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EnterpriseBlend

A blog about Web 2.0 technologies and the enterprise.

I’ve been fairly active in Twitter for several months. I’ve noticed a new trend that is gaining some momentum in Twitter - SPAM! It’s quite ingenious and annoying.

The technique is drop dead simple. Here are the steps:

Set up a web site for your cause/product/lifestyle/ego
Set up a Twitter account with an alluring name (i.e. “sexylauraoh”)
Post a single update to your account with your advertisement (e.g. “Hi, I just got my latest tattoo from the hottest database on the net: http://hottattoospam.com”)
Start following some randoms
Chortle in glee or work on your muhahaha

This technique banks on the fact that most people have set Twitter to notify them when a new person starts following them. This notification includes a note that says the person is now a follower and provides a link to their profile. Once you click on the profile, you will see their timeline. Since the timeline contains their advertisement from step 3 above as their only tweet, the target is instantly spammed.

To Twitter’s credit, they are trying their best to suspend suspected accounts and prevent this from getting completely out of control. But, I believe the war has started. Pretty soon the spambots will start exploiting the Twitter API to mass subscribe, follow, and harass.

So, what now? Are we going to have to enter a captcha to post a tweet? Ugh. I shudder.

Missing in ActionSeptember 13

Sorry all. I’ve been missing in action for a couple of weeks. I have been pretty busy with activities around finishing up one client and starting another. I hope to get back in the saddle this week and start posting again.

Election 2.0?August 18

I’m not really going to comment on how Web 2.0 is going to affect this election. However, I do want to point out something I ran across today. Check out Google’s “Power Readers in Politics” page. It has items that McCain, Obama, and certain political journalists are sharing in Google Reader and commenting on. Fascinating. And, I subscribed.

Weekly Blend 2008-08-11August 11

Mitre released a paper back in 2006 about their experimental implementation of social bookmarking on their intranet called Onomi. I just came across it this week. Interesting.
Dr. Stephens points out some interesting business and technology trends he found in a deck from an Open Group conference.
I continue to be enthralled with Chuck Hollis’s posts about EMC putting their Enterprise 2.0 strategies and tooling in place. The latest is about moving outside the firewall to

Why Enterprise 2.0 Must Bring Sexy BackAugust 9

I’m about to say something that is probably controversial. I believe Enterprise 2.0 software must be sexy. Further, I believe that making these applications sexy to the user is imperative to their success.

Since most of what I consider Enterprise 2.0 is social software, you need your users to participate and use the application. The more users that participate, the richer the social experience. Further, you are much more likely to successfully enable the drivers for deploying these applications (e.g. expertise location, lowering collaboration barriers, etc.).

One of the reasons users are drawn to many Web 2.0 applications is because of their raw sex appeal. The applications look good, are easy to use, and defy traditional web application boundaries – all made possible by AJAX and Rich Internet Applications. This helps draw users in so that they use the application long enough to realize the benefits, and then the benefits become the draw.

“But,” you say, “enterprise applications are not like Internet applications – the participation on the part of the user is mandatory.” That is true for some applications like SAP. However, applications that focus on collaboration, non-records oriented document management, community interaction, and expertise locati