Pocket SEO » Web 2.0

JetBlue Airways is now following you on Twitter!

Josh — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:09:28 +0000

I just got an email today from Twitter:

Hi, pocketseo.

JetBlue Airways (JetBlue) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out JetBlue Airways’s profile here:

http://twitter.com/JetBlue

Best,
Twitter

I’ve experimented a bit with using Twitter for direct traffic and I think it can be useful if you are sending the right message in your “tweets”. JetBlue has 522 people following them on Twitter, with some of them probably getting updates by cell phone.

Southwest Air also has a Twitter feed, but they have it blocked unless you request to follow them. Why make it more difficult for people to follow your Twitter updates?

Jason Calacanis Attacks SMO While Mahalo.com Hammers Twitter

Josh — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:53:35 +0000

As mentioned in an earlier post, Jason Calacanis criticizes social media optimization (SMO) while working Digg at the same time.

A few days ago I noticed that he again criticized SEO/SMO in his blog:

People are coming up to ask questions and the guy keeps saying “well you have to do social work on digg and reddit, but it’s complicated and we need to talk about it.” During the panel he said “it’s complicated, we should talk about it after the panel.” I’m sure folks will come to his office and he’ll say “it’s complicated, sign this contract and we can start working on it.”

I also noticed that Mahalo is doing heavy social media optimization on Twitter.com. Here are a couple of screenshots:

Mahalo.com has created many twitter.com user accounts:

Each account seems to automatically update when new content is added to Mahalo:

Jason Calacanis wrote:

I’ve seen a half dozen SEO-related panels over the year and it’s always the same thing… like some infomercial where they will tell you their five secrets… IF you give them $199.95.

For a company like Mahalo.com I’m sure the technique of hammering sites like Twitter with automated updates would be worth $199.95. I’m sure Jason would charge much more than that for his expertise.

Like I mentioned before, it’s easy for Calacanis to criticize SMO because he has the knowledge to do it inhouse.

Hackers Bypass Msplinks.com Redirects on MySpace With Dangerous Phishing Attack

Josh — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:31:25 +0000

At the end of April, 2007, MySpace.com started 302 redirecting all links that were posted in comments on Myspace through a Web site at msplinks.com. I recently noticed a phishing attack on MySpace that easily bypassed the 302 redirects and linked directly to the target site.

I let MySpace know about the phishing incident, but I only received an automated reply thanking me for my warning:

Hello,

We have received and reviewed your report of inappropriate content. This content has been removed.

We thank you for your support in helping to keep MySpace a safe and fun community!

MySpace.com

I don’t think that MySpace really looked at the issue because the problem is still there. I did a little more investigating and this is how the attack is performed.

The attacker starts by getting someone’s password and then logs into the first victim’s MySpace account. Getting the first password is easy, as explained below.

Then the attacker posts comments in the profiles of the victim’s friends. Here is an example post—the profile image has been blocked out to protect the victim’s identity:

This image has a direct outbound link to the following URL, which looks like a MySpace video site until you look at the Chinese domain name at the end of the URL:
http://vids.myspace.com.fuseaction.user.id.28902334.aheprbaic.cn/

There is no 302 redirect through msplinks.com in that comment link. The average user would not read the entire URL, or even understand what it means if they actually did read it.

Visiting that link takes you to the following page, which is a fake MySpace login page that presumably steals your password.

Once your password is stolen, the attacker can login to your account and repeat the process. This attack is effective because the phishing page is sent to the victims by their friends.

The attacker then starts sending spam to victims’ friends from the victims’ accounts. I assume that leads to a higher conversion rate for their ringtones, porn, and free gift cards like this spam the attacker sent me from one of my friends’ accounts:

Here is a comment on a MySpace profile that has a direct link to http://macyscashkardz.com/ without a 302 redirect through msplinks.com:

Here is another comment that has a direct link to http://www.shopfreeatmacys.com/ without a 302 redirect through msplinks.com:

I’m not going to publish the code I saw that bypasses the 302 redirects through msplinks.com, but variations can be found online.

The redirect through msplinks.com is dangerous because it masks the destination of the links. Even without the msplinks.com redirect this phishing attack shows that MySpace is still a very dangerous Web site, especially for the less computer-savvy.

Hopefully someone from MySpace will read this and fix the problem (if there is any fix for a site as chaotic as MySpace.com).

UPDATE: I just saw that MySpace itself is running these “Macy’s Gift Card” ads also. Here is a screenshot of the official MySpace version:

If Jason Calacanis Thinks that SMO Is B.S., Why Is Mahalo Gaming Digg?

Josh — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 06:49:41 +0000

I remembered reading a blog post by Jason Calacanis about how social media optimization is BS:

PSS – This whole gaming of digg/Netscape/MySpace is being called SMO–social media optimization. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard of. Anyone who hires an SMO firm is an idiot. The whole point of social media is TO BE REAL NOT FAKE!!! Just be yourself and participate… that’s all it takes (and note, participation is not just putting in your own links, it’s voting/commenting on/submitting other people’s content too!). [highlight added by me]

Check this out:

Here is a Digg user named Sh2010â€”a friend of Jason McCabe Calacanis and Mark Jeffrey (Mahalo CTO) among other Mahalo employees who are on Digg.

Here is a screenshot of some of Sh2010’s 19 submissions:

It looks like 16 of the 19 Digg submissions are Mahalo pages, and one more of the 19 Digg submissions is about how to review Mahalo pages.

Jason Calacanis wrote about how “participation is not just putting in your own links, it’s voting/commenting on/submitting other people’s content too!“. So take a look at Sh2010’s activity:

16 out of the 19 Digg submissions are for Mahalo.com and there is only one other comment. No friends were invited. It’s not much trouble to Digg 84 stories in the process of submitting 19 stories.

Here is a Digg user that loves Mahalo:

Here is another Digg user that loves Mahalo so much that he logged in several times between July and September to submit only Mahalo.com content:

Here is another example from someone who has a Digg submission that says, “this is a really great how to page from the team here at Mahalo“. Does that mean that she works for Mahalo.com? She also submitted this post: Britney Spears’ Gimme More Video which links to a Mahalo.com stub (unfinished content) on Mahalo.com:

I don’t have a problem with people submitting Mahalo content to Digg. The only reason to point out this unusual pattern of Digg submissions is that Jason Calacanis said that social media optimization is “the worst thing I’ve ever heard of“.

NOTE: I don’t mean to pick on any specific Digg users who submit Mahalo content almost exclusively; I am just randomly picking examples. You can find more examples of Digg users who seem to love Mahalo with this Google search.

Mahalo.com might not be behind the submissions that I mentioned above, but the submission pattern doesn’t look natural when most of your submissions are for Mahalo.com and Jason Calcanis and Mark Jeffrey are on your friends list.

It’s easy to say that “anyone who hires an SMO firm is an idiot“ when you have the knowledge and experience to do it inhouse.

Jason Calacanis Attacks SMO While Mahalo.com Hammers Twitter

Propeller.com & Cialis

Josh — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:25:24 +0000

Propeller.com is sending some traffic to my sites — more than Netscape.com did. When I went to visit the home page today, the number 1 story was entitled, CLICK HERE >> FOR YOUR PERSONAL BUY CIALIS ONLINE SEARCHâ€¦

Here is a screenshot:

It looks like a bot was responsible:

On a side note, if you don’t like the way that Propeller.com opens your pages in a frame, you can escape the frame by putting the following code just after the opening tag:

That code will prevent any Web site from framing your Web page.

Propeller.com – Netscape is Gone

Josh — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:50:23 +0000

I noticed propeller.com as a referrer in my logs and went to check it out.

It looks like Netscape.com is gone–moved to Propeller.com–and Netscape.com redirects to netscape.aol.com.

It was a strange idea to 301 redirect Netscape.com to Netscape.aol.com.Â There is no obvious indication on Netscape.aol.com that the old site was moved to Propeller.com.Â There is a small information box, but it’s not prominent.