I’m the first Twitter spammer, ugh
April 10, 2007 | 2 Comments
There’s a lot of things I am, but this wasn’t one of them that I expected to become — particularly given my love for the Twitter service. But things are fine with the Twitter team and me.
Spoke to Alex of Twitter yesterday morning and he was cool about the “forecast” incident:
Don’t worry about it. Our system was capable of doing something dumb, and you just happened to stumble on it. We’ll get it fixed up. I’d rather that somebody who *likes* the service came across bugs like that than somebody who actually has malicious intent.
Later he wrote:
We’re taking some code live that clamps down on multiple friend request emails. Thanks again for letting us know what happened with the bot.
And here’s some talk in the Twitter development group regarding the incident.
Below is my email to the Twitter team: Read more
Web2.0forsale.com Open Discussions
April 10, 2007 | 10 Comments
I’m linking to this post from web2.0forsale.com — consider it a quick man’s way of allowing visitors of web2.0forsale.com to post comments about any of the classified listings at web2.0forsale.com.
If you’re a seller — I’d love to hear via comments on this post that you sold (for how much and if it was a result of web2.0forsale.com). Also if anyone wants to post any other thoughts on any of the listings — including sellers — feel free to do so here.
Web 2.0 Buy/Sell Tips
April 10, 2007 | 3 Comments
I’m linking to this post from the web2.0forsale.com website to provide people with a place to post links to help buyers and sellers of websites/domains/etc.
Please post any links to sites/posts that may discuss website costs — such as how someone should buy (or sell) — based on # of subscribers, unique visitors, pageviews, etc. What’s the going rate for cost per visitor? What’s the easiest way to transfer a website — escrow? What about time for due diligence? How much time is typical? What should be handed over during due diligence? What are some NDA type legal documents that could be used during a sale? Where are some other sources to buy/sell a website?
Also, here are some Read more
How to create a Twitter bot
April 10, 2007 | 1 Comment
- Determine what your bot will do. Capabilities include the ability to push information publicly to everyone (i.e. a sports team bot might push the current score of a game after each new point scored; or a world news bot might push headlines with a link to world news items). Another ability is for a user to direct message your bot — essentially sending it a command (i.e. a user could send their zipcode to a weather bot and the bot could send a private direct message back to only that user with the weather for that zipcode; or a stock quote bot could receive a stock symbol from a user and send them back a direct message with the price of that specific stock).
- Register a Twitter username.
- Create the functionality for your bot on a web server. Push (public broadcast of info to anyone that is your bot’s friend) and/or Pull (user provides command, you send them a result) functionality.
- Use Twitter’s API to understand: retrieving direct messages and sending messages.
- Users can only send your bot a direct message if your bot adds that user as a friend. Thus, your bot needs to call the ‘befriend_all’ link, which will befriend anyone that has added your bot as their friend. Hit this link every 30(?) seconds: ....
- An alternative option is to go into the settings of your Twitter username, choose to be alerted by email when someone adds you as a friend, and then monitor those incoming emails and add each user individually that way (automated).
- Adding a username as your bot’s friend is easy, simply use the update function of the Status Methods.
- For push bots (broadcasting a single message to all users that are your friend or following you or viewing your webpage publicly), simply use the update function of the Status Methods.
- For pull bots (a user is your friend, you are their friend, they send you a direct message with some sort of command in it, you process that command on your server, you send them a direct message back with a result/answer to their query), use the direct_messages function of the Direct Message Methods to get the direct messages (”commands”) that users have sent to your bot. Then use the new function of the Direct Message Methods to send that user a direct message (”result/answer”) back to their query (note: direct messages are private, so only that user will see this result).
- Let others know about your bot!
Post it at ...
IDEA #52 - Search Revenues Benefit Charities
April 10, 2007 | 9 Comments
gCharity is a search engine that apparently donates 90% of search revenue proceeds to a charity. The link was posted by Drew, a Techquila Shots reader, but doesn’t list what charities or how much revenue he’s taken in. If you’re going to benefit non-profits, I think full-disclosure is a must.
Anyhow, I kind of like this idea — and have my own spin. What about people submitting charities, which receive votes and each day there is a charity that receives all the ad search revenue (or 90% say). Or maybe as a user of the service, you simply select what charity will benefit over all-time from your searching. This would spread the word and get tons of charities spreading the word organically for you.
Imagine if there had been a ’search engine that benefits the victims of Katrina’ — I think everyone and their mother would have used that search engine. (thanks Eric for this observation)
The main problem I foresee is that this idea is basically encouraging people to click on the pay-per-click (PPC) ads, which Google wouldn’t like (nor any of the PPC advertisers). Firefox (Mozilla) I believe made $56 million last year from the search box in their browser from Google, but that is different — they don’t publicly make people aware that they are making Mozilla money for their foundation. Whereas this idea would be publicly making people aware as to how better to increase the charity beneficiaries’ revenues.
Anyone have another idea on how this could work?
You could setup the same thing as gCharity using Google Co-Op Search — anyone know if that does an ad rev-share right upon install?
Also, look at Blingo for another take on rewarded search.
Here’s another idea post related to charities.
WeBothLike Announced; Interviewed at CenterNetworks
April 9, 2007 | 4 Comments
The cat is out of the bag — Ringside Startup is turning into WeBothLike. I’ve teamed up with Dave Squires (programmer) and we’re executing on the idea of WeBothLike (originally titled ‘LikeLoveOrHate.com’).
We’ll be blogging this start-up journey at ... (grab RSS feed) with the panel of original advisors chiming in throughout the process with their valuable insight.
Below is an excerpt from the interview at CenterNetworks regarding what the business idea is. Read the rest of the interview for some more background on Ringside Startup and WeBothLike.
Basically the idea of WeBothLike.com is to connect like-minded people — people that have the same interests. You’ll go to the website and answer questions, as many as you want. The more you answer, the more profile data we have on you — and the more we can contrast you with others in our system, and match you up with them (not necessarily for dating, but just to find new friends or for business networking). The simplicity of the question/answering system will be like HotOrNot.com — but you’re not judging people; you’ll be asked like “What do you feel about College Football?” with options of ‘love’, ‘like’, ‘hate’, ‘don’t care’. You’ll click an answer, then on next page you’ll see another question — with the left-column showing you how others answered that question [37% love college football; 12% hate it; 15% don’t care; 36% like it] and it will then show you some profiles of people that matched up with your answer.
The viral effect is that people will grab a widget and put it on their webpage — then if someone is browsing the site, and is also a member of WeBothLike, then it’ll show.. “We Both Like…” with different things that both users like, love or hate.
Web2.0forsale.com Launches - Sell Web 2.0 Websites
April 9, 2007 | 8 Comments
I have launched a new website, Web2.0forsale.com, focused on the buying/selling of “Web 2.0″ websites. Feel free to also sell just programming code, prototypes, domain names, or other related products/services. You can also post ‘wanted’ ads here.
Web 2.0 companies are cheaper and faster to build — and there’s already been a bunch for sale, but I think there’s a ton more (particularly “hobby” projects by students) to come. The price for posting a listing is $10 for 30-days, which is reasonable enough so that anyone should be able to post their creation. Also, as a buyer or simply someone with curiosity, you can snag the RSS feed to keep updated on the latest postings.
There is also an affiliate program, so that if you run a “Web 2.0″ blog, you can grab the widget of latest listings, and if someone comes to Web2.0forsale.com through you and creates their own listing for $10, then you get a $5 commission. I’m hoping bloggers will add this widget to their websites and help spread the word, so that this can become a helpful resource for connecting buyers with sellers.
Note to Sellers: Specify URL, dev details (PHP? .NET?), web stats (# of users, uniques or pageviews), what’s included (any post-sale support?), & why you’re selling (was a hobby? needs marketing dollars?).
The domain is flexible, so if “Web 3.0″ ever occurs, I’m ready for it 
IDEA #51 - Email via Snail Mail, for free!
April 8, 2007 | 8 Comments
I had this idea a few months ago, but saw that someone had already created this service (see L-Mail). Now a new start-up called Postful is entering the business. Basically, for $0.99, they’ll take an email, print it, and mail it for you. So they could mail your Grandma an email, if she doesn’t use email.
Also, I don’t think this needs to just apply to people w/o email addresses — people love to get things in the physical mail. So I’d love to send a friend an email, as a physical letter. Or send an “ecard” that’s actually a physical greeting card.
I think this could possibly be done for free (ad-supported). You could likely negotiate a rate with the USPS for roughly $0.23 per mailing (?) based on volume (like corporations do with mass mailings).
Then the person sending the email as snail mail, could either pay a fee ($0.99?) to have just that sent — or they could have it sent for free, advertising-supported. Thus, in the envelope would be offers from Home Depot, Amazon.com, a coupon for $1 off the latest Campbell’s Soup, and an insert telling about a new movie coming out.
Just like any other mailer sent to someone by snail mail, the advertising companies could focus their advertisements on a locale (i.e. just sent my ad to people in Texas).
But better than any other snail mail spam, users will actually OPEN these — to read the email/letter from their friend or loved one. Will they look at the advert inserts? Who knows, but they’ll at least open the envelope.
Maybe the sender even selects what ads will be inserted from a quick list of 10 options.
Attn: Google AdSense Employee - I need help
April 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
If someone works at Google, can you help me get my AdSense account to work. I had AdSense pre-google account roll-over, and I never switched it over to my Google Account. Anyhow, the automated support system is taking forever. Please email me if you can help.
TWITTER: Who wants to build Twitterbots.com?
April 6, 2007 | 8 Comments
I own the domain ‘twitterbots.com‘ — I think it’d be great to have a central resource for people to post any Twitter bots they create or know of.
Below is what I have in mind — I’m willing to donate the server space (PHP 4/MySQL) to run the site if needed (or I’ll setup the nameservers to you, or I’ll redirect to you, or I’ll xfer the domain to you). If you’re interested in building the site — build it somewhere and send me a link to it. Then we’ll throw it up at Twitterbots.com (or change the domain over to you). I’d just like to see this website built, properly, and then you can have the domain.
Note: Check the comments of this post to see if anyone is working on this. And attention designers — maybe you can provide a design, while someone else does the programming work.
Details on TwitterBots.com:
- Objective: Central repository about all the twitter bots that exist – and eventually start monitoring them (how many friends they have, how many twitters they post publicly, etc).
- I want people to be able to post their latest bot creations. Sort by bot name, category, or overall user ratings. [Users input the twitter username, their name, their own URL, short title of the bot, larger description that shows commands, and category. Maybe this app pulls their Twitter username’s profile image. So a simple website allowing users to add, then you approve [to eliminate spammers] — maybe a category that shows pending.
- Allow people to comment on each bot.
- Homepage would display various bots by category. Initial categories: sports, weather, stocks, games, shopping, news, other.
- A contact page would allow people to submit suggestions for the site (including category ideas).
- Homepage could show the last 10 bots added (this would be an RSS feed).
- An admin page that displays newest bots added and awaiting approval. You can then approve them. Any new bot added sends an email to you. Admin page also allows quick edit of any bots info, or delete.
- This site could also show some generic Twitter-related posts — thus, pull in an RSS feed on the keyword ‘twitter’ from Technorati.
Anyone have other suggestions for this proposed website?
