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SMX Advanced – Day 1 Recap

Posted June 3, 2009
Filed under: blogging, Industry Events, Professional Development, Security, Social Media | Tags: Link Juice, Search Engine Ranking Factors, SMX, SMX Advanced, Twitter, Twitter tactics, Twitter tools

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I was lucky enough to be up in Seattle yesterday to sit in on the sessions at SMX Advanced. SMX stands for Search Marketing Expo and SMX Advanced is one in a series of a half dozen conferences run around the world each year. Each of these conferences is dedicated to Search Marketing.

My favorite session of the morning was “Twitter Tactics and Search Marketing”. There were several presenters, including Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service and Joanna Lord, Co-Founder & CMO, TheOnlineBeat.

Michael was my favorite presenter of the show. His presentation was fast paced and insightful – very difficult to put into words. He started his presentation with “There is no right or wrong way to use Twitter. You need to determine what works for you”, which set a very down-to-Earth tone. Michael listed off what seemed like a thousand tools and tactics for twitter, but my favorite soundbite of his presentation is that “the re-tweet is Twitter gold“. He suggested that you RT (re-tweet) the most self-serving tweets of people you want to notice you.

Although Michael was a hard act to follow, Joanna definitely held her own. She offered great advice with regards to Twitter use and security. She suggested the following:

RESEARCH an application/tool BEFORE giving them your PASSWORD
Read.The.Link.Before.You.Push!!! (reference to the use of URL shorteners and re-tweeting links)

My favorite afternoon session talked about Search Engine Rank Factors (SERFs) in 2009 and had heavyweight presenters Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, Laura Lippay, Dir. Technical Marketing at Yahoo, and Marty Weintraub, President of aimClear. What I took away from the session was that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is more than meta tags, inbound links, keyword density, etc. It is about being viral, creating buzz, and creating a great product. Laura suggested asking yourself “What is it going to take to outrank our top competitor?” Simple, yet profound. I don’t think many people ask themselves this question. I think fewer people are disciplined enough to follow through with the actions needed to become #1.

Besides the great educational sessions, there was an excellent vendor in conjunction with the conference. All the large players were there such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and SEOmoz. Microsoft had the most interesting booth promoting their new “Bing” search engine. I particularly liked that you could use an XBox 360 controller to control maps provided by Bing. The best swag was provided by SEOmoz, who gave away cans of “Link Juice”. The LinkJuice reminded me of the case of Brawndo that I bought off the Internet before Christmas (a reference to the movie Idiocracy, if you haven’t seen it).

Unfortunately, I had to leave the conference before the evening keynote on Day 1 due to client commitments. It looked like there were some great Day 2 sessions as well as vendor sponsored parties. I am definitely going to keep Search Marketing Expo events on my radar over the coming year.

The Importance of Tagging

Posted May 25, 2009
Filed under: blogging, Social Media | Tags: blogging, INTEROP, social bookmarking, Social Media, tagging, Twitter

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While at INTEROP last week, I met several journalists, analysts, etc. Several of them visited WiFiJedi.com and gave me feedback.

One piece of constructive criticism was that while the content was good, there was no real good way to find past material. This individual suggested that I have a tag cloud widget on my blog cross-referencing posts on a given topic.

Therefore, I have taken this suggestion and placed a tag cloud on the side bar of my blog. I have always had the drop down category box and the search field that appear below the tag cloud. At the bottom of every post, I have also tried to link to other applicable WiFiJedi.com material. Have you used these features? Do you like the tag cloud? Please let me know what you think in the comments section.

At any rate, the tag cloud coversation reminded me of one of the sessions I attended at INTEROP titled “Next Generation Search: Social Bookmarking and Tagging” by Thomas Vander Wal. Here is an oversimplified graphic from the presentation:

Interest –> Culture

Vocabulary –> Terminology

Mr. Vander Wal suggested that bookmarking and tagging turn individual interest into a shared culture and how they also turn an individual vocabulary into shared terminology.

Coincidently enough, that same day I found a Twitter service called Twittersheep that generates a tag cloud of all the terms used in the biographies of your followers. Here is what it generated from my followers:

What really jumped out at me was how much of a reflection of my background and interests are mirrored by my Twitter followers. I guess we are attracted to people who persue similar activities. Go ahead and try it and let me know if you come to a similar conclusion!

Twitter Power – Book Review

Posted May 21, 2009
Filed under: Book Review, Social Media | Tags: Book Review, Joel Comm, social media bootcamp, Twitter, Twitter Power

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This should be considered the “how-to Twitter bible” for beginners and experts alike. For beginners, the book talks about how to use the technology for many different purposes including advertising, selling, customer service, etc.

For advanced users, the book discusses third-party tools, Twitter application development, and legal concerns.

Personally, the section I enjoyed the most was how to use Twitter to build and maintain a personal brand.

Joel writes in a very friendly, informal way which puts the reader at ease and enables them to digest the material at a rapid pace. Don’t let that fool you though – there are plenty of examples, case studies, and hyperlinks throughout the book.

The book ends with a 30 day action plan for how to get maximum value from using Twitter. It has specific steps to accomplish each day.

Purchasing the book also includes a free “ticket” to Joel’s online 4-week social media workshop. I found out about this feature watching Joel’s video preview of the book on Amazon. It was one of the deciding factors to purchase this versus another Twitter title. However, when the book arrived, I got so caught up in reading it, I haven’t registered for the online workshop yet. I guess that is the ultimate testimonial for how engrossing the book is…

My Customized Twitter Background

Posted May 2, 2009
Filed under: blogging, Cellular / Mobile Phones, Social Media | Tags: Twitter, twitter backgroumd, web 2.0, Wi-Fi Jedi

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As many of you know, I have started an account on Twitter under the user name “wifijedi”.

No, I wasn’t influenced to join by Oprah, or the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN competition.

I see it mostly as a micro-blogging tool and enjoy sending out shorter, yet more frequent updates.

Recently, my Twitter profile page got a makeover. Thanks to friend and co-worker John Merrill, I now have a customized background.

My background serves as a central repository for WiFi Jedi branded content including my blog, my Computerworld blog, my LinkedIn profile, and my lens on Squidoo.

You can check out my new background at http://www.twitter.com/wifijedi

Copycat Twitter Worm?

Posted April 17, 2009
Filed under: blogging, Security, Social Media | Tags: mikeyy, Social Media, social media malware, Twitter, Twitter worm

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I originally wrote this piece as a guest post for An Information Security Place. However, I wanted to re-post at WiFiJedi.com FRIDAY 4/17 Update: Apparently the behavior described below is tied to a buggy Pidgin plugin. I haven’t been able to confirm that 100%, but thought I should deliver the latest & greatest…

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As most of you know, Twitter was hit with a series of worms this past weekend. They were created by 17 year old, Mikey Mooney, creator of the website StalkDaily.com (don’t visit the site). The original worm seemed fairly innocuous, with messages that were created to drive traffic to the StalkDaily website.

I wrote a Computerworld blog post, where I detailed the original attack as well as provided a list of security recommendations. In that post, I commented that Twitter users should be on the lookout for modified worms, especially as additional details of the original attack come to light.

After Twitter patched the original cross site scripting (XSS) flaw, which exploited the “link” field in a user profile, another variant of the worm appeared. This time, the worm exploited the “color” setting of the user profile. Modifying the worm highlighted that the XSS vulnerability was not limited to a single field and that Twitter would have to institute a comprehensive patch, not a band-aid solution.

The variant of the worm automatically generated tweets with the term “mikeyy”. These were sarcasitic in nature and seemed to be tounge-in-cheek. Examples include:

Mikeyy I am done…
Mikeyy is done…
Twitter please fix this, regards Mikeyy

The general consensus today is that the “StalkDaily” and “Mikeyy” worms have been adequately addressed. However, I am not fully convinced. Four days after the original worm, I am still seeing suspicious behavior. A colleague of mine has a Twitter account that automatically started generating tweets saying “I am not here right now.”

Using a third party iPhone application, TweetStack, I am conducting periodic searches on the string “I am not here right now.” I found that this is not nearly as wide spread as the “StalkDaily” Twitter worm, but has affected at least a couple dozen accounts.

While this could be yet another variant of worm created by Mikey Mooney, my suspicion is that this is a copycat worm created by another party (most likely a Scriptkiddie).

Are YOU still seeing anomalous behavior on Twitter? I would love to hear about it! Please comment below as well as notify the Internet Storm Center if you see anything noteworthy.

Twitter Worm Blog Post on Computerworld

Posted April 12, 2009
Filed under: Cellular / Mobile Phones, Security, Social Media | Tags: Computer World, Social Media, social media malware, Twitter, Twitter worm

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I have started blogging for Computerworld. I am serving up content for their Mobile & Wireless space.

I wrote a post over the weekend detailing two variants of a Twitter worm – one advertising StalkDaily.com (don’t visit the site) and another highlighting the 17 year old behind the website who goes by the name of “mikeyy”.

My post details how the worm spreads, as well as provides specific security recommendations. You can read the post in its entirety at:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/twitter_worm_still_on_the_loose

I am also excited because I have my first Computerworld comment. I really enjoy the community aspect of blogging, so feel free to leave comments here at WiFiJedi.com or at Computerworld anytime !

Do You Squidoo?

Posted March 30, 2009
Filed under: blogging | Tags: LinkedIn, Seth Godin, Squidoo, Twitter, Wireless Networking, Wireless Security

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I recently created a web page (called a “lens”) on Squidoo. Squidoo allows people to create a lens on what they are passionate about. Therefore, my Squidoo lens is on Wireless Networking & Security!

Squidoo was a site that was, in-part, created by Seth Godin (the author). I also have Seth’s Blog in my blogroll on the left-hand side of WiFiJedi.com

I don’t want to spoil the actual content, but I will give you a few clues as to what’s on my lens – text modules, YouTube videos, ties to Twitter streams, links to some of my favorite books on Amazon, etc. Go see for yourself!

You can check out my Squidoo lens at http://www.squidoo.com/wifijedi

Don’t forget to find my other cross-linked content:

My LinkedIn profile – http://www.linkedin.com/douglashaider

My Twitter stream – http://www.twitter.com/wifijedi