There are so many ways people use Twitter. Some with good social media practices and others who exploit the systems just to get followers. Chris Brogan recently wrote Get More Twitter Followers TODAY, a kind of tongue-in-cheek, but had insightful suggestions for people to use Twitter more effectively rather than crap on the system. By the way, I mentioned it because you should read it.

While I agree on most of his points, it is rather a tricky situation. Depending on what kind of information you are tweeting, you may need more than 20 tweets a day. And unfortunately, for those who answer questions that could be valuable to those needing certain information (like support questions for a script or as I often hang around the #wordpress, #wp, and WordPress trending topics), you will have to reply publicly rather than direct message others (DM.) Quite a few successful bloggers have become what they are because of Twitter, like Richard Darrell of Minervity. In less than 6 months, his resourceful web design site has become quite popular. There are many more only that have also done the same in their own niche.

However, it is important as you, the Twitter user, must adopt some type of personal guidelines to influence, and retain meaningful followerships while at the same time, not focus on how many followers. Basically, focus on quality, not quantity. The auto-tweeting rubbish going around promising a multitude of followers do NOT live up to their name. How do I know this? Because I painstakingly experimented and although it was not harmful, and did pull in some followers, I was not impressed. Most were not meaningful connections and I only got a few, less than a dozen. On the same note, my Twitter stream ( @blondishnet ) was auto-tweeting annoyingly spammish (yes, that is not a real word, but I like it), more than once a day. It gets even more annoying to see more than 10 people in a row through the public stream who have subscribed to such a service and that is pretty much what their streams are all about. For me, I unfollow them as they have nothing of interest I want to read. Besides that, the sites are ridiculous. How are you going to reach the people who are truly interested in your information, whether you give out resources or advice for free, or have a product for sale.

It is your responsibility to use Twitter in a way that does not cause spam or people to unfollow you because of what you say. In fact, causing enough people to follow or to spam are part of Twitter’s terms of service and you can be suspended. The great thing is that Twitter is free, so whether you are on their for business or leisure, you will meet people, but remember, use common sense.

What is your personal Twitter user policy?

With the recent Denial-of-Service Attack (DOS) on Twitter, it has some users wondering what it is and how to prevent it.

According to Wikipedia, a denial-of-service attack is:

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users.

Some ways to create a DoS attack are ping flood, ping of death (PoD), smurfing, IRC flood, nuke, peer-to-peer, fraggling, SYN flood, teardrop, and distrubuted denial of service attack (DDoS). Actually, there are a lot more funny terms for DoS attacks. In the simplest manner, each of these DoS attacks require intense communication between between a computer or several computers to disrupt the site’s server by either using all its resources or slowing it down until it cannot be accessed properly. You can find out more at Wikipedia for each of the DoS terms.

I have had this happen on the first server I co-owned when I started webhosting. We had just reached 350 clients when that had happened and it was only a minor setback. Still, it was annoying and because most of these attackers use spoof IP addresses, it is hard to track, so I left it up to the company that leased the servers to go after the culprit. That is pretty much you can do when attack as it is illegal anyway. Server-side, our server was upgraded to prevent further attacks.

However, to prevent this, it is recommended your servers are up-to-date with the software and hardware on the server, especially those with features that can prevent flooding. Many major sites, even Microsoft have been victims of DoS attacks, so it is not all that uncommon. It might be lame advice, but it is the first prevention against such and your best defense up front.

Have you ever witnessed a DoS attack on a site? Was it yours? What other advice can you give to those wanting to know more about preventing DoS attacks?

Game applications have been quite popular the past few years on various social networks like MySpace and Facebook. In fact, one of the most popular out there is Mafia Wars.

There have been others that have surfaced and users flock to try them out. I have even joined a few. However, I am finding something quite disturbing – the fact that these applications are asking people to buy points (or whatever they are called for each application) with real money. What are the points used for? Well, they can be used for special defense/ offense items, or towards game money, or energy refills to do battle with other game opponents.

In Sorority Life, you can buy 20 brownie points (their point system) for $5. The special items offered are between 12-19 brownie points a piece, meaning you have to really pay some money as the opportunities to obtain free brownie points are like pulling teeth.

The question is: why is it so expensive? How much is Zynga, who owns Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, and many other game which they boast an increase of 12 million users in two weeks? (As a huge note, Sorority Life is not owned by Zynga, but by Playdom.) I understand that some of the money goes to technicians, graphic artists, server expenses, and some for the company, but what about a little relief for the gamers? Why not give back to their users and lower their special items?

Of course, for those who have a lot of money to waste on something they would not be able to show anything for, it would be no worries. However, there are game rental sites online that you can be sent games for a low cost per month.

Do you play these interactive games? What do you think of it? Expensive? Do not care? Have you bought points through these applications?

I have come across mixed opinions about blogs that contained paid-to-review, also known as, paid to blog. Some people are not fond of it, while others are happily writing posts they will eventually get paid for. Blondish.net does have paid posts from time to time. Since my site revamp, my focus has prevented me from accepting some paid opportunities that I normally might take. I only pick opportunities that have some relevancy to my site.

However, I am alarmed to see so many people posting just about anything on their site, while complaining that their site is not doing so well. This is why I am writing this post. I will say this first: I am not discouraging anyone from taking opportunities. However, if you wish to improve your blog and connect with others, you might want to read.

When you create a site and make others aware of it through social networking, you are drawing people in because you want them to see what you are saying and hopefully provide some type of feedback, whether commenting, linking you back, or even returning. The issue lies in your site’s content, particularly your site’s focus – what your site is all about. As much as anyone loves money, if you are filling your site with more advertisements, and less content, you are not being effective in conveying your blog’s message. In fact, you are far more likely to have people tell others that your site has a lot of spam. Here are some pointers:

1. Make sure to only accept opportunities that are relevant to your blog. This will eliminate the confusion on what you are trying to say. Your blog is all about you, so make it you. If you are a walking ad billboard, then so be it, but do not complain if you are not getting the responses and traffic you desire.
2. If your site contains many focuses, perhaps trimming it or splitting it up might be a good idea. If you talk about lawn mowing on the weekend while drinking a beer, and then post another blog after it about some tech gadgets, that might be strange, unless the mowing has a story with something techie in it. You may have to make a separate blog for personal stuff. This means you can take opportunities relevant for both sites, but not mix up your ads.
3. Although some paid to blog sites allow you to post back-to-back or even every other post, you should strive to put more quality content between your paid opportunities. If you have to, make a list of your topics ahead of time and then insert your opportunities every few posts, even if you have to blog several times a day.
4. Try not to write as if you were trying to be a pitchman. When you take a paid blog gig, you need to make it you and try to incorporate how it is relevant to your site. People want to connect and see that you are honestly blogging a message rather being in it just for the money. They will understand you might need the money, but be honest about it.
5. If you do take an opportunity, stand behind it and share the link out in the social networks. Make sure to write your post open-ended so you can get responses.Treat that paid post as if it were like the rest of your blog.

Do you get paid to blog? If so, do you have more advice on this subject? If not, what do you think of getting paid to blog?

I ran by this opportunity today and thought I would share it. It is a facebook application by Sears to help college students be more prepared for starting their semester. The application is called CampusReady.

The application has three parts: Gift Getter, Dorm Room Designer, and Roommate Matchup. The Gift Getter section is basically a gift registry so students can pick out what they need and alert their friends and family. The Dorm Room Designer section is where you can virtually decorate your college dorm if you are aware of the size and shape of your room. Lastly, the Roommate Matchup is a great feature if your assigned roommate is also on facebook. It allows you to try to connect with them and find likes or dislikes, regular habits, and much more.

The application is very user-friendly and very helpful. I remember the first time I went to college, there was nothing like this available online or even a gift registry program offline for students getting ready for college. Sears is really reaching out to in the social networking crowd, and I give them kudos for making CampusReady on Facebook. Already the site has over 11,000 fans. If you know anyone going to college, I recommend sending them to CampusReady to try it out.

Well, that was what I had come up and that was before I read TechCrunch’s article, New Twitter Cross-Posts To Facebook Have Users Bewildered.

One thing I remembered was that I did not have this application installed currently. I had removed it over a month ago. However, after already posting in my Facebook stream my own bewilderment, I went back to my applications and there it was, the Twitter application for Facebook!. I was kind of angry as I did not want it posted to my Facebook stream. I try to keep some things separate as I talk more with people on Twitter than I do on Facebook, so this would create a ton of messages that others might not appreciate.

I am motivated to write a post on how you can prevent this application from posting to your stream.

Go to your Applications settings and once the page loads. scroll down the page until you see your Twitter icon for your Twitter application. Click on ‘Edit Settings.’ A little window will pop up. You can go to the tab that says ‘Additional Permissions’ and uncheck the box that allows Twitter to publish your tweets to your wall.

If you wish to remove, instead, click on the ‘Profile link’ and go to the actual application. In the left sidebar, near the bottom, you will be able to click on ‘Remove application.’

Hopefully that helps. I know some of you tweet almost as much as I do.

After reading both WebProNews and TechCrunch on their articles about the new Twitter homepage, I am still left with questions. Jeremy Muncy does a great job breaking down the new Twitter homepage in his article Breaking Down Twitter’s New Homepage for those needing a little more explanation.

I could care less that the front page looks a bit too trendy in design. The problem is that as Jeremy pointed out, Twitter users would not be able to use this feature. For me, being a Twitter addict, I would love to have access to this feature other than entering it in the search in the sidebar of my profile. Right now, the Twitter search page is very plain and boring. What, are current users? – chopped liver?

There are no links to the main search page for Twitter users to directly visit. I do think that the real-time search function is an awesome attribute of Twitter and I think it could play big in helping them finally monetize their product. However, I revisit this one point again that I have in the past… when is Twitter going to tighten up on watching trending topics and specify what is spam. If people are going to protest, at least pass around a petition link instead of repeatedly throw up on the stream a pointless message. These type of trending topics could hurt Twitter when people visit the page. As anyone knows, your first 30 seconds on a site will leave a huge impression. If people are trending a topic that either seems immature, or pointless, they will turn away. That is the impression I have already gotten in responses from bloggers and my own visitors.

What do you think of this? What would you suggest to Twitter?

I could not pass up this opportunity to share this contest. It is the Yamaha neoHD Sweepstakes . In fact, for me it is very relevant as I have several remote controls and a lot of times I am looking around for the remote. On top of that, I have a television in my living, my bedroom, and my son’s room. So, that is a lot of remotes to keep track of. Just for my living room, I have my stereo, my DVD/VCR player, and of course the television, and then the surround sound system. It is quite annoying and no matter how many times I vow to stick every remote in a certain place, it seems to never work out that way.

What is a neoHD? Well, it is an all-in-one remote that can control up to 6 AV components including Blu-Ray and some game systems. The controller boasts to be advanced and give complete control but made for simplicity.

It is simple to apply to for the contest to win a Yamaha neoHD. You can go to the Izea Blog ( blog.izea.com ) and follow their instructions. Another way is if you are on twitter to tweet – “I just entered to win a #neoHD b/c I have too many remotes, visit (blog.izea.com) to enter”.

It does not hurt to enter and and for those tech guys who love nifty gadgets, this post is right up your alley.

How many remotes do you have? Is this a contest you would enter?