October 19, 2008 at 3:39 pm
We all know that a lot of people and companies are using social media for brand exposure, traffic, links, etc. Marketing is there, and always will be, but the smart companies and people do a great job of not being obvious about it. They work to fit in, to blend in and become part of the community.
And then there are morons like this:
This moron is going around leaving spammy comments on all kinds of stories — that’s how s/he has those 390 points. I think you get 3 points for a comment on Mixx, so that’s 130 spammy comments. Way to contribute to the community.
If there’s any silver lining to this, it comes from looking at this person’s friends and followers:
The silver lining? Look how easy it’ll be for the Mixx spam cops to quickly zap all kinds of lame accounts that have no business being active on the site. It’s 3:40 pm PT on Sunday as I post this. Let’s see how long it takes to get all this cleaned up. I’m betting it won’t be long at all…..
(This reminds me of my post earlier this year, How NOT to Market on Flickr. Spammers are just dumb….)
UPDATE:
It’s now 4:07 pm, 27 minutes later, and that account is gone. Nice job, Mixx crew. You rock.
October 13, 2008 at 5:00 pm
First this…
Then this…
Then this…
I think that’s terrific. You don’t even have to follow @APNews. (But you should, because they post a lot of headlines and you stay smarter by knowing what’s going in the world.)
October 12, 2008 at 10:23 pm
With digg on a mission to eliminate many top users, Mixx is seeing some serious gains in traffic and registered users. Generally speaking, that’s a Good Thing. As a fairly early adopter on Mixx, I’m glad to see new faces and new energy on the site. It feels like there’s some momentum when you spend time on Mixx these days.
But it also seems like the only thing people want to talk about these days on mixx is … digg. Here’s what the Popular page looked like a few minutes ago:
I think Tamar said it well last week:
There’s too much f—ing Digg commentary everywhere on Mixx. As community members (obviously not as Mixx representatives), your marketing message is too much “stop using Digg and go to Mixx instead.” … [There's] nothing that actually talks about Mixx’s strengths (besides community and besides the fact that it is not Digg — which you can tell is not a strong enough reason by itself to be a self-sustaining community).
I’ve made no secret that I love Mixx. But enough with the digg talk. Can we all move on now and figure out what we are and stop talking about what we’re not? Thx.
September 17, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Really, the image says it all. Click for larger version.
Need I say more?
August 11, 2008 at 8:36 pm
If you ever find a story online about girls and animé, submit it.
June 10, 2008 at 12:13 am
Been a bit busy the past few days working on my U2 book, but had some time today to get more involved on mixx, digg, sphinn, etc. Here’s what I shared over the past 24 hours or so.
mixx
digg
Sphinn
Not a single iPhone story submitted. 
But I did vote for a couple. And I do plan to buy the new one next month. But you knew that….
May 28, 2008 at 9:32 am
Being a moderator at Sphinn is pretty time-consuming, but it’s also fun! I’ve killed thousands of submissions and accounts from users spammers trying to game the site for exposure, a free and followed link, or whatever else they’re trying to accomplish. As Danny (I think) once said, “Nothing smells better than fresh killspam in the morning.” Hehehehe, so true.
Sphinn’s guidelines seem pretty straightforward to me. The primary rule is use common sense. Well, judging from the amount of spam that gets submitted every day, common sense isn’t very common.
So, in an effort to help those who need it, here are one moderator’s examples of signs that you’re spamming or gaming Sphinn. (I’ve blurred out the names of the guilty; the point isn’t to call them out individually, it’s to help… really. (And to make you roll your eyes at the crap we see.))
1.) Your submission has 61 words in the title.
(Note: Sphinn has no specific rule about how long a headline can be. But really, 61 words? Takeaway: Use common sense.)
2.) The URL you’re submitting has the phrase “for sale” in it.
3.) The article you wrote is filled with affiliate links.
(Note: As a moderator, I’ll overlook it if you have a good article that has an affiliate link at the end. But the example above? Spam.)
4.) You repeat your keyword four times in the headline.
5.) You repeat your keyword six times in the headline. (And once more in the description, because too much is never enough!)
6.) I click to read your article, and before the page loads, you hit me with a pop-up window selling your products, your services, your newsletter … anything.
(Note: Sphinn has no rule against submitting articles with pop-ups. This is not spam by definition. It’s just annoying, and looks spammy. Takeaway: Use common sense.)
7.) Your submission gets 19 votes in less than 40 minutes, while every other submission before and after yours only has 1-2 votes.
(Note: I know people have friends/co-workers who help vote up each other’s stories. We decide on a case-by-case basis if these are spam/gaming the site. And I know there’s only one submission from a recognizable user in the screenshot above, but still … 19 votes in less than 40 minutes? Please.)
8.) You submitted your home page.
(No image necessary. Point is, 99 times out of 100, people submit a home page for self-promotional spamming purposes. Submit your articles/blog posts, instead; not your home page.)
9.) Your story is off-topic, and you wrote the headline in ALL FREAKIN’ CAPS.
(Note: Off-topic = spam. ALL CAPS = annoying.)
10.) You have a public, open-to-anyone Facebook group called “I Sphinn Your Back – You Sphinn My Back.”
If I missed any, feel free to add them in the comments!
