The thing is, he didn’t do it on purpose – he got it from Facebook. In fact, he got it from one of his other Facebook friends who he knew would never send him anything nasty either.

A Lot More Dangerous Than You Think

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all under constant attack, not just from spammers, but from smart, seedy, and even violent criminals.

While you might think this sort of thing is just a pain in the rear end, it’s not. It’s a real threat to your, your family and your business.

The USA Today article pictured above tells the story of Alice and her Facebook buddy:

“With a click of her mouse, Alice let the attackers usurp control of her Facebook account and company laptop. Later, they used Alice’s company logon to slip deep inside the financial firm’s network, where they roamed for weeks. They had managed to grab control of two servers, and were probing deeper, when they were detected.”

You’d Be Fooled Too

We’re all pretty savvy now when it comes to email spam. We know our bank is not really asking us to verify our account and we know SusieQue is not really hot for our body.

But, on Facebook, it’s our trusted friends who send these messages. In my case, because Tim has a band I just figured his link would connect me to a video of one of his songs, or maybe an upcoming concert. Wrong!

When I clicked the link, my computer went nuts and warned me that  cyber-zomboid bots from evil lands were trying to take it over. I still don’t know how badly it’s been infected (read the USA Today article pictured above and it will scare the pants off you).

The Trust Issue

Tim, of course, is mortified. But, it’s more than that. As Gene Leganza said in our recent post, Twitter Spam – Your Friends are Innocent:

“What really bugs me about it is that it made me an unwitting agent of spam. It impacted my followers’ trust in me.”

For Tim, trust is his band’s most precious asset. Just think about who follows his Facebook Fan Page:

“The thing of it is, Michael, many of my Facebook  friends are important music business contacts, and that business is built on trust. Anything that damages it could endanger my livelihood.”

Get a Clue, Facebook

This trust issue is why we are so critical of Facebook. They are dealing with this explosion of spam, crime and personal assaults on their site by stonewalling.

They simply ask us to trust them. We don’t, and you shouldn’t. It’s not enough for a Facebook spokesperson to say:

“We are constantly working to improve complex systems that quickly detect and block suspicious activity…”

We’d never stand for that kind of namby-pamby response from a politician after a terrorist attack. We’d demand swift and specific action that would protect us.

Facebook doesn’t seem engaged or concerned. They never send warnings and they don’t connect or respond to their customers in any meaningful way. This is a social network, isn’t it?!!

And, worst of all, sites like these are being given a free-pass from the hoards of social media gurus and pitchmen who act exclusively as cheerleaders. Almost no one holds up a hand and says “wait a minute.”

You better believe that Tim Champlin now says “Wait a minute.” You might want to, too.

Yes, Cinde Dolphin might make it big in her new endeavor, chronicled in that NY Times article, The Job You Make. But, what happens to those entrepreneurs, store owners, consultants, speakers, inventors and other risk takers when they don’t make it big – and have to (ugh) get a job again?

Yesterday I got a text message from an old friend who is nearing retirement. After working in corporate America for about 13 centuries, he told me he’s now ready to branch out on his own and “find my passion.” My response was simply, “I’d rather find my paycheck again.”

It’s in the Water

What happens when you follow your dream, and then find out that your dream didn’t follow you back? Too often (and these stories never make the New York Times), you squander your 401K, max-out your impossibly high interest rate credit cards and pay millions of dollars supporting your health care coverage habit. Don’t ask us how we know.

I don’t know if he invented the term, but UC Santa Cruz professor Robert W. Fairlie points out that there are a lot more “necessity entrepreneurs” when the economy is bad. (Dr. Fairlie sort of wrote the book (or at least the PDF) about individuals creating businesses in his “Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.”) 

“Necessity entrepreneurs,” then, are those folks who get laid off of often high-paying jobs and then decide to try speaking, consulting, stand-up comedy or other death-defying gambits.

But, as you can see in the screen shot above, some necessity entrepreneurs now find themselves looking longingly at those regular paychecks of yore.

Who You Gonna’ Call?

You know what comes next, right? Yes, we thought we’d do a little research, send some emails and place a few phone calls to try to find out what’s going on – and then report it faithfully here.

We thought we’d follow some current job searchers and report on their tactics, strategies and mental breakdowns. Our interview line-up looks something like this (we reserve the right to change it without notification):

• New Job Searchers
• Frustrated Job Searchers
• Internet Job Experts
• Old-Fashioned Job Experts
• A Recruiter (or two)
• Some HR Big Wigs
• And anyone else we choose….

Where You Gonna’ Look?

Along the way, we’ll reach out and try to separate the truth from the bunk about how Internet and social networking sites can help your job search, what kinds of strategies are best and what you can do to keep from jumping off a bridge if you don’t find employment right away.

We won’t, of course, be able to resist showing you a few Internet research tricks that might help:

But, that’s just what we do. It’s called Internet research and we’re pretty sure it will lead us to some interesting people and great ideas along the way.

We’ve written a lot about Timothy Bishop and the Ellensburg, Washington Downtown Association, and how they’ve been fighting the good fight to revitalize their shopping district. The most recent was “Associations that Truly Associate,” about how they use MySpace, Facebook and Twitter to get the message out.

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

Well, now Ellensburg (and Kitsap and Gig Harbor and Port Townsend and tons of other small communities in Washington state) are all facing a huge challenge. They are facing a complete cutoff of their funding.

It’s sort of predictable. Times being what they are, there really is a big crunch when it comes to how states will spend the money they don’t have (just ask California).

But small communities, cities and ‘burbs of Washington are fighting back by tweeting, Facebooking, and MySpacing in order to reach the folks who hold the purse strings – the state legislature. And, it seems to be working.

They found the support of two state Representatives, Dean Takko and Bill Hinkle (one Democrat and one Republican), to sponsor a bill to save Main Street programs. Just shows you what those folks can do when they work together.

The result was a 91-7 vote in favor of the bill in the House. Now, though, it heads on to the Senate – and that’s a tougher sell.

Gonna’ Bet Against Them?!!

Where does your money go when it’s spent on buying up car companies and propping up the big banks? I know, sometimes it seems to go to bigger and bigger bonuses for the even bigger doofuses who created the mess in the first place. And, you might not be wrong.

But, guess what? The money spent on small communities and their bedrock businesses pays you back many times over – creating 11,810 jobs and 3,721 new or expanded businesses in Washington State alone. Not bad! Timothy Bishop tells us that every dollar spent in downtown renovation multiplies around 100 times in private investment.

Which is why you’ll find Timothy working the streets, the back rooms in Olympia and typing away on his social media pages – carrying the message. There are good ways for the legislature to spend your money – and this is one of them.

By the way, that article we mentioned at the top of this blog post? It said:

“Grassroots efforts to save the Washington State Main Street Program are generating bipartisan support among legislators during the 2010 legislative session.”

Nice job, Timothy, and all the other folks who are rallying around investing your money – instead of spending it.

Recently Facebook asked us (actually they told us) to change our privacy settings, or else. It was an “Important Message” that read something like this:

“We’re making you change your privacy settings. And, since we know that 99% percent of you are too busy to doodle around with our impossibly complicated and arcane instructions, we’re going to suggest some to you. These will end up risking your bank account, expose you to viruses and endanger your personal safety, but what the heck.”

The problem is that, as many people have pointed out, Facebook’s suggested “privacy” settings would open-up your most private information, allow the juice-will-save-your life folks to accost you and expose your kids to muggers and rapists.

No big deal. Heck, what really got to me was the way they did it. They forced all of us to change our settings at that very moment. Not even banks do that!

That’s right. Here’s the screen – and good luck to you if you’d like an answer to the question, “Well, Ok Facebook, what were my old privacy settings?” Forget it – there was no way to check. You were locked out of your FB account until you filled out their form.

Let’s just take that first one, the “About me” section. Here’s what Facebook suggests for your “About me” profile – make it accessible to everyone.

Go to your Facebook profile right now and see if you can find “About me.” Do it. Good freaking luck.

I looked for 20 minutes and decided that the time I waste deciphering social networking sites would be better spent watching paint dry.

Maybe I’m missing something somewhere, but that’s why I’m ticked off. Oh, and that little bit about your privacy and safety being in jeopardy. That too.

Now, off to see if I can find someone, anyone, at Facebook who cares.

We bumped into Charlotte’s Stallings again this week out on the speaking trail. We hadn’t seen her for some months and it has been almost 11 months now since we wrote about her in Run, Charlotte, Run!!

We chatted for a short time before she zipped off to the airport. We didn’t have the heart to tell her that the valuable information she had learned from her trusted fellow speakers in the National Speakers Association Linkedin Group had been washed down the drain.

Discussions Held Hostage by LinkedIn

Here’s the problem. Smart, savvy speakers are asking their group (in this case the National Speakers Association Group on LinkedIn) if they know anything about a company called the International Speakers Network.

Again this week, another speaker, Shawn Kershaw, asked – “International  Speakers Network – Anybody had experience, positive or negative, with them?”

What Shawn didn’t know is that there have already been two major discussions within the NSA LinkedIn Group about the International Speakers Network.

Yes, Charlotte Stallings asked the same question 11 months ago. The responses added up to the most comments ever up to that point. Almost 100% of the comments were explicit warnings, a few of which we listed in Run, Charlotte, Run!!

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, Orvel Ray Wilson asked the NSA Group about a sister company of ISN, with the same results – tons of warnings about the business practices of ISN and its ilk:

“Let’s call it like it is — Both Brenda and her last employer ISN are scam artists and we’ve all lost way too much money to them.”

“I think you get the message: Stay away. Period. Many of us learned the hard way. “

“She promised me lots of stuff at her last job, took my money and I never heard from her again.”

These two discussions are a treasure trove of warnings about this questionable company. But, they are more than that. They are not just warnings from anyone. They are warnings from current NSA members who have had first hand experience and know what they are talking about.

Poor Shawn, however, might never see these warnings. Isn’t the search function of any web site what really provides its power by saving you time? Instead, LinkedIn’s pathetic search system is keeping this information from the very group members who need it the most.

Try This at Home

Try this yourself if you are a member of the National Speakers Association LinkedIn Group (or try similar searches within the LinkedIn Groups you belong to).

To properly search within a LinkedIn Group, you must be signed in to LinkedIn and be in the “Discussion Section” of your particular group.

Take a look what happens when Shawn does her most likely search for International Speakers Network.

She gets absolutely nothing about ISN. Nada. She does get 5 results that have nothing to do with the International Speakers Network. And, it doesn’t even matter if she puts her search terms in quotation marks.

After such a search, Shawn would have no idea that at least two speakers have already asked her question – and received tons of emphatic warnings.

Oddly, if Shawn were lucky enough to do a search for the initials “ISN,” she would connect to the two most relevant results in the NSA Discussion Section that we have shown above.

This is not just odd or unfortunate. It’s a huge problem.

In order to be effective, group sites such as this need to be searchable – and effectively so. Otherwise, the same questions and the same answers will continue to recycle, and who’s going to waste their valuable time doing that?

Editors Note: We have not linked to the International Speakers Network for obvious reasons. Go there are your own peril. We have also not linked to any of the Group Discussions in LinkedIn because they will not work unless you are a member of LinkedIn (and sometimes even a member of a specific group).

As we explained in that post, MyWedding.com is moving its corporate headquarters to Castle Rock, Colorado. These days, that’s not such a big deal because Internet companies are global, not local.

However, even the good folks at an online Internet company aren’t virtual – they’re real people. And, they will be hiring real people in the area. They’ll also be interested in developing some close-by businesses relationships with those both inside and outside the wedding industry.

Did we forget customers?! MyWedding’s customer base may well be global, but the nearby customers they can actually rub shoulders with may become their most ardent advocates.

Search Locally, Think Globally

And that’s why they will want to search Twitter locally. In order to do that, they’ll want to go to the “Advanced Search” tab of Search.Twitter.com:

Here, they can search for any terms they might find useful in order to connect to Twitter members near Castle Rock. (they’ll want to search within 100 miles of Castle Rock, what is called “The Front Range” around here – all the nearby burbs, including Denver, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs).

Using “Advanced Search,” we’ll do a search for the words “wedding” and “planning” within 100 miles of Castle Rock. You can see the result in the picture at the beginning of this article (you should do the search yourself just to get warmed up), but here’s the fill-in the blanks part that got us there:

Certainly, the gurus at MyWedding know their business and their needs much better than Sheryl and I ever could. But, even by using the most rudimentary search terms, we can turn up some surprisingly interesting contacts who might turn into new customers, vendors, partners or employees.

Nearby Wedding Planner

One of the tweets from someone who lives near Castle Rock (and includes both of our search terms) was from @DebbieOrwat. She is the owner and lead wedding consultant at savetheDate! Events.

Debbie’s got over a thousand followers, offers a profile, web link and her real name. That kind of transparency is crucial to evaluating a potential Twitter contact. As we’ve said, there are a lot of shady characters out there, but she and her company look pretty good.

She also happens to write a blog, so the folks at MyWedding.com might convince her to blog about them or partner with them in some other way. Regardless, she’s a legitimate wedding-related contact who lives near their new offices.

Potential Customer

Another Twitter member who mentioned both the words “wedding” and “planning” in a recent tweet is @kaneil. She doesn’t work for a wedding related company, but she has been mentioning (quite charmingly) her upcoming wedding and what it’s doing to her!

This is the kind of search that companies of all kinds are using to generate qualified leads. In this case, @kaneil might be interested in using MyWedding.com – especially those parts of the site that will help her organize and plan her wedding.

What About Keyshia Cole and Ryan Seacrest?

At first, it looked like our search was going to lead to a couple of celebrity weddings. Nope, because no matter what search terms you use, you’re gonna’ haul in some pretty shady stuff.

It looked like someone was re-tweeting Ryan Seacrest talking about his upcoming wedding. But, the newbie who “re-tweeted” that message seems to have invented it herself. Or, perhaps she has a thing for Ryan.

And, even though Ms. Cole has announced her upcoming wedding, there is no way to tell which, if any, of the many Keyshia Coles on Twitter are the real Keyshia Cole (a common problem on Twitter, only sometimes solved by their “Verified Account” insignia).

Keep it Complicated, Stupid

All this just means that MyWedding.com can find some great connections, but it is going to have to be pretty savvy to avoid the junk.

One way to do that is for them to target their search terms with very specific phrases or combinations of words that fit their needs and industry.

The other way, as we have seen here, is to search a much smaller geographic area. A search for the word “wedding” in Twitter would overwhelm. But, a search for the phrase “my wedding” within 100 miles of their new home office, well, now that’s another story.

There’s More to the Story

Even better? Any of these searches (even the radius location ones) can be turned into alerts that can land in your RSS reader, email or Google desktop.

(But, that’s another article – so, stay tuned).

Let’s take a recent example of some Colorado business news that might have caught your attention. The Castle Rock (Colorado) Economic Development Council just announced that MyWedding.com, a Seattle and Portland based business, will locate its corporate headquarters in their fair city.

Pretty cool news if you live in Colorado, operate a wedding oriented business, or even if you’re just looking for some positive news about the economy.

And, let’s say you’d like to see if Twitter could help you network with some of the folks related to this business story. Perhaps you’re a job hunter, a wedding vendor, or, heck, simply wanna’-be-journalists like us.

Search Twitter Like a Pro

By now, if you read this blog (Just the Guy We Need, Going Next Door for a Drink), you know you have to start your search, not on Twitter, but at their sister-search site, Search.Twitter.com. And, you likely know that you should search for:

mywedding.com colorado

That way, you’ll find anyone who has tweeted a message that includes both the words, “mywedding.com” and “colorado.”

But, here’s the problem. If you do this search, you’ll quickly see that the Twitter River is now a polluted stream, indeed. Many of the people who tweeted or re-tweeted this story are either wannabes, fruitcakes or auto-tweeters. Yes, it’s true, they now offer automatic re-tweeting programs. Ugh.

So, Look Elsewhere

The amazing thing is, you’ll find better connections by simply targeting your search terms more specifically to something like:

mywedding.com “castle rock”

Isn’t that amazing? By adding more specific terms, your results turn up no pollution and offer you five potentially cool people, companies or organizations:

Design Works – a floral supply company, specializing in weddings.

Mike Reid – a designer at the Colorado Springs Business Journal

Christian Eppers – an economic gardening expert in Highlands Ranch

Nicole McGee – of the very intriguing Colorado Stem Network

The Metro Denver Economic Development Commission

Twitter Really Can Handle That

Finally, isn’t it remarkable that while Twitter experts abound, almost none of them teach you even a smidgeon of proper etiquette?

When you refer to someone in a Twitter message, it’s best to refer to them by their Twitter handle. That provides a link and it alerts them to the fact that they were mentioned (which gives them a chance to thank you back).

In the case of MyWedding.com, their Twitter handle is “@myweddingdotcom.”

So, try your search terms combined with their handle, instead of their company name. In this case:

@myweddingdotcom colorado

@myweddingdotcom “castle rock”

@myweddingdotcom jobs

The results will show fewer goofballs and more savvy and experienced Twitter users, like the Oxford and Curtis hotels in the example below. We’re thinking these hotels host a few weddings on occasion, huh?

Yes, it’s still possible to fish for important contacts in “Twitter River” with your ole search fishing pole. But, it does take a little more work. Give it a try with better bait and let us know what your next catch looks like.

Yes, we just found yet another social media “expert” pitching the idea of an “Auto-Follow” program. These programs let you automatically follow anyone who follows you on Twitter

Not a good idea. If the latest round of Twitter spam attacks proved anything, it was that you MUST NOT do that.

And, Now Your Computer Can Be Hacked

It’s bad enough that otherwise smart people have all bragged to us, “I have 2,000 followers on Twitter and I’ve never even used it much.”

No they don’t! If they have 2,000 followers on Twitter, they have 1,800 porn linkers, swindlers, multi-level marketing goofballs, foreign gangsters and outright spammers.

The numbers are so high that people who are paying attention are leaving Twitter in droves. Why? Because Twitter can’t even oust the accounts that are stealing legitimate brands, like Wordpress.

Pictured below are some of the followers of one of the top speakers in the country. She’s been sold a bill of goods because she thinks she is following people of some worth. But, she’s now following:

Don’t laugh. If you use any sort of auto-follow system, you’ll find that you are now following the same kinds of bozos. Just take a look.

The sad fact is that these days 9 out of 10 people who join Twitter are unsavory types of one kind or another – pornographers, swindlers, used car salesmen types and outright spammers.

Go ahead and keep playing around, if you like. Keep thinking that Twitter is some sort of way to make professional connections.

Nope. It’s become simply a way for so-called “Twitter Experts” to deprive you of something even more important than your money. Your time.

Oh, By the Way

Of course, staying away from auto-follow programs only protects you from following bozos. It doesn’t do anything about the folks who follow you. Here are our latest 3 followers on Twitter:

Oh gosh, I sure as heck can’t wait to follow them back!

The fact is, if you like being cornered by veggie pill marketers, used car salesmen or escaped convicts, you’re gonna’ love Twitter.

As we said in our last post about shortened URL’s -”Twitter Spam: the Long and the Short.ly of It,” – that’s not the worst of it when it comes to your safety.

Nope, it’s your friends you have to watch out for. But, it’s not their fault at all. Take a look:

We’ve followed Gene Leganza (@gleganza) for some time now. He just happens to be a mucky-muck analyst over at Forrester Research – not exactly the type of guy you’d think would send you an unsolicited invitation to his Mafia Wars family.

But, as you can see from the screen shot above, he did send me just such a private “Direct Message” message, asking me to click and join.

Not a Good Idea to Click

Just one small point. Gene never sent the message. Some sort of auto-bot did. And, there are scads of other such messages, inspiring a torrent of complaints and anger on Twitter itself (just do a search for “twitter spam” on seach.twitter.com if you doubt us).

Here’s another example of the kind that may be filling your Twitter private messages. Again, looks can be deceiving:

The Worst Thing About It

Here’s what really hurts. What do the most of the folks conclude who get these types of private messages from their followers? Yup, they blame the messenger. That’s what Twitter expert Laura Fitton  thought, before she took a second look, (screen shot at the beginning of this article).

But, Gene never did send it. And, Kim never did send it. Gene doesn’t play Mafia Wars. Kim works for the Four Seasons, not some sort of online money making scheme. But, both links will infect your computer and start sending out similar messages to your followers, without your knowledge.

Gene and Kim (and thousands of others) have had to re-jigger their Twitter accounts and send out apologies to their followers. Gene says he took the time to connect to each one privately. He told us:

What really bugs me about it is that it made me an unwitting agent of spam. It impacted my followers’ trust in me.

Complicity and Duplicity

It’s clearly time for Twitter to get serious about these sorts of scams. Thankfully, more and more conscientious and brave folks are bringing up the topic. Michael Arrington’s series of articles about the complicity of the gaming industry and social media sites should make your hair stand on end.

And a simple search on any major search engine will return thousands of results for things like “twitter spam” and “mafia wars spam.” The same searches in the News sections of those search engines will give you the latest stories – and there are many.

The same searches in the “News” sections of those search engines will give you the latest stories – and there are many.

What’s to be Done?

Wish to heck we knew. But, it’s frightening. And, it’s keeping us from clicking on most anything anymore.

Do your own research. Write your own blog posts. Become part of the discussion. This sort of nonsense has the power to bring down not just Twitter, but our entire trust in the online world.

Those fake followers are almost more of a nuisance than anything, taking up your time as you evaluate whether they’re worth it.

Diving Off the Diving Board

While those idiots and swindlers are doing their best to ruin your Twitter experience, perhaps the bigger threat to you and your computer comes in the form of those shortened URL’s.

Think about it. Does it really make sense that the bad guys know how to send spam on email but don’t know how to send it out on Twitter? In fact, the URL shortening company Bit.ly flags 2 to 3 million untrustworthy messages of its own per week!

Clicking on one of these shortened links is like diving into a swimming pool without checking first to see if it has any water.

The Future Looks Dim

Twitter says that it’s going to start testing those shortened URL’s to make sure they are safe. If they do as good a job at that as they do at getting rid of pornographers, swindlers and multi-level marketers, things sure don’t look good for the home team.

Sure, there are technical additions available that offer some extent of protection. Firefox and other browsers offer add-on’s and plug-in’s that will give you a preview of the longer links. However, those don’t assure the link is not malicious.

One of the best overviews of this topic is from Brian Krebs’ Security Fix blog in the Washington Post, “Spammers, Virus Writers Abusing URL Shortening Services.”

What it comes down to is this – Twitter has the potential to be a true national resource, acting as an ingenious social meeting place and an invaluable public square.

But, the assault on it by the by the online version of drug dealers, pimps and criminals is simply not being taken seriously enough. Right now, as I write this, you can follow the carnage by doing your own search for “twitter spam” on search.twitter.com.

With Friends Like That

But, hang on to your hats, folks, because that’s not the worst of it. It’s actually your friends you need to watch out for on Twitter – not just the spammers and the URL sleaze balls.

More about that in our next post.