Back with another Bird House Rules (and well under that ten minute window), I’m here to talk a bit about the evolution of Follow Friday. what started out as tweets like this…

Follow @digitalsista, a Social Media mistress and resource located here in Washington D.C. #followfriday

…many Twitter feeds are getting hit at the end of the week by tweets that look like this…

@digitalsista @chrisbrogan @geechee_girl @ITStudios @chrisabraham @sigmastudios @dananner @fishdogs @LindaVandeVrede @riznphx #ff

Take a deep breath, relax, and follow me to your Zen of the Follow Friday.

Guest introduction by Michael Spence

Featured television clips:

• Firefly
  
• Black Adder
  

Featured Links:

• Episode #7 of Bird House Rules
  
• CREATE South 2010

REMEMBER: Saturday April 17th, 2010, starting at 9 AM, will be the day of CREATE South 2010, held at the Horry Georgetown Technical College, Grand Strand Campus in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. CREATE is a meeting for those interested in blogging, podcasting, video, social networking or any other form of creativity and self-expression. Serving the residents of the Grand Strand and beyond, it is a venue to bring together like minded people to network, to teach and to learn. Follow @createsouth on Twitter for more!

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

 

 Episode #11: The Zen of Follow Friday [8:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (722)

Feel free to syndicate this audio, and provide feedback or topics you’d like to hear discussed on Bird House Rules at 703.791.1701, tmorris (at) imaginethatstudios (dot) com, Twitter, or here at the Bird House Rules Blog!

As mentioned in the previous  Bird House Rules postings, Que Publishing has once again featured All a Twitter in Barnes & Noble Bookstores everywhere, and in my response to Que’s “Whatever you can do to get the word out…”query, I feature Michele Price, the host of Breakthrough Business. On her BlogTalkRadio show we talk about Twitter, about my job at Intersections Inc (which you will find out more about later on Imagine That! Studios), and about approaches that go against the grain of the marketing books. We talk about how “old school marketing” just doesn’t work with Social Media, and how businesses need to understand that Twitter (and Social Media, on a whole) is about people.

We had a blast on this interview, and I hope you enjoy the listen. Feel free to comment, post, and share!

Today on Twitter I got an unexpected DM from a familiar name in my network:

When I clicked on the link, I was asked for my Username and Password.  Ummm…no. So I attempted to ping my Twitter contact here and ask if this was, in fact, a real URL. I could not get a DM reply to appear.

And then on the main feed, I saw this from @spam, Twitter’s Spam Hotline:

You might think this is common sense, but it may surprise you how easily people surrender their passwords, particularly from DMs coming from friends and acquaintances.

Be careful!
Someone is out there get phreaky with the phishing.

Just remember these safety twips when you are out in the Twitterverse:

• Never give out your password, even if it’s to someone you know or if they are promising you a bucketload of followers.
• If you do get a DM asking for your password, try to contact the friend on the open feed asking why?
• If someone is, in fact, DMing others with your account, immediately change your password, log out, wait a few ticks, then log in with the new password.
• If you can, change your password for Twitter every 30-60 days.

Twitter is on the case, but make sure you let your fellow Twitterakians know that something  is afoot. Stay safe, everyone, and tweet happy!

Welcome to Birdhouse Rules, the Official Podcast of All a Twitter and Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in Ten Minutes.

I know on Twitter i have been promising to cover TweetDeck and my bad habit of double-posting (which on writing these show notes I just did…) but then when working through my follow requests, I got hard hit by the avatar you see with this post. Yes, if you see that image (and the variations on it) you will have been hit by a spambot that prefixes all their IDs with “STi_”. These useless accounts will fill your feeds with random links that serve no other purpose other than to annoy the crap out of you.

But what really bakes my birdhouse about the various “STi_” accounts is that they are posing as real people.

Welcome to spam on Twitter.

In this episode I cover the ways to tell if you are being spammed on Twitter. The offending tweets are broken down into three categories, and we also take a look at how some spammers are working into your feeds in order to use you and a delivery mechanism. Take a look at these screen captures from Stephanie Lloyd‘s account…

If you click-and-enlarge the left image, you will note that Stephanie’s tweets are coming from her feed are coming from recognizable applications. The right image, though, is a tweet coming from an API. That is just one (of a few) ways to tell that the spam your getting from friends isn’t their fault.

So tuck in and get ready — it’s a Feast of Spam at the Bird House.

Guest introduction by Indiana Jim

“Spam” from Monty Python’s The Final Rip Off

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

 

 Episode #2: Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam! [9:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (748)

Feel free to syndicate this audio, and provide feedback or topics you’d like to hear discussed on Bird House Rules at 703.791.1701, tmorris (at) imaginethatstudios (dot) com, Twitter, or here at the Bird House Rules Blog!