The Fall of Twitter?

MySpace was fun, then the spam came.

Facebook was great, then the spam came.

Twitter is great, and now the spam is here.

In order for a community to flourish it must have members. With members comes momentum and with momentum come the stupid people. This is the tricky part about preventing spam in a user-generated content community; there is no way to keep out the trouble makers without limiting the community's potential for everyone. Charge for the service and some people are left out (I would have to reconsider using Facebook if they charged). Before you knew what Twitter was or how it worked, would you have paid to use it? I did not understand Twitter at first until I used it a while then realized the value. On top of everything else, even if a community charged its users, this still would not guarantee the safety of a spam-free environment.

I do not think there is an easy fix for spam on social networks. We should probably get used to a certain degree of it. While spammers will get smarter and smarter, the only defenses we have are better anti-spam education, better spam filters on the communities, and harsh punishment when possible. I personally think that Twitter has done a good job so far to let people know about DM spam. Hopefully the developers have taken a few lessons from MySpace and the others that have lost control of the problem.

Martha Stewart's "Blogging" Show

This morning I watched the Martha Stewart Show for the first time—to which my fiancé replied, “Why are you watching Martha Stewart?” The show’s theme intrigued me: blogging.

The special, off-the-beaten-path show of Martha Stewart kept me glued to the television set as blogger after blogger revealed their secrets to successful blogging. Perez Hilton stopped by as well as Margaret Roach, a garden writer and blogger that Axiom is currently pitching.

If you're pitching Perez, you might want to know that he's a morning person. Perez starts his day at approximately 3:57 a.m. every morning and reads through e-mail, looking for friends’ juicy gossip on celebrities and then broadcasts it for 15 hours or so. Perez may make a living (he couldn’t reveal to Martha as to how much, though she herself was quick to point out that all of her finances are publicly disclosed; after all, she has to be ever so careful), but you couldn’t pay me enough or provide enough ads for me to give my life away like that. Though handsomely rewarded every time he blogs, Perez seems tired to me. A tired, top celebrity Web blogger.

I’ve watched Margaret Roach’s tweets unfold on Twitter, but her blog is a different story and one very attractive to the gardening public. Martha Stewart Omnimedia’s former director, Roach showed us that a surprise element with consistency helps blog traffic, such as her “Frogboys.” See for yourself at “A Way to Garden.”

Throughout the show, Martha threw in mentions of her own blog, which apparently her sister and friend executive run. She touted the Canon G9 Powershot, which is apparently the best camera for taking pictures to upload to your blog, as well as using a Wordpress-owned domain. Martha's also a ham for the cam, so when several of her featured bloggers "linked" to her blog, she announced to the world her most successful blog days ever.

I wish I was Martha, because she's the only one that can flub someone's name (Sharon Palin) and still have billions of fans-- while leveraging everyone in her path.

No New Years' Resolutions For Me

I find New Years's resolutions odd. I don't make them. I guess I don't really understand why there should be one day of the year to start a new habit. If you want to read more, then start reading more today. If you want to get in shape, do for a long walk today. If you want your life to move towards a new direction, take a small step to do that today.

New Years' should not be the one day we make changes; it should be one of many. I feel like a lot of people put off making changes they want in life ("Oh, that will be one of my New Years' resolutions") and use the upcoming new year as an excuse to be lazy for a little bit longer. Maybe I should have written this blog post in the middle of the summer.

I have many goals for myself, but I hope to be actively pursuing them all year long. I believe that it is important to be motivated throughout the year, not just on January 1, to make progress and change.

What do you all think about New Years' resolutions?

Social Media Christmas

Daily Axioms will be taking a short Christmas break. While we won't be doing daily posts again until January, we will try our best to post a few times over the break. We will be back in 2009 with more social media commentary from Axiom Marketing's social media team.

A huge component of both Christmas and of social media is giving, so it only seems natural for the two to work well together. The power of bringing people together with social media has been seen in many creative ways this year, so let's end the year on the right foot.

How You Can Give: Please head on over to The Squidoo Holiday Twitterdrive for Charity. Everyday, you can vote for your favorite charity on the list and $1 will be donated to them. All the votes are being tracked from Twitter and they are giving away up to $30,000. Make sure to vote every day!

How We Can Give: We want this post a Christmas wish-list for you. What are the topics you would like us to cover next year on Daily Axioms? What can we improve? What is it that you need from us?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Last-Minute Christmas Gift Ideas

Still need to purchase some gifts for family and friends for Christmas? I do. I am always late with the game. Here are a couple of last-minute ideas for the social media inclined.

1.) Domain names - Secure a domain name for your sister or best friend. GoDaddy.com has reasonable prices and there are many discount coupons out there to get them for even cheaper. They might not understand why that's a good gift, but they may thank you someday.

2.) Free eBooks - There are many great authors who have given away their new books for free this year. One of our favorite authors here at Daily Axioms is Seth Godin. You can get his newest best seller, Tribes, for free here. Or just buy a hard copy.

3.) Teach - Show your dad how to use RSS feeds. Give your cousin a new tool for finding jobs by searching on Twitter. Direct your roommate to one of your favorite blogs to read. Hopefully what you are learning online is valuable information; pass it along to someone who could use it in 2009.