full article >>]
While reading the latest ReadWriteWeb article “Google News May Add Wikipedia as a Source”, the question of news integrity crossed my mind. After conducting some research, I came up with the following rationalizations:
The “too many eyes”theory: When a service is constantly being monitored by many concerned parties, excellence in performance is a must! The more the number of eyes watching, the better the content; this applies to Wikipedia.Try visiting Wikipedia, choosing any topic and editing its content to something useless like “bla, bla, bla!”, wait for a few minutes and then recheck. You will find that the useless content has been removed and replaced with the original content by one of the readers. This is a great example of data integrity on Wikipedia.
"Too Many Eyes" By: Ken Sotrch
The “reliable news sources” assumption: Why do we always assume that NYT is more reliable that Techcruch, for example? Is it the reputation of credibility that NYT has built throughout the years? And if so, is that enough to believe everything the NYT publishes or broadcasts? I think not. On the same grounds, why trust NYT more than Wikipedia as a news source, and so on?
The “big whales make mistakes too” reality: Yes it’s a fact – very important news sources such as Britannica also have a certain percentage of errors in the content they offer and the studies they release to the public and since “no one is perfect”, Wikipedia included, that is absolutely natural.
To conclude, I believe in Wikipedia since it essentially gathers the knowledge and brain power of thousands, nay millions, of people out there into a collaborative space which could, in no way, be as biased or commercial as many other news sources. Therefore, in the debate of whether or not Wikipedia should be a source in Google News, I vote: “Yes”!
How about you, what’s your vote? Do you think Wikipedia is credible enough for Google News?
Facebook’s VitaminWater “Connect” Flavor
Social media is what we love to talk about at Thoughtpick. In a effort to allow you to better understand and grasp the right use of social media for your upcoming campaigns, we are dedicating this regular section for you tailored to analyze old, new and current campaigns in terms of audience, success, lesson learned and more so you could learn about social media by example!
Stat Box:
Brand Name: VitaminWater “Connect”
Campaign URL: Facebook Fanpage
Social Media Channels Used: Facebook & Twitter
Appeal: Cash prize, sense of belonging & quenching thirst in a healthy way!
Target Audience: Mostly US based Facebook & Twitter users, Vitamin Water consumers, both females & males of ages between 13 and 28
Date: 7 January, 2010
Campaign Duration: Mid January
First it was Reddit’s Bacon Soap, and now it is Facebook’s VitaminWater: “Connect”! What is going on with those social media sites and venues? Are they going nuts? Trust me, they are not; they are seeking to gain attention and loyalty and further expand their target audience!
Good move VitaminWater and consequently Facebook, although I have to stress the fact that I saw this coming and I think Twitter is on the way! [read full article >>]