Here are some statistics I think you might find fascinating…

1. 70% of Facebook users came from outside the United States
2. > 1% of Facebook Users, use facebook to search for local businesses. (According to a local Social Media Survey.)
3. Of businesses surveyed locally, >10% say they have seen a benefit from Tweeting on Twitter. A Social Media Guru would argue that it’s because you’re not doing it right…

Sure you can argue there are a few benefits to Facebook, Twitter, Yelp etc… but the bottom line is there is not enough data to support any real networking benefit to small businesses.

I would argue that Twitter is great for B2B connections, Facebook… not so much. Facebook users are more concerned with their peeps updates then scooping out local business fan pages – period. Twitter had a very similar effect in a recent local survey.

Be very weary of ‘social media experts’ who promote cutting back on local online advertising (seo, ppc, Google local etc..) and focusing primarily on social media because it’s the ‘new revolution.’

What most ‘Social Media Experts or Social Media Guru’s’ fail to understand is Social Media and SEO work hand-in-hand. SEOs would know how Google Caffeine directly correlates with social media – a Social Media Expert wouldn’t. All they know is that if they follow 6500 people on Twitter, 5500 are most likely to follow back.. har har har.

This will lead into my next topic on why it’s a good idea to hire a SEO and not a Social Media Marketer for your next business endeavor.

Cheerio!

If anyone (even if it’s someone you know) sends you a direct message that redirects you to a page that looks similar or a mirror image of Twitter.com, close your browser – restart it and go directly to Twitter.com. If you decide to  put your login details into it you could be in a wold of hurtin just like Yodle found out when their Twitter account was hacked.

That’s it for now but you can read Twitter’s official advice on how to avoid going Phishing.

hey, i’ve been having better [removed] and longer with this here http://someURL

Obviously this wasn’t Yodle so it’s important that all you kids and businesses protect your brand by learning how to avoid Twitter Scams and Phishing Attempts.

Has your Twitter Account been hacked? Click here get advice on fixing it.

Twitter Phishing Attempt

Related Topics:

• KevansHome.org update
• Gone Phishing: Twitter

Fellow SEOs it’s time to brush up those resumes – you all (including me) are going to be out of jobs very soon…

Now – if you didn’t catch my sarcasm let’s be more direct. Ever since the Social Media Phenomena of 2009 including Google’s launch of Real-Time Results there has been a lot of chatter about the future of SEO and the fact is – it’s very promising, if anything – more promising than ever and here’s why.

Last week I posted a response to Chris Brogan’s blog post titled, “What I Want a Social Media Expert To Know.” I would be willing to bet most self-proclaimed social media experts have no idea what it really takes to be a true expert in Social Media.

Moving forward – Social Media and Search Engine Optimization are very similar (other than in personal use) that they target a large audience to meet a specific marketing agenda. Social Media can compliment Search Engine Optimization just as SEO can compliment Social Media…

Organic Results Won’t be Going Anywhere Anytime Soon. Instead of worrying about what changes will affect you negatively, how about spending some time educating yourself on the benefits of the changes and how you can implement changes into your SEO or Marketing Strategy to better serve your clients?

Social Media is to SEO as SEO is to Social Media – it’s that simple and I think once you grasp that you will understand that Social Media and SEO go hand-in-hand.

Welcome to the Internet Revolution.. ha… ha. ha.

Here’s is what a Majority of Social Media Experts are like… (Explicit)

Today – RackSpace’s Control Panel went down…  I was in the middle of setting up the DB for Denver SEO Jobs when I realized I couldn’t access the CP to create the Database I needed…

I then decided to hit Google with “RackSapce Twitter” and found Google’s “Real-Time Results,” and noticed they were having some issues – REAL TIME! I also at the time rocked a Tweet to @RackSpace and got an answer within minutes giving me back at least 20 mins of my life I would have wasted on hold with other hosting providers.

Here’s a bit of info about RackSpace:

Fanatical Support® has made Rackspace the world’s leader in hosting. RS delivers enterprise-level hosting services to businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world. We got started in 1998 and since have grown to serve more than 70,000 customers, including over 51,000 cloud computing customers.

Think about it… Months ago it was not possible to get ‘instant’ customer service – now it is. Impressive.

This  is why I spent 5 mins to share with you why I <3 Google, Twitter and RackSpace.

Happy New Year!

Twitter has learned a valuable lesson in security and is apparently taking a stronger stance on security by banning 370 simple to use and simple to guess passwords – all due to a security breach earlier this year.

Here’s the full list of banned Twitter passwords, via TechCrunch:

1. 111111
2. 11111111
3. 112233
4. 121212
5. 123123
6. 123456
7. 1234567
8. 12345678
9. 131313
10. 232323
11. 654321
12. 666666
13. 696969
14. 777777
15. 7777777
16. 8675309
17. 987654
18. aaaaaa
19. abc123
20. abc123
21. abcdef
22. abgrtyu
23. access
24. access14
25. action
26. albert
27. alexis
28. amanda
29. amateur
30. andrea
31. andrew
32. angela
33. angels
34. animal
35. anthony
36. apollo
37. apples
38. arsenal
39. arthur
40. asdfgh
41. asdfgh
42. ashley
43. august
44. austin
45. badboy
46. bailey
47. banana
48. barney
49. baseball
50. batman
51. beaver
52. beavis
53. bigdaddy
54. bigdog
55. birdie
56. bitches
57. biteme
58. blazer
59. blonde
60. blondes
61. bond007
62. bonnie
63. booboo
64. booger
65. boomer
66. boston
67. brandon
68. brandy
69. braves
70. brazil
71. bronco
72. broncos
73. bulldog
74. buster
75. butter
76. butthead
77. calvin
78. camaro
79. cameron
80. canada
81. captain
82. carlos
83. carter
84. casper
85. charles
86. charlie
87. cheese
88. chelsea
89. chester
90. chicago
91. chicken
92. cocacola
93. coffee
94. college
95. compaq
96. computer
97. cookie
98. cooper
99. corvette
100. cowboy
101. cowboys
102. crystal
103. dakota
104. dallas
105. daniel
106. danielle
107. debbie
108. dennis
109. diablo
110. diamond
111. doctor
112. doggie
113. dolphin
114. dolphins
115. donald
116. dragon
117. dreams
118. driver
119. eagle1
120. eagles
121. edward
122. einstein
123. erotic
124. extreme
125. falcon
126. fender
127. ferrari
128. firebird
129. fishing
130. florida
131. flower
132. flyers
133. football
134. forever
135. freddy
136. freedom
137. gandalf
138. gateway
139. gators
140. gemini
141. george
142. giants
143. ginger
144. golden
145. golfer
146. gordon
147. gregory
148. guitar
149. gunner
150. hammer
151. hannah
152. hardcore
153. harley
154. heather
155. helpme
156. hockey
157. hooters
158. horney
159. hotdog
160. hunter
161. hunting
162. iceman
163. iloveyou
164. internet
165. iwantu
166. jackie
167. jackson
168. jaguar
169. jasmine
170. jasper
171. jennifer
172. jeremy
173. jessica
174. johnny
175. johnson
176. jordan
177. joseph
178. joshua
179. junior
180. justin
181. killer
182. knight
183. ladies
184. lakers
185. lauren
186. leather
187. legend
188. letmein
189. little
190. london
191. lovers
192. maddog
193. madison
194. maggie
195. magnum
196. marine
197. marlboro
198. martin
199. marvin
200. master
201. matrix
202. matthew
203. maverick
204. maxwell
205. melissa
206. member
207. mercedes
208. merlin
209. michael
210. michelle
211. mickey
212. midnight
213. miller
214. mistress
215. monica
216. monkey
217. monkey
218. monster
219. morgan
220. mother
221. mountain
222. muffin
223. murphy
224. mustang
225. naked
226. nascar
227. nathan
228. naughty
229. ncc1701
230. newyork
231. nicholas
232. nicole
233. nipple
234. nipples
235. oliver
236. orange
237. packers
238. panther
239. panties
240. parker
241. password
242. password
243. password1
244. password12
245. password123
246. patrick
247. peaches
248. peanut
249. pepper
250. phantom
251. phoenix
252. player
253. please
254. pookie
255. porsche
256. prince
257. princess
258. private
259. purple
260. pussies
261. qazwsx
262. qwerty
263. qwertyui
264. rabbit
265. rachel
266. racing
267. raiders
268. rainbow
269. ranger
270. rangers
271. rebecca
272. redskins
273. redsox
274. redwings
275. richard
276. robert
277. rocket
278. rosebud
279. runner
280. rush2112
281. russia
282. samantha
283. sammy
284. samson
285. sandra
286. saturn
287. scooby
288. scooter
289. scorpio
290. scorpion
291. secret
292. sexsex
293. shadow
294. shannon
295. shaved
296. sierra
297. silver
298. skippy
299. slayer
300. smokey
301. snoopy
302. soccer
303. sophie
304. spanky
305. sparky
306. spider
307. squirt
308. srinivas
309. startrek
310. starwars
311. steelers
312. steven
313. sticky
314. stupid
315. success
316. summer
317. sunshine
318. superman
319. surfer
320. swimming
321. sydney
322. taylor
323. tennis
324. teresa
325. tester
326. testing
327. theman
328. thomas
329. thunder
330. thx1138
331. tiffany
332. tigers
333. tigger
334. tomcat
335. topgun
336. toyota
337. travis
338. trouble
339. trustno1
340. tucker
341. turtle
342. twitter
343. united
344. vagina
345. victor
346. victoria
347. viking
348. voodoo
349. voyager
350. walter
351. warrior
352. welcome
353. whatever
354. william
355. willie
356. wilson
357. winner
358. winston
359. winter
360. wizard
361. xavier
362. xxxxxx
363. xxxxxxxx
364. yamaha
365. yankee
366. yankees
367. yellow
368. zxcvbn
369. zxcvbnm
370. zzzzzz

Yesterday was quite a wild ride for me… I started the day out by joining a clients Christmas Party’s  and later rolled over to the Arvada DNote to see one of my favorite local bands; Wendy Woo so I missed all the action with the latest and greatest from Twitter. Here are a few snippits of what happened… According to status.twitter.com they were calling the attack /downtime due to a DNS Compromise.

From Techcrunch:

We’ve received multiple tips right around 10 pm that Twitter was hacked and defaced with the message below. The site is currently offline. We’re looking into this and waiting on a response from Twitter.

The message reads:

Iranian Cyber Army

THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY

iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM

U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….

NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST
Take Care.

Update: – We have just found out that the same defacement is appearing at at least one other site, mawjcamp.org. We are not able to see what was at this domain before, but it is now displaying the same defacement that Twitter was only a few minutes ago.
Twitter does not have the best record with security issues.
Update 2.: Twitter.com is down, status.twitter.com is down (not useful, perhaps they should host it at blogger).
Update 3.: It is suggested that if you use the same password on your Twitter account with other accounts, now would be a good time to change your password on those other accounts.
Update 4.: There is a history between Iran and Twitter.
Update 5.: There is speculation at the moment that this may be a DNS redirect, which means that the Twitter.com domain has been redirected to the defacement page.

The latest – Twitter wasn’t hacked by the  Iranian Cyber Army

Twitter (not) hacked by Iranian Cyber Army

The initial attack has left many users confused and widespread belief that the Twitter servers themselves were compromised. This does not appear to have been the case. The latest update on the Twitter blog says

“As we tweeted a bit ago, Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while but API and platform applications were working. We will update with more information and details once we’ve investigated more fully.”

This kind of DNS hijacking usually involves compromising the registrar responsible for the DNS records of the victim company, the attackers then make unauthorised changes to the DNS records. These changes mean that when you or I type a web site address into our browsers, we are directed not to the real web site but to a second site, set up by the hackers, in this case the “Iranian Cyber Army”. This has the net effect of making it look like, in this example, servers belonging to Twitter were compromised when in reality that was not the case.

These sorts of attacks are usually limited to hacktivism activities like this one today, but imagine the potential to criminals if they could pull this off against any site requiring log in credentials, such as PayPal, eBay, MSN, Facebook. One has to wonder how quickly the attack would be noted if the dummy site was an exact replica of the victim and was simply there to harvest credentials and redirect the user then into the real site. This attack is called Pharming and currently mostly happens as a result of local malware modifying individual PCs, not through the compromise of global DNS records, but the potential is demonstrably there. Companies should be monitoring their DNS resolution on several servers to become aware as early as possible when this kind of attack takes place.

http://countermeasures.trendmicro.eu/twitter-not-hacked-by-iranian-cyber-army/

It’s official Twitter is down again, here is the latest update…

Brief Downtime:

We briefly experienced a very high rate of errors due to the same underlying problem as yesterday. We are working to permanently resolve this problem.