We have received multiple reports that a new, convincing, and dangerous worm and phishing scam is making the rounds on Twitter. Hacked accounts are sending DMs to users and stealing their login information. In fact, one of our own has received one of these direct messages.

They go on to state that the virus is dangerous because the login page is believable and the DM’s are being received from people you know.

Avoid being caught – If you receive this DM, Do Not click the link.  Ignore the DM.

For full details, see WARNING: Twitter Worm Spreading via Direct Messages

Not knowing what else I had missed, I thought I would ask the Twitter community what they liked and used and see what came out of the wood work.  I’ve also included the Twitter id’s of the repsondants for you to follow if you want.

My Faves:

TweetLater

This cool little tool is a bit like an autoresponder for Twitter.  You can use it to deliver information on a scheduled basis.

I’ve been using this for a while.  I find it a great tool to use to remind my followers of my scheduled events.  When I set up my events calendar, I add the ‘tweets’ to TweetLater and schedule them to go at predefined times.

Of course, I don’t recommend that you use the scheduling feature to send your general interactive tweets – that really defeats the purpose of a ‘social network’.

TweetLater also has an ‘auto follow’ feature that you can use to follow anyone who follows you…. This can be a bit problematic if you are followed by a Spammer.  Use with care.

@KimBeasley recommends checking your Followers once a week and following those that look interesting – a much better idea overall.

Tweet My Blog

A WordPress Plug-In by Soran Jordansen and John Merrick that will ‘tweet’ your blog updates. Incredibly easy to use.

Tweet This

Another WordPress Plug-In that allows your site visitors to Tweet your posts, just like they would digg or stumble it….

This Plug-In allows you to select which short URL service you want too.  You can chose the shortest one available or your favorite.

You’ll see in the bottom of this message my Social Bookmarking links and a link that says ‘Tweet This’ – well go on – Tweet away!

Twhirl

A desktop Twitter Application that lets you send your Tweets from your computer.  Written on the Adobe Air platform the application apparently works on PCs and Macs.  I like Twhirl because I can monitor several Twitter accounts, Friend Feed, Seesmic, Identi.ca and laconi from the same place.

Tweet Deck

I love the layout of TweetDeck.  It is wonderful. You can see all Tweets, your replies and your direct messages in the one screen.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to have multiple account support yet….

Whilst this doesn’t cover all of my faves, it covers the ones I use most on a daily basis.

Other faves that were shared with me include:

@transitenator shared Twellow as a favorite.  Twellow is a Twitter Search Engine and Directory.  I did a search for myself on Twellow and there I was!  So I have now claimed my Twellow profile and updated it.  Are you in the directory? Check it out!

@mzamp01 told me he liked TwitterFon because “It is a very basic Twitter App for the iPhone. Great for reading and replying, as well as tweeting”

@digijustin was using SocialThing, a new aggregation tool that is currently in Beta.  I’ve requested my invitation to join!

@adamradman shared TweetBurner, a way to easily share links with your Twitter and FeedFriend followers and Twitzu - a way to announce your meetups and events.

@nbabyak likes TweetBeep - a neat little app that will alert you when a key phrase is used, when a particular person tweets, or even if the tweet originates within a radius of a physical location.

@kimbeasley shared a post with her favorite apps – lot’s of good ones there.  As a productivity tool, HelloTxt looks pretty cool – it will allow you to update your status on several networks with one update – that sounds good to me!

With one simple Tweet, I learnt about several great tools that will help my productivity – I hope that it helps your Twitter experience too!

You can Follow Me on Twitter as @charlyjl and @howtovideos (get free hints and tips on ‘how to’ use your computer and the internet more effectively).

Do you have a favorite application?  Add it in the comments with your Twitter ID!

Image via Wikipedia

An interesting debate (I suppose you could call it that) is surfacing about Internet Marketers using Twitter.

What’s the fuss about? Well, any one who is a “honourable” Internet Marketer will know that we are often “tarred with the same brush” as the “spammers”, charlatans and scammers that abound on the ‘Net. Certainly, I held this kind of belief before I did my research on starting an online business. However, after a LOT of research and searching, I have found that whilst there are scammers and spammers, many Internet Marketers are doing the right thing, creating valuable products and, quite rightly, making a living by marketing their creations on the Internet.

The issue is though that there is a portion of the Internet community that appears to hold all Internet Marketers in contempt and refuse to believe that Internet Marketers could in fact contribute anything worthwhile.

Today, in a blog post titled Wake Up Call: Web 2.0 Wouldn’t Exist Without Internet Marketers, John Reese felt compelled to respond to two blog posts in a fairly strong manner.

The two blog posts referenced by John are Is Twitter Vulnerable To Marketer Attack? (by Mark Hopkins from mashable) and Pending Sign Of The Twitter Apocalypse: It’s Being Talked About By Internet Marketers (by blogger Duncan Riley from The Inquisitr).

These posts indicate that the writers feel that an “invasion of Internet Marketers” is akin to an apocalypse. Duncans post references John Reese’s invitation to his subscriber list to join him on Twitter……

John has responded in his blog post and references the actual text of his invitation email which clearly states:

“Observe how others post and you’ll quickly learn the culture, etiquette, and uses for Twitter.”

Seems pretty clear to me that John isn’t inviting his “Internet Marketing Mates” to come and blast everyone with offers….. also, take a look at Johns Public Twitter profile – I don’t believe that John has really promoted any of his “stuff” via Twitter. In fact, on June 12, John sent a series of Tweets likening the use of Social Media Advertising to promoting a MLM at a dinner party…. (to my mind it’s like going to a social mixer and trying to sell everyone life insurance). In fact, I followed avidly the other day a discussion between John, @coachdeb and @jpmicek (peripherally) on Twitter about the use of YouTube videos on your own website…. fascinating stuff.

Sure there are people who abuse Twitter. Just the other day I ‘unfollowed’ someone who continually “begged” others to follow them. This individual was following over 22,000 people and had less than 1000 followers at the time. Their pitiful tweets to some of the Twitter “gurus” along the lines of “Would you follow me, I promise to be interesting” were not only annoying, they were embarrassing.

What have many of us done with this annoying individual? We’ve unfollowed them – no more nuisance. So what if an Internet Marketer sends a marketing tweet? You don’t have to follow them, and if they don’t have an audience then they are likely to cease and desist the activities.

One question I ask is whether the people who are condemning Internet Marketers foray into Twitter actually basing their condemnation on fact, or perceived reality?

Another question is how did Duncan receive the email invitation? Did he receive it because he is a John Reese subscriber?

Another point to note is what set’s a blogger apart from an Internet Marketer really? If that blogger is making money from their blogging efforts, even indirectly, can’t they be considered Internet Marketers themselves? Ed Dale is the first commenter on Marks posts, and that comment asks didn’t Mark use Twitter as a marketing tool to advertise his blog post? Interested thought Ed….

I am slowly expanding my connections and have finally organised most of my connections here. If you are on any of these networks, please feel free to add me to your community list and add your community names on a comment to this post.

I am most active on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and Revver.

Facebook: Charlyjl
LinkedIn: CharlyLeetham
MyBlogLog: Arvoreen Treasures
Twitter: Charlyjl
Revver: charlyjl
Mixx: charlyjl
Bebo: CharlyL2
Delicious: charlyjl
Digg: charlyjl
Sphinn: CharlyLeetham
StumbleUpon: Charlyjl
YouTube: Arvoreentreasures

Recently, I have been receiving messages from people I follow thanking me for following them and then encouraging me to visit their website.  I was wondering how this is achieved, then I found TweetLater.  A neat little application that allows you to schedule your tweets, for when you’re busy, and allows you to automatically follow those who follow you.

TweetLater will also send a message to your new followers, with a little automation from your email client.

Whilst I love the idea of sending a message to my new followers, I really dislike the messages I receive that are “markety” in nature.  When I follow someone, I have already checked out their profile.  Being sent to their marketing site is slightly annoying.

To me, Twitter is a social networking tool that allows me to get to know others better.  I certainly follow URLs that they tweet.  To my mind, sending an email to a new follower that directs someone to a marketing site is a little like meeting someone at a party and then trying to set up an appointment to sell life insurance.

My advice to tweeters is to use the autofollow tools and automated email responses to further develop the “relationship”, but be very careful about appearing to “markety” in appearance.

With Twitter, you connect to a wider International community by sending, and reading, 140  character text messages.  The question that your Twitter interface generally asks is “What are you doing now?”  Take that question and respond with imagination.

Two of my favourite Tweeters would have to be Mari Smith and Coach Deb – they manage to provide almost blow by blow descriptions of their day without being intrusive.  They also provide heaps of great information that you can use too.

Of course, I also connect with other wonderful people like Kim Beasley, Carol Dickson-Carr, Carol Deckert, Julie Wolf, Sally Witt and a whole host of others…..

I love Twitter because I work from home and often alone, so receiving little messages from all over the world during my day at least makes me feel “connected”.

I have seen Twitter used to write a book,  (Coach Deb and Warren Whitlock are writing the Twitter handbook) and I’ve even attended a Twitter party and had Twiteritas and Twips!

Seriously though, I also get a fair amount of traffic to my websites from Twitter, by carefully broadcasting various links to blog posts of interest via Tweets.

Let’s look at some terminology:

Tweet – A 140 character text message sent via Twitter

Twitterer or Tweeter – The person who sends the Tweet

Direct Message – A message sent from one Tweeter to another, that is only seen by those parties. You send a direct message by using a ‘d’ infront of your message.  e.g to Direct message me enter, d charlyjl I love Twitter too!

Replies – A way to speak directly to a particular Tweeter but include the Twitter community in the conversation.  You “reply” to someone by prefixing their username with the @ e.g @charlyjl isn’t Twitter great?

Hash Tags – a way to track a conversation about a particular topic.  Prefix the topic to track by a # sign, e.g #Twitter Handbook, #Australia, #Twitter.

The question that you should ask yourself and respond on this post is, What type of Tweets do you prefer to get?  What are the Tweets you read or respond to?

Today, I learnt of another tool in the Twitter tool kit that allows you to track a conversation about a particular topic. With all the conversations going on across Twitter, it can be hard to keep up with a conversation on one particular topic. By adding a hash tag (#name) to your Tweet, you can use Twemes.com to track the conversation, no longer how it goes for.

I found out about this when I watch @CoachDeb and @WarrenWhitlock (note their twitter names) write the Twitter handbook with the help of Twitter, other Tweeters and Twemes….. Not only could anyone participate, the information provided by the participants was great and informative.

Let’s take a look at Twemes.com

You should notice the #tags on the front page of Twemes, which shows you the conversations being tracked. These look to be ongoing conversations.

How was it used today for the Twitterhandbook? Take a look:

This conversation goes over 14 pages…. and is well worth the read.

What can you track using #tags and Twemes?

Just a quick recap – there has been discussion amongst a group of colleagues that suggests that Tweeting your links will help raise their rank in Googles Search Engine. This is on the premise that your Tweet (which contains your URL) will appear on all of your followers status pages, the more links to your site, the higher your Search Engine Ranking.

In principle, all very good and well but is that the case in practice? Given a lack of definitive proof, we thought we would put it to the test.

The question has already been asked by a reader why we don’t just use our website statistics to show us what is coming in from Twitter. It’s quite simple really, we’re not looking to find the number of referrals received from Twitter, we want to know the effect of ‘backlinking’ from Twitter to our site has, a very different proposition.

Actions so far:

1. Set up a blog on a clean domain name with no search engine rankings at all. The domain chosen was mygiveawayevent.com.
2. Use Plug Ins to optimise the blog as much as possible, but turning off automatic pinging functions.
3. Populate the blog with posts that are relevant to the overall blog topic and schedule them to be released one per day.
4. Set up TwitterFeed to Tweet new blog posts.

So here we are at the start of our experiment. Stay tuned for more updates.

The question was again posed on the Women Internet Marketers Social Network they other day and, as part of that discussion, we decided to test the premise.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Setup a Blog on a “clean” domain. The domain will have no links or standing in the Search Engines
2. Remove the Tag and Ping automation on the blog
3. Configure the Blog to Tweet it’s posts on release
4. Monitor traffic and Search Engine rankings for each post

I will need to conduct this experiment over a number of weeks and will be releasing at least two posts a week. I’m expecting the results to be interesting. So keep an eye on my Twitter category on this blog to see the results.