January 7, 2007

Damn Spam

NOTE:
Umm, apparently some folks got worried after this posted. This really is truly spam that I am getting on a regular basis right now -- and it's the only spam that's "clean" enough that I can post it here in order to whine piteously about the amount of spam I get a day.

I would guess I'm getting about 300 spam comments a day now. At least 90-95% of it never hits the blog as my spam filters are catching it ... but I also do a quick review of spam comments a couple of times a day in order to make sure that legitimate comments are not accidentally deleted. Basically, I'm sick of the spam ... and I do find these recent spam comments particularly disturbing and heinous.

I suppose I posted them so that other people can populate their spam filters with key phrases and maybe this dude will have to switch to some other spam tactic. Then again, maybe I'm just egging the guy on, I dunno.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

First came the commenter called Tramadol. Then it was Sten. Now it's Twistys and ... more honestly, I feel sure, Hot Girls.

My mind is like a complete blank, but so it goes. Basically nothing seems important, but I guess it doesn't bother me. I've just been letting everything wash over me , but pfft. I haven't been up to anything. Such is life. I can't be bothered with anything.

I've just been staying at home waiting for something to happen, but I don't care. Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I can't be bothered with anything recently.

I feel like an empty room, but eh. Nothing seems worth doing. I haven't gotten much done today.

I've just been letting everything happen without me these days. I've pretty much been doing nothing , but oh well. More or less nothing notable going on to speak of. I just don't have anything to say these days, but maybe tomorrow.

I've just been staying at home waiting for something to happen, but I don't care. Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I can't be bothered with anything recently.

I haven't been up to much today. I've just been letting everything happen without me. Basically nothing seems worth bothering with. I've just been hanging out doing nothing. I just don't have anything to say right now. More or less nothing happening.

I can't be bothered with anything these days, but such is life. I don't care. So it goes. More or less nothing seems worth thinking about. I've just been hanging out waiting for something to happen, but that's how it is.

PLEASE, I BEG of you. Leave me alone. I have key phrases in my spam filters. You're not really getting your links to hit my site. Please, leave me alone. I can't stand your sorrowful existence anymore.

Movable Type, Six Apart, I BEG of you, please, help with some spam plugins. The nospam ones for 3.2 aren't enough. We need a true accessible captcha plugin. (Yes, I just took the plugins survey and said the same thing there.)

And yes, I know I need to upgrade to 3.3x ... I've downloaded it ... I'm working up the nerve to do it. Of course, your upgrade instructions SUCK, so thank goodness for Learning Movable Type!!!

Meanwhile, Mr. Tramadol, sir?
SHUT THE FOOK UP!

Thank you, that is all.

UPDATE:
More of these damn things since I posted this even.

I just don't have anything to say. Not that it matters. Eh. I've just been staying at home doing nothing, but I don't care. That's how it is.

Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I haven't been up to much these days. I just don't have much to say right now. I can't be bothered with anything , but whatever.

ARGH!!!!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:56 PM | Comments (10) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

November 20, 2006

ARGH

In the name of all that is holy and good in this world, WHY did Mozilla sell FireFox to Microsoft?

No more ... it's now some weird melding of which makes me want to

Here ... *sigh* ... go check out the selling out of Open Source.

I've never been so sad in my life. Seriously, check out this site which explains the whole thing.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:49 AM | Comments (14) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

November 7, 2006

Just Do It

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:23 AM | Comments (8) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

October 15, 2006

Blog-high-school-o-sphere

When you start a company that offers a service for others, it's a hard, hard task. You've got a "baby" that you're releasing to other people for them to use, sometimes abuse and misuse as well. It's hard to set a website design or a blog design out there and let others critique it and complain that it's difficult to navigate and use. Add in that you've put tons and tons of hours and thought and work into it and ever little criticism is at best a frustration and at worst a little stab.

But that's okay. Those of us who do this for a living have to discover a way to develop both a thick skin and a good customer service attitude ... to accept gracefully all the things the various users or customers say and find a way to integrate all that into the beautiful design you thought was perfect or the excellent code you thought was self-explanatory and easy to use. Oh sure, we may rant for a while after receiving the comment - I know it can be dangerous to tender ears to be around me immediately after I get a design criticism I disagree with. But that's just the initial reaction and venting process.

However, particularly when you're working with a bunch of writers with at least some audience ... perhaps an audience of those very people who'll be using your service ... it's imperative to know that sometimes you'll get someone who's simply going to write a review or a post of what they see to be the truth. And how you deal with that eventuality says far more about you and your service than all of the code and design that you've put together.

What draws us to one program or site or blog more than another?

Well, it's subjective. Everyone's brains work differently ... so while I have a traffic exchange that I enjoy ... it might not be the best system for someone else. And I have a great online friend who is quite active in an exchange that I just can't stand anymore. That's okay. That doesn't mean that either exchange is actually "better" than the other one. They each draw different kinds of people to them.

For me, however, one of the things that will turn me off to a particular service - any kind of service - is their "bedside manner," so to speak. Below is an email I recently received from one blog service ... I've deleted the name of the service, because who it is doesn't matter ... I'm discussing customer service attitudes, not the merits of one service over another.

---------------------------------------------
Message from "BLOGAPALOOZA" Blog Service
---------------------------------------------
 
A recent blog entry by one of our members has started an issue about our service.
 
One in particular about automated response emails, we would like to clarify that we have no automated response service set up and each email that we receive is replied by ourselves. As for his site not being seen, perhaps he should check his counter properly as we have visual evidence that his site has been seen quite a few times.
 
While we only assumed that people would use common sense, it seems that for some members this proves difficult, so we would like to inform all our members that if they have any problems with the service provided by "BLOGAPALOOZA" Blog Service, that they would be better off actually emailing us for real, rather than imagining it and then complaining about it on their blog.
 
Thank you to all the members who contacted us and let us know about this blog entry.
 

First, a good number of basic bloggers are gonna whine. Look at the titles of so many blogs. Ramblings, Rants, Venting, Angry ... all common words for the title of a blog. And if you're in the business of offering a blog service you should know and understand this or get out of the business (because you have to understand your customer or you're going to fail to some competitor who does understand your customer).

Second, bloggers are going to post about your service on their blog. This is part of why they got a blog to begin with - to write about whatever is on their minds. And, while it's frustrating and potentially quite damaging, it's simply going to happen.

The best advertisement of your service, in my opinion, is your response when this happens. A calm and diplomatic tone tells your users - and potential users - that you take all of this seriously and professionally.

The example above, instead, clearly marks the Blog-High-School-O-Sphere.

You remember? All the in-fighting and crap that you put up with from about 13 or 14 until you left school for the real world or college or trade school?

Does Adobe leave a comment on a blog entry criticizing the latest release of Photoshop and whine that they expected their users to have common sense in using their product? No. You can bet that they've got people who comb the blogs and teh interwebs in general to look for complaints about their product as well as look at other comments and tutorials that their users have published somewhere in this vast landscape of words and images we keep continually expanding upon. I'm sure they comment on many of the things they find ... sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially.

But here's the deal. Companies who do the snarky response better be like T-Shirt Hell ... a service which is already, by definition, snarky. Their products are snarky, their web schtick is snarky. And it works for them. If I write to them and complain about a shirt that fell apart (and this is completely fictional ... I haven't had any such thing happen with their products!!!), I expect a mostly serious response from them. I would also expect to see some of the same writing style in their email as I do on their site. So, I'd expect some snarkiness, but I'd mostly expect a resolution to the issue. Maybe something like:

We're sorry the left sleeve fell off your shirt. You can rest assured that we've beaten Dobbly the t-shirt elf within an inch of his life and increased his days off by one. He cried about it a little, all right, he bawled like the baby that he is, but hey, we're running a business here. His sister-in-law Dumbly-Dora is sending you a new shirt today and making sure that all sleeves will stay attached.

Now, I don't actually expect T-Shirt Hell to make goofy Harry Potter references, but this is one way for them to maintain the attitude they have on the site and still maintain good customer service. This fictional example doesn't blame the t-shirt owner for over-reacting and it should make them happy - both for staying "in-character" of the site itself and for getting a situation resolved.

But this particular email is disturbing for the way that it denigrates one of their customers.

It might be that this particular person is a total thorn in the side for this company. Maybe this is the 978th time the guy has posted bad things about this company and they are sick of him and want him gone.

However, most of the users/customers probably don't know any of this back story. Most users simply see: customer complained; service got very publicly snarky about it.

This is not customer service. This is customer warning to the members that this service may not brook any public complaints at all.

For me, any company (blog site or not) which responds to problems with defensiveness has either some serious insecurities or has something to hide.

This isn't the first time this particular blog service ... this "Blogapalooza" ... has responded to complaints or even simple reviews with a snide response. And at least for me, it gives me no reason for confidence or trust in that service if the first response that goes out publicly to everyone is rude and denigrating.

On the other hand, if the author had taken a little time to craft the email to all users just a bit more, this could have been spun to their advantage. Imagine this instead:

We've seen some blog posts recently suggesting several issues with our site. We'd like to take a moment to assure everyone that we do not, in fact, have an automated emailing system in place. Instead, we prefer to answer each email we receive individually to ensure that each customer issue is personally dealt with. This sometimes takes longer than an automated system, but we feel it's actually more efficient in handling your needs. Please, if you do notice a problem or have an issue with some aspect of our system, please email us to let us know. It might take us a day to get back to you, but we do answer each email personally.
 
In addition, we understand that it can sometimes be difficult to understand why there is sometimes a difference between how your statistics counter counts visits and how we count page views. (explantion here)

This type of response explains the issues, and doesn't bring in the petty fight started by the customer. This type of response builds confidence in users and customers and assures them that they're in the hands of professionals who care about what they do. And, while "speaking plainly" may seem the fastest and most honest route to go, taking an extra couple of minutes to cool off and phrase things neutrally earns far more trust in your service and is not in any way dishonest or less "real" somehow.

Professionalism ... it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Oh, and another blog talks about a customer service issue which the company attempted to handle well ... and then human error kicked in. Check it out (it's a great laugh): Rain on my Tirade.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:59 PM | Comments (4) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 27, 2006

eXplode, eXpand, eXlinks

You want readers? You want actual readers who stick around and comment? (Why does nearly every person with a website talk about this at some point????)

One of the best ways to get more traffic without paying tons of money for advertising (which generally doesn't work for many non-e-commerce sites anyway), is to work on your Google PageRank (PR) and your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Enter the new social linking community known as exLinks.net

It's a top secret project at the moment. In fact, Paul from the kinetiq team filled me in on a few of the details but I've been sworn to secrecy (actually, the dude threatened me with bodily harm and threatened to send a stampeding herd of zebras through my home if I slipped any details). Here's what I can say:
you sign up now ... you get only a bare few friends to sign up ... your PR is gonna go through the roof when exLinks launches. It's going to be a minimal amount of effort on your part ... you sign up, you install some small piece of code on your site, you con, I mean invite, a couple of friends into joining. That's it. It'll be minimal real estate on your site ... and very easy to incorporate into your design. (Really. Trust me on this. I'm picky about what i'll put on my site ... this should work out nicely.)

This is all in development right now ... they guys will be ready to launch when they get a certain number of members (they're getting there even faster than they expected!) ... and if you jump into this now rather than later on ... you're going to see a HUGE upswing in your PR and SEO which will translate into more readers hitting your website or blog (this is NOT restricted to blogs ... any website works) because they're looking for something you have ... which should translate into more regular readers. All I can say is this is NOT a traffic exchange at all.

Sign up! You're gonna be eXcited about how your readership eXpands!

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:34 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble

September 25, 2006

Blogmad Credits 101

Blogmad credits explained for newbies (and those of us who have been around for a while, too!)

We have 4 mechanisms at work here

1. The surf bar (earns you credits as well as costs your credits - you earn a credit per blog browsed, lose a credit every time your blog is shown while someone else is surfing)
2. The varb browsing system ( costs you credits at a cost of 1/4 of a credit per view)
3. Games (may cost you or may earn you credits depending on your luck and or skills)
4. Text links and banners ( can also earn you and cost you credits)

The surf bar uses 1 credit for every visit we send you. The credits that you surf are then turned into visitors. Your blogs browsed is the total number of credits earned with the exception of winnings from games.

Although the varb hits were not being counted towards your total number of views received which is displayed on your blog's information page.

We assume that nearly 25% of traffic that you will receive will be via the varb browsing.

Because the varb browser attracts all manner of visitors from other sites that do not have to log into the site, and we are still displacing those credits but not paying anyone to browse the site using the varb browser, we are managing to increase the ratio that a person's blog is entitled to. More often than not its greater than 1:1.

Because of the fact that we are not paying out any credits for people using the varb browser, we have managed to "save" into the system a number of credits.

Together with the initial 10% fee for playing certain games, it allows us to sell credits which are not being used and are over and above the amount that the system can fairly generate while still providing a ratio of 1:1 or greater.

We also do not currently monitor the cost of banner credits that are being used up as well as credits that are being used to display the text links that you set up to be displayed on other peoples blogs. We estimate this to be almost 12% we are aiming to make this information 100% accurate in the next release.

We managed to save up 50,000 credits which are now on sale, once those get sold we will only sell what we can save rather than overuse or double charge people for views.

If at any time you are curious as to where your Blogmad credits went, try and work out your ratio by viewing your blogs information page on blogmad. Go the directory and search for your blog, you will see an information page. Divide the number of visits you received added together with any credits you may have given away by the number of blogs you browsed added with the total number of unused credits you have available, you should be a little less than 1 ... probably around .85 , that's the ratio without factoring in Varb or Text links or game losses, add a conservative 30% and you have a greater than 1 ratio.

These numbers are being read straight out of the database and cannot be skewed. Although the percentages aren't an exact science, its a pretty close equation.

Also to allow people to better manage their credits, in our next release within the next 4 - 6 weeks we are totally redeveloping the way that people can manage their credits. You will be able to allocate X amount of credits to certain functions and will be in total control of how your credits get allocated.

Now, I've also heard some concerns about not using PayPal for the purchase of credits and while I know that I do not want to sign up with another payment company, the problem here is that the guys are in South Africa and hence, are constricted by South African law. Apparently, the financial rules are quite tight and PayPal is simply not an option. Of course, that's gonna leave out a lot of people from easily buying credits ... but there's just only so much the guys can do now. They are looking at what they can do to bring PayPal online as fast as possible since we all know that PayPal has such a huge reputation and so many people already signed up with it.

There ya go ... Blogmad credits explained.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:27 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | TrackBack | Stumble