GoDaddy Sucks and Here is Why – Part 2 – Premium DNS Crashes Networks

, , , , , , , , , ,

GoDaddy sucks. Period. If it isn’t obvious to you from the smutty campaigns with Danica Patrick, supposed President and former CEO “Bob Parsons” having ‘secrets’ like, “The SECRETS to finding and hiring GREAT employees. + 2 Smoking-Hot Go Daddy Girls!”, while being totally sexist and a general creeper, poor advertising in general or the absolutely crappy hosting plans they over-sell hosting nodes on, then we need to talk. This has been a long time coming from us as timing is everything. We wanted to make sure that we took proper precautions to protect ourselves, our intellectual property and free speech as what we’re pissed off about is far from acceptable and borders on near to criminal on Go Daddy, Inc.’s behalf. So to make it crystal clear, this is an account of our experience and not some random slanderous prose on who to hate.

GoDaddy

Might as well preface this with: A) It’s technical, B) It’s personal, and C) We gave them ample opportunity to make this problem right before we had to take the issue into our own hands. And in light of recent SOPA problems with GoDaddy, we hope this testimonial is even more of a reason that you don’t use their service. Speaking of, their real CEO, Warren Adelman, put out a statement about SOPA stating that because the Senate couldn’t come to a consensus that GoDaddy was no longer supporting SOPA. Read that again if you need to figure out why we’re astonished or read the whole article about SOPA and GoDaddy sucking. Now, on to the show!

We affiliated ourselves with GoDaddy, a.k.a. GoDaddy.com or Go Daddy, Inc., as an ICANN domain provider back in 2006 before we went public and as a reseller in 2008 to offer competitive pricing and an alternative storefront when we did begin offering public services. As a reseller, they take one of their other companies, Starfield Technologies as well as Wild West Domains (remember this name, it’s key to what went wrong) and have your WHOIS/Registration information pass through them. Since then, we’ve obviously learned that there are just as viable alternatives to domain acquisition and purchases than dealing with GoDaddy, often for pennies more or less. And our network continues to grow.

Looking for a way to keep costs the same or lower and provide the same if not better service, we looked at integrating what was called GoDaddy’s AnyCast DNS now called ‘Premium DNS’. We suspect that they stopped calling it ‘AnyCast DNS’ because you can’t serve DNS from one datacenter and honestly call it AnyCast… sort of a technical oxymoron. This was to be used as an extension of our services and as an alternative to running solely our own network of DNS servers. We didn’t jump in with both feet, but we were deep enough to start losing air before it was too late.

We called and spoke to a sales representative about their services a long time ago, long before our trust was broken and our issue ever occurred. At the time, we declined moving forward with their DNS service because there was no way to CNAME or create a hostname for the servers that matched a domain name of our own as we said a moment ago. When GoDaddy added the ‘vanity name servers’ bit to the DNS service, we were more interested. We called back several months later and spoke to a sales representative that we had make sure with her supervisor her statement was accurate and ordered the Premium DNS service because we were able to not hand out a string like a CDN does. At the time, we had been hosting our own servers and wanted at least one extension off of that for even more redundancy. Since we already had our .com at GoDaddy at the time with the core hostnames coming from GoDaddy, it was easy to say yes to testing out something for like $2.99 a month since we were paying much more than that per DNS server.

Before I get too far into this, a very important part of hosting relies on DNS. DNS to the layman is a server or network system which broadcasts the IP address or location of a server by converting the name of a top-level domain like turkreno.com into an IP address. DNS serves out usually every request that goes through a network and it also plays a very large part in the latency, or speed, in which content is found. There are times when a network is undiscoverable or slow just because of routing issues with backbone service providers. Those providers in the United States, such as AT&T, Global Crossing, Layer3 and others actually run the flow of the Internet and usually own the fiber optic cable on which it runs. So, when a DNS server does a query, the response or reply may tell your traffic to go to Washington first, because that’s where the first router is between you and the domain that resolved and the server you’re asking for, then further “hops” to other locations until your request reaches its destination. Having multiple servers, or an AnyCast-type network, that are within multiple datacenters around the world where those backbones are routed through provides what’s known as a Point-of-Presence (POP) and will decrease latency since the answer is locally cached to that router. In a worst cast scenario, the traffic where a network client requests a site that isn’t cached by the ISP, which is the usual case, the router may have to search or query the router ahead of it to search for a resolving DNS server, thus creating latency. Speed is of the essence and maybe that explains why this improvement is important for any network.

Digressing back to what happened is most likely easier if we just put it into a handy mind map and bullet out the entire issue here for those who don’t want to view a huge PDF. For months this issue was up on the whiteboard in the office and it took precisely that long to fix all of the screwed up issues that happened. We ended up making a mind map chart of what went wrong and we’ll go from there.

We spent hours on this with them. Hours we want back from our lives. Maybe we can save you some time. Switch hosting to us, we’re not on GoDaddy’s crappy 4GH Network or whatever they want to call it. Or maybe you want to contact the Office of the President for GoDaddy. No problem, here’s all of their contact info:

E-Mail: president@godaddy.com

Phone: 408-505-8828

CEO: Warren Adelman

Alt. Numbers to GoDaddy Corporate Offices: 408-505-8800

So, when you think of DNS hopefully GoDaddy won’t be the first that comes to mind. We’ve got an awesome platform setup to accommodate multiple types of needs, including those of web masters using Linux or WHM/cPanel. Contact us if you’re interested. It’s private for the time being, but will be live soon.

Don’t trust GoDaddy with your DNS, their SysAdmins know NOTHING of how to complete a ticket and they COULD be stealing your traffic, or worse, blocking it because their tech support knows NOTHING.

/by

GoDaddy Sucks and Here is Why – Part 1 – The SOPA Truth

, , , , , , , , ,

The great evil of the modern day Internet: SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act, or as it’s formally known H.R. 3261, which threatens Freedom of Speech and Expression on the Internet. The Bill titles itself with the very false objective – “To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.” – and it’s the “Other purposes” as usual we’re all worried about. Blocking a site at the DNS level is one of the primary concerns. The other concerns that we’ve heard and see online are the linking of one site to a site that is infringing against Copyright laws. With SOPA marked as it is now, the whole site would be taken down rather than the offending content. What ever happened to the DMCA? Wasn’t that good enough? Apparently not.

This Act, when read in further detail, not only pressures Internet Service Providers like TurkReno to make rather extraneous measures to filter content and national providers of ICANN services to block a domain that they blacklist from search engine results and beyond. If they passes it to the US Senate then you can expect more than one derivative of its kind following SOPA. You see, it’s failed before. And, like a bad cold, this is another variant. Here’s the best summary from Wikipedia that shows what it was and how it’s moving:

The PROTECT IP Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed to pass in 2010. A similar House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was introduced on October 26, 2011.

GoDaddy

What’s disgusting about this is that GoDaddy, one of the largest ICANN domain registrars was, and under speculation still is, supporting the writing of this Act. They crafted it themselves. And then they release a press release today stating they would not further support SOPA, but we don’t trust it and neither should you. If they knew what they were getting themselves into, then it’s clear that their Executives are bluffing their way into keeping business. What really matters here is that they see the big picture. GoDaddy isn’t the only registrar.

And, with as much content as GoDaddy hosts, and over-sells (see Caption 1), they’d shut down 5,000 to 6,000, yes – THOUSAND, customers at a time per ONE (1) SOPA takedown order.

And here’s what they had to say:

GoDaddy No Longer Supports SOPA

Looks to Internet Community & Fellow Tech Leaders to Develop Legislation We All Support

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Dec. 23, 2011) – Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently working its way through U.S. Congress.

“Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation – but we can clearly do better,” Warren Adelman, Go Daddy’s newly appointed CEO, said. “It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.”

Go Daddy and its General Counsel, Christine Jones, have worked with federal lawmakers for months to help craft revisions to legislation first introduced some three years ago. Jones has fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill by proposing changes to key defined terms, limitations on DNS filtering to ensure the integrity of the Internet, more significant consequences for frivolous claims, and specific provisions to protect free speech.

“As a company that is all about innovation, with our own technology and in support of our customers, Go Daddy is rooted in the idea of First Amendment Rights and believes 100 percent that the Internet is a key engine for our new economy,” said Adelman.

In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet. In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support.

“Go Daddy has always fought to preserve the intellectual property rights of third parties, and will continue to do so in the future,” Jones said.

Here’s the great crux in this Press Release: SOPA has not been introduced to the US Senate. And it’s a reaction, not something they’ve done after hearing the SOPA proceedings. As celebrities threatened to leave GoDaddy, they pushed this out to stop the bail out. It’s a House of Representatives Bill. As stated on the US House of Representatives Website under “How Are Laws Made?” this answer can be found (We’re at the In Committee phase):

Laws begin as ideas. First, a representative sponsors a bill. The bill is then assigned to a committee for study. If released by the committee, the bill is put on a calendar to be voted on, debated or amended. If the bill passes by simple majority (218 of 435), the bill moves to the Senate. In the Senate, the bill is assigned to another committee and, if released, debated and voted on. Again, a simple majority (51 of 100) passes the bill. Finally, a conference committee made of House and Senate members works out any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. The resulting bill returns to the House and Senate for final approval. The Government Printing Office prints the revised bill in a process called enrolling. The President has 10 days to sign or veto the enrolled bill.

Anyone with half a brain can see this is just a PR stunt on GoDaddy’s behalf. Maybe even the protection of the recent additional DNSSEC properties which don’t totally jive with their product offerings. And admittedly DNSSEC doesn’t really jive with SOPA either, but it’s their main point of pressure to go after when attempting to take down a domain aside from seizing the name registration itself.

And the kicker to both Go Daddy and the rest of the world? DNSSEC is all controlled by IANA, Verisign, the gTLD (Generic Top-Level Domain) registrar for ALL .com and .net domains, acknowledging these Zone directives. ICANN and the U. S. Department of Commerce. Don’t believe me? http://www.root-dnssec.org.

Either way, this is part one of a few more that will outline why GoDaddy is failing as a company and why we believe that it’s not in your best interests to continue to do business with them.

Update 1/5/2012: GoDaddy, in all of it’s uncanny glory, has released a statement from CEO Warren Adleman. They don’t support SOPA because the representatives could not reach a consensus. I like one of the comments that state that “transparency should be a two-way street and not a one-way mirror”. Here’s the statement:

Go Daddy opposes SOPA because the legislation has not fulfilled its basic requirement to build a consensus among stake-holders in the technology and Internet communities. Our company regrets the loss of any of our customers, who remain our highest priority, and we hope to repair those relationships and win back their business over time.

Still don’t trust them. Part two coming soon.

/by

Sony Electronics, Nintendo and EA Drop Support for SOPA

, , , , , , ,

As seen on Business Insider earlier today, some of the largest players in the gaming and entertainment community (namely Sony Electronics, Nintendo and Electronic Arts) have pulled their names from a list of supporters of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) Bill currently undergoing markup by the US Congress.

In the article, BI outlines that according to this list the companies could no longer be found. They state this about SOPA:

SOPA, along with the PROTECT IP act in the Senate, give content-producing companies the right to order a take down for a website that they believe is infringing on a copyright. If you even host links to content that infringes on a copyright, you have to take it down.

Our stance on SOPA is quite simple: In its current form, we do not support it. We believe that linking to pirated content is supporting piracy, ergo the mindset the Representatives have is a worthwhile one. It’s surprising that it’s taken this long since the DMCA – which is a US-based law and really only enforceable within the United States only – for those who pass legislature to catch on. And by catching on, we mean to the actual methods like linking that piracy continues to prevail using. As of right now, Safe Harbor is granted to those who simply link to a file sharing website like MediaFire or MegaUpload since it’s passing the infringing Intellectual Property on to the place where the files actually are. In all fairness this is simply skirting around what is right and wrong, evading a DMCA takedown notice to the infringing party and more cat-and-mouse games.

Honestly, we’re glad to see that the list has dwindled down. It’s now down to makeup companies, music and book publishers and a few Federal agencies to push this through. As more awareness is being brought to the table, and as corporations and private entities continue to read more than the title of the Bill and do some research, it seems that they’re also realizing just how harmful doing something like blocking someone at the DNS level can be. No one company, government or organization should have total power over the .com and .net registry. And no one company, government or organization should have the ability to censor free speech – the very thing this bill states that it will not do on line #1.

“Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” – William Pitt, Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister, 1766 to 1778. 
Spotted from: Business Insider

/by

Anonymous Declares War on the Sony PlayStation Network for SOPA Support

, , , , ,

This was just released from a Sony Fan-site. Hopefully this is an idle threat because we’re tired of the PSN going down…

Anonymous To “Destroy” Sony’s Online Network for SOPA Support

With Sony’s online service hacked and brought down earlier in the year by internet activists Anonymous, gamers everywhere suffered from the downtime of the PlayStation Network and its subsequent hack. Unfortunately, if you thought that it was all over, then you’d sadly be wrong – Anonymous seems to have declared war on Sony, again.

Hello, SONY.
We are Anonymous.

It has come to the attention of the Anonymous activist community that you have chosen to stand by the Stop Online Piracy Act. This act will halt online businesses and restrict access to many sites for many users. Supporting SOPA is like trying to throw an entire company from off a bridge. Your support to the act is a signed death warrant to SONY Company and Associates. Therefore, yet again, we have decided to destroy your network. We will dismantle your phantom from the internet. Prepare to be extinguished. Justice will be swift, and it will be for the people, whether some like it or not. Sony, you have been warned.

To those doubting our powers. We’ve infiltrated the servers of Bank of America, The United States Department of Defense, The United Nations, and Lockheed Martin. In one day.

For their approval to SOPA, we have also declared that our fury be brought upon the following persons. Justin Bieber. Lady Gaga. Kim Kardashian. and Taylor Swift.

Operation Blackout, engaged.
Operation Mayhem, engaged.
Operation LulzXmas, engaged.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.

Supporters of SOPA, you should’ve expected us.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is the highly controversial bill that, if passed, would give the US government and copyright holders powers to block access to “rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods”. But SOPA has received growing criticism by free speech activists and tech companies like Google and Facebook due to the vague terminology of the bill, which could mean sites like YouTube (or even PSLS) could be blocked for having copyrighted material submitted by users rather than the actual site owners.

With Sony being one of the largest publishers and producers of films, music and games, piracy has severely impacted their profits, and have a vested interest in SOPA being passed. While it’s fair to protest SOPA and any company that supports it, Anonymous’ actions earlier this year showed that the group is willing to let normal consumers suffer from their attacks.

It’s important to note that Anonymous have no central leadership, and this video seems to be the only declaration of war against Sony so far, so it’s hard to tell just how many Anonymous ‘members’ are actually behind the new attack.

Via: http://playstationlifestyle.net/2011/12/29/anonymous-to-destroy-sonys-online-network-for-sopa-support/

—

While we don’t support SOPA ourselves, we do understand the importance of anti-piracy measures. As stated above, no one knows just how many people are behind this, but it screams “look at me, we need attention” on behalf of Anonymous. This ridiculousness needs to be stopped, and by stopped I mean Anonymous stopped.

/by

When Apple’s Siri Kills People [VIDEO]

, , , , , ,

Siri: The Holiday Horror Movie (Trailer)

If Apple’s hands-free assistant Siri one day turned against the human race and transformed into a freakishly evil killing machine, well, that would really, really suck. However improbable, that hypothetical situation is exactly the fodder Rooster Teeth Productions used to create the “Siri: The Holiday Horror Movie (Trailer)” clip above.

The clever spoof shows Siri taunting, attacking and killing a group of friends who all received the iPhone 4S for Christmas. At one point — in its familiar female voice — Siri quips, “Life has no meaning. It’s true, you’re alive and then you die, you die, you die, die, die, die … ” After that, all hell breaks loose.

SEE ALSO: Siri’s Abortion Stance, and 4 Other ‘Insensitive’ Technologies

Earlier this year, Rooster Teeth also brought us the explosive “Angry Birds: The Movie (Trailer).”

Via: Mashable – Viral Video of the Day for December 12th, 2011.

/by

Final Fantasy VI Now Available on the PlayStation Network

, , , , ,

Final fantasy vi

It’s finally here! Final Fantasy VI, also known as Final Fantasy III back in 1994 when it was first released on the SNES, launched today on the PlayStation Network. Many reviewers, including us, have this RPG on their top 10 favorite games of all time.

Square-Enix had this to say about the Square (aka SquareSoft) classic: “Winner of numerous awards and a fan favorite, Square Enix’s FINAL FANTASY® VI role–playing game is now available for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system via the PlayStation®Network.

First released on the PlayStation® as part of the FINAL FANTASY ANTHOLOGY in 1999, FINAL FANTASY VI captured the hearts and minds of gamers and critics alike, and has been lauded as one of the best in the series.”

The PlayStation Blog cited that Final Fantasy VI has “made it all to #9 on IGN’s top 100 games of all time back in 2007. And in 2009, Game Informer went one better and named it #8, while G4TV named it #1 in their “Top 5 Must-Own RPGs.” The music, the story, the characters and so much more makes this a game that we’ve all loved and are so glad to be able to enjoy it yet again on a modern console.

For many of us as gamers, this brings back tons of memories. It may even be the reason we started loving the Final Fantasy series to begin with. Memories of the infamous Maria and Draco opera scene, the “octopus royalty” Ultros or the villain, Kefka, stand out most. Perhaps it’s the artwork from Yoshitaka Amano or the music from Nobuo Uematsu. The list of what’s to like about this game goes on and on. And what’s even better is that this is the Final Fantasy Anthology version so it has all of the updated full motion video (FMV’s) that were added to the PlayStation version.

Some more history on the game from Wikipedia shows: The game was known as Final Fantasy III when it was first released in North America, as the original Final Fantasy III had not been released outside of Japan at the time. However, later localizations used the original title. Final Fantasy VI was originally directed by series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, but he eventually stepped down as director after becoming Vice President of the company. The director role was passed on to Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Ito. Yoshitaka Amano, a long-time contributor to the Final Fantasy series, returned as the image and character designer, while regular composer Nobuo Uematsu wrote the game’s score, which has been released on several soundtrack albums.

Not only that, but at Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, a large majority of the music can be heard live. Dancing Mad, Terra’s Theme and the Maria and Draco Opera – beautiful pieces. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. Don’t pass up the chance because it’s amazing.

Arnie roth final fantasy 6 opera distant worlds atlanta

For us, this makes our PSPGo even more enjoyable. We can now say that we’ve got Final Fantasy IV through IX on one handheld system. Hopefully they’ll launch Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII with the upcoming PlayStation Vita. That will be a good day. So go! Find yourself in the middle of one of the most enjoyable Role-Playing Games in history!

Final fantasy vi famicom box art

“Imperial Magitek Armor? Not even Narshe’s safe anymore!”

/by
Twitter Logo

Twitter Best Practices Learned With Hard Knocks

, , , , , , ,

Four years ago, if you would have asked me to sign up for Twitter I would have refused, laughed at you and mocked it as the next MySpace. So what was it that stopped us four years ago? Privacy concerns? Not wanting to play into what we thought may be a fad? Refusing to adopt new technology (weird to hear here, I know.)? It’s obvious we’re on Twitter, enjoy ourselves being there and interact with a pretty entertaining number of people and brands. So I’d say it’s probably a mix of all of the above. But we just keep Tweeting!

As I sit here writing this, I have two memories come to mind “before Twitter”. The first is a radio broadcast on NPR, I believe. It was about the growing concern of Internet privacy discussing how we were becoming a culture of over-sharers – letting complete strangers into our innermost thoughts. The broadcast went on talk about Facebook’s polices, how people weren’t able to actually delete their profiles and how the content when shared became a part of Facebook. Then the talk became more centric around a younger audience who were already sharing everything in their lives and already feeling the sting of being fired because of what they posted they did last Friday on Facebook. And how Facebook’s policies were already longer than the constitution. It put me on edge and I joined in with the rest of the people who reacted to the media and committed “Facebook suicide“.

Before you go off the deep end and think that “Facebook suicide” is actual suicide, it’s not. It’s actually the process of completely removing everything that you shared, posted, linked, removing every tag you were tagged in – virtually vanishing and removing your face from Facebook. Since I already had a pretty good feel for Social Media and was seeing Digg and Mixx die, I knew as an advertiser I had to do something to drive traffic and attention to gain business on the Internet. Reddit was a no-go. At the time, I certainly wasn’t inspired to do what I do on Facebook today. Google Wave was horrible. I had no choice; I had to join Twitter. And it was awesome.

The second memory is one that comes from about 2,500 tweets in to participating on Twitter when I was being asked to teach a group how to use and market with social media platform. The same philosophy that I taught then I still have to this day. Be real and engage people. No one sits in a dark room actually expecting people to come to them and be social. You have to go outside, do things that you enjoy and engage others that enjoy those things, too. For me, a lot of my time was spent playing video games or doing introverted things. But I learned some valuable lessons. Talking to people can open doors. And if you don’t know how to converse, it makes it even more difficult. I don’t have any of my notes from my lecture, but several thousand tweets later, following and un-following lots of different types of personalities, the notes have pretty much become embedded.

Twitter still is a confusing platform. The searches people do to find you are all based off of what you say. A human search engine, sort of. I remember people being baffled about hash tags and know some who still are or who will complain about what the top trending topics are. You see, Twitter is contextual and somewhat like Facebook, you start to meet people you have similar interests in. A hashtag in 2008 could connect you with likeminded people pretty quickly and to this day still does. But then there was the even more baffling limit of 140 characters. People began shortening their thoughts, seeing it as a restriction. I saw it as a challenge. What better to do than mix hash tags with a topic that interests you. Conversations were abound and people were sharing what was happening and what they thought instantly. The pressure to share “what’s on your mind” was and is still there, but it, as the broadcast predicted, became easier and easier to do.

I decided to jot down some thoughts that I came to know as truisms for Twitter over the years, hence this post. To some, you may disagree and to others, it may be exactly why you seem to be beating your head against a wall and what you can do about it to soften those hard knocks.

1. Follow Friday is a Twitter tradition. Participate in it. You may have someone you’re following who you’ve seen using the hashtags #FollowFriday and #FF with a list of @ names following. Quite simply, this is how you participate in Follow Friday. My business partner at the time and I came up with a not-so-unique idea since Twitter has evolved called TWIFF (TWItter Follow Friday) that generated a list of your followers in a random order and in no more than 110 to 120 characters a list of automated tweets. In less than 10 minutes every Friday we ran our scripts, tweeted out the entire list of people we followed back and who mutually followed us as well in nice organized tweets. The key was to be random every time since duplicate tweets at the time were frowned upon. Nevertheless, instant Twitter karma, more followers mentioning us, new followers every Friday and it brightened someone’s day every time to be mentioned. Eventually Twitter’s staff got pretty mad and didn’t like the volume of traffic we were creating and suspended us and probably would do the same if you recreated TWIFF. Today, the API restricts us from really going about Follow Friday in a not so annoying way, but at least Twitter has stopped frowning upon “scheduled tweets” or automation. I digress. Follow Friday is a tradition and a way to show your followers that you remember talking to them and want to engage them. So why not tweet more than 120 characters?

2. Try not to tweet using more than 120 characters. In short, you’re taking up room that someone could use to reply and quote you. When we joined Twitter, being mentioned was king. It somehow ranked you higher in their algorithm to be seen the more you were talked about — the more you were engaged. You still can easily spin a topic or subject into a conversation or cut yourself out of one just by re-wording what you said into something shorter. But why not just say what you’re thinking?

3. Don’t share irrelevant information; Be concise and informative. For example, no one wants to read what the weather is like unless they ask. Sure, you may love the sunny day or hate the hurricane you’re living through, but that’s what The Weather Channel is for. Try to talk about something that excites you. And if the weather really does excite you, share it and engage them with it. And preferably with a hashtag so other people who enjoy talking ’bout the weather get to know you. But if you’re a brand or business, how do you share your products and services?

4. No one wants to be sold something on Twitter. Do you remember the last time you went to a car dealership and wanted to have an annoying salesman engage you for the purposes of luring you into his office to buy a brand new vehicle? If you said “Yes” to that, we should have a chat. Soon. No one wants to be haggled, annoyed, told how great one service or good is over and over…and over. It comes across the same way the bastardized idea of a used-car salesman is. Sure you can be excited for a product or brand, and if you follow us you know we have one in mind we love to talk about. The difference is that we use those products or services to engage in a conversation with people we’ve gotten to know over the years. Or maybe we find something that we love at the office, like our Keurig coffee machine. The coffee machine is worth talking about because it’s cool and we like it! The difference is we’re not trying to sell you one. Perhaps we are losing a potential market by not tweeting about what we can do for Web Design or what we’ve done for our clients in the past, but Twitter is a “right here, right now” social media platform. And what about those people who won’t shut up?

5. Chances are the people who won’t stop talking, who are generally annoying or honestly don’t get Twitter have a disproportionate follow-back ratio. People are not engaging them for some reason. If you scroll down their timeline and take a moment to read what they’ve had to say in the past, you may find instantly that you’re not going to enjoy engaging them. One really good reason is because they’re a feed, or rather they have linked their Facebook profile to Twitter thinking they can knock two birds out with one stone. No one wants to read Facebook when they’re on Twitter. Why talk to someone or interact with a brand you don’t like. If you like Deadmau5, it’s probably likely that you’re not going to get along on Twitter with someone who likes to talk about Justin Bieber constantly. Proportion of follow-backs, I said? Yes, I did. Before you hit that follow button, look at how many people someone is following and more importantly, how many people are following that tweeter back. One of the most important things I’ve learned is NOT to follow others on Twitter who are following way more people than are following them back. Easily 9 out of 10 times within a week, I’ll unfollow them. What about celebrities and huge corporate companies?

6. Engage those you find interesting! If I didn’t make my point clear enough, this is the part where it becomes crystal clear. Sure, celebrities may have hundreds of thousands of followers and are only following a few dozen back. Most of them followed the people they’re following back because they are relevant, concise, don’t over share, don’t try to sell them something and have engaged them in conversation — or at least attempted to — on more than one occasion. And most of the time they’ll have a cute little sticker showing they’re “verified” when they’re actually who they say they are. Unlike the account @Apple, which at one point simply had “I like apples” as the only tweet, it’s not actually Apple in Cupertino. Occasionally you’ll engage a celebrity out of dislike, which someone here at the office did, and they responded. Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t find him funny and neither did who tweeted at them. It was one of his very first tweets and apparently it “bruises his balls“, but it got some interesting attention and engagement. Here’s the thing: when a famous personality engages you, the most important thing to do is be yourself. After all, that’s what Twitter is all about.

So I’ll end this with two sites that I’ve found extremely helpful in managing the numbers game of followers on Twitter. The first is a site simply called Friend or Follow. You don’t have to sign up or sign in. Simply type in your username and it will show you who you’re following that’s not following you back. That annoying tweeter who you want to get rid of, I can almost guarantee you he’s probably already un-followed you as Twitter has made it pretty difficult and not so obvious for the average user to know the status of being followed back.

The second site I give high kudos to. It’s called TwitCleaner. You sign in, allow it to scan who you’re following and it will give an analysis of your followers back to you that’s surprisingly brutally honest. The site was created by a New Zealander named Si Dawson. (Just to nail the other point home, he’s following less people than are following him back. Quality usually comes from people who show this proportion.) I’ve yet to find a more accurate tool on Twitter to gauge just how many people you’re following are really just trashing your timeline up. It will tell you if they never engage others, if they are nothing but app abusers, if they have been inactive on Twitter for a period of time and so much more. Invaluable information to someone who is serious about quality and not quantity. Go use it, we promise it’s amazing and tweet that TurkReno sent you for good measure.

/by

Mobilize Mobile Alabama – Confirmed Google GoMo Coming to Mobile

, , , , ,
Mobilizing Mobile, AL - A Google Initiative

Mobilizing Mobile, AL - A Google Initiative

It’s official: Google is coming to Mobile, Alabama first to launch the GoMo Mobilize Initiative. And we’ll be there! Here’s the official schedule of events that’s taking place:

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14

6:30 PM – Mobile for Advertising Agencies

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15

8AM – 7PM – Mobilization Jams

7:00PM – Mobile for Larger Businesses

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16

8:00AM – 7:00PM – Mobilization Jams

If you want to register, there’s limited room left, but you’re more than welcome to visit online at https://www.google.com and take it from there.

Remember, we’ll be an Agency that can help you with your site after it’s all said and done, so don’t forget us when you need to make a change!

And most of all, Thank You Google for coming to Mobile, Alabama and helping the Web here!

/by

DC Universe Online Now Free To Play and Download on PS3

, ,

DC Universe OnlineSony Online Entertainment released in January of 2011 DC UniverseTM Online on both the PlayStation 3 and the PC. As of today it’s free to play. Even better news for Sony PS3 owners. Users can login to the PlayStation Store, grab the 122MB download client and begin installing the game immediately. Fair warning though if you’re a heavy media user – the game requires 18GB of free space to install. Despite the size, we’ve seen a lot of positive feedback on social media sites like Twitter. And it’s usually pretty entertaining stuff to read.

Here’s the rundown on DCUO:

DC UniverseTM Online is the only next-generation massively multiplayer online action game that delivers unparalleled physics-powered combat set in the DC UniverseTM. This genre-defining game puts the power of the DC Super Heroes and villains into the palm of your hands…The next legend is YOU!

DC Universe Online Gameplay

Key features:

  • DCUO is and action focused superhero game in a fully realized 3D universe
  • Players can experience the intensity of a 3D world created in the artistic vision of legendary comic-book artist Jim Lee
  • DCUO uses a state of the art physics engine that turns the world into your weapon
  • Players will be able to create their own custom hero or villain
  • Players will embark on story-driven adventures penned by famous DC writers
  • DCUO game play is optimized for PC and PS3
  • DCUO’s depth spans the entire DC Universe

DC UniverseTM Online is being developed by Sony Online Entertainment LLC for the PLAYSTATION® 3 computer entertainment system and PC in collaboration with DC Comics and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

DC UNIVERSE ONLINE software © 2010 Sony Online Entertainment LLC. All other elements © 2010 DC Comics. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

DC UNIVERSE and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics.
WB GAMES LOGO, WBIE LOGO, WB SHIELD: TM & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

/by

Google Rumored to Choose Mobile Alabama to Mobilize Websites

, , , , , ,

Mobilize Mobile - Mobilize Your Site Now

According to the Mobile Press-Register and other local sources, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) recently approached local marketing firms and the Downtown Mobile Alliance to begin to “Mobilize Mobile.” Most likely playing on the name of the city, Mobile reportedly will be the first to be a part of a program named “GoMo” launching November 14 where local businesses, both private and nonprofit, will be able to come to a Google storefront, have a mobile-browser based website created for them within half an hour and also have Google host the website for one year on a first-come, first-served basis.

From the Press-Register:

The Google storefront will be at Space 301, across from Cathedral Square, according to Carol Hunter, representative for the Downtown Mobile Alliance said.

Having a city that shares a name with a tech buzzword hasn’t always been fortuitous, as anyone who has searched online for “Mobile phone company” or “Mobile apps” could tell you. Not to mention all the time residents spend telling out-of-towners that they are from “Mo-beel,” not “Mo-buhl,” Hunter said.

“If you are not thinking about getting mobile with your website, then in the near future you’re going to be behind,” Hunter said. “This is an opportunity for us to really be ahead of that curve.”

Google Sites

No doubt that the south Alabama area could use the attention. However, no sources on the Internet tie the event to the website HowToGoMo.com. There’s no doubt that Google intends to do something with the website because they did register it, but the website remains under password protection so no one really knows what it’s for.

Despite a few websites registered by Google, it’s perhaps Google’s re-branding attempt at drawing attention to the mobile world we are evolving into. Millions rely on smartphone devices to find food, entertainment, directions, keep up with social media and communicate in ways we never thought would be possible.

If you’re looking to get a website created for a mobile phone, Google already has the Google Sites – Mobile Templates website available where you can choose templates for your business, add information and have a live mobile browser website finished in minutes.

So what’s our take on this? It probably will happen. To have a Google storefront in Mobile, Alabama would be awesome as-is. On the other hand, there’s probably a silver lining. Google is notorious for monetizing websites using AdWords. We expect ads. Not only that, but having a site that’s more than likely template-based and not created by a professional website design company is more than likely going to bring the quality of the site down. So, in terms of search optimization, if it’s going to be free and hosted at Google, you’re going to get what you pay for especially if you don’t have control over your content. GeoCities Mobile anyone?

All attempts to confirm this information were made at the time of the article, however neither Google nor our contacts in the Silicon Valley area were aware of the event.

/by