Per Twitter’s Request, We’re Removing Auto Unfollow

January 14th, 2010 by Jesse Stay

We recognize auto unfollow has been an invaluable tool for many of you.  I added it because when I auto-follow, some times later on those people unfollow you again.  Twitter itself has a ratio limit which if you’re following over about 10% of those that are following you back, it will not let you follow anyone else.  So you’re stuck waiting to be able to follow back the people that have made the kind gesture to follow you.  To me it was a relationship building tool.

Twitter it seems thinks otherwise.  Per their request, we have been asked to remove our automatic unfollow service by the end of the month or risk having our service disabled.  They claim that auto-unfollow “perpetuates the idea that Twitter is about follower counts”.  We want to respect Twitter’s request, as ultimately we are in their environment and subject to their own rules.  So long as we are using their API we have to play by their rules, and I respect that.

We will continue to be able to provide the same anti-spam and anti-phishing services we have been offering, which means you will still be able to automatically unfollow those that send you spam DMs, content with spam in it, and keywords and phrases you find objectionable should you choose to do so.  Our “unfollow all” service will also still remain.  This service enables users to unfollow everyone they’ve ever followed before.

Starting today, we are removing the ability to enable this service from your admin preferences so as no new users can enable the service.  In addition, we have removed the ability to purchase the unfollow catch up option.  Starting February 1, 2010, we are disabling this service forever and you will no longer be able to automatically unfollow those that unfollow you on Twitter if you were doing so before.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause – we are as disappointed as you are.  We are still firmly set on our original goals of automating your streams while enabling you to clean them up at the same time and focus on real relationships.  All of our other services are still available and remain to be some of our most popular tools that we offer.  In the meantime, if you do have issues with this, we encourage you to contact Twitter support and let them know of your use-cases for the service.  From my experience Twitter does listen so long as you keep it constructive.

In the meantime, stay tuned – we have some exciting new announcements on the way between now and February!

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Spreading the Word Through A Unique, Twitter-based Affiliate Program

January 4th, 2010 by Jesse Stay

twitpayJust this last weekend we gave you ways that you could purchase our daily stats e-mail (and soon our other services) for your friends and family as well as yourself.  We’ve seen an increase in sign ups since then, so we know our users love to share.  Today, we’re going to introduce a unique way to reward you for sharing.  Starting today, for each service you refer people to join on SocialToo, we’re going to pay you 20% of the cost of that service via the service TwitPay, right through Twitter!  Here’s how it works:

  • You use one of the links below, replacing the “Jesse” as the value of the twitter_user parameter with your own Twitter screen name, and share that link with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, or even your blog or website!
  • When your friends click the link, they’ll be taken to SocialToo, but a special, customized overlay will pop over the main page welcoming them to SocialToo with your Twitter profile image next to the welcome message.  The message tells them about the service you’re trying to refer them to, and invites them to provide their screen name (or a friends!) and enter the purchase process.
  • When your friend or referral has purchased the service you sent them to, we record your Twitter screen name with the purchase
  • At the end of each month we’ll then send you 20% of the purchase price via the service, TwitPay.

It’s that simple!  Using TwitPay and Twitter to manage the affiliate process there are no new accounts to sign up for, nor do you have to re-enter your bank account information for us to know where to push the money.  We simply send you a Tweet saying you get X amount, you click a link, and claim the money we guaranteed for you using your existing Paypal account!

Never before has an affiliate program been so easy.  We love Twitter because it enables simple transactions like affiliate payments to be a simple process.  All you need to know is your Twitter screen name, the link to send your friends, and you’re done!  Thanks to TwitPay for making this easy for us to complement the Social Web, even with our affiliate program.

Here are the links you need to know – remember to replace the “Jesse” with your own Twitter screen name next to the “twitter_user” parameter (click on the links to see what it looks like!):

For now the service applies to referring new users only – we’ll be working on the ability to refer existing users to new services shortly.  We’ll be updating the website soon with this information – for now I hope you’ll go out and share this with more people!

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Introduce Friends to the New Year With SocialToo

January 1st, 2010 by Jesse Stay

happy-new-year-hat-42009 was a great year for SocialToo!  Besides becoming profitable in 2009, we saw over 50,000 of you join the service, and near 3,000 of you purchase our valuable tools for managing your Facebook and Twitter streams.  Traffic peaked at around 150,000 page views and we’re not even a page-view generating site! (most our traffic happens on the backend where we process your social stream)  We saw coverage from blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb and even the New York Times, and that coverage continues to share the word of what we offer with more people.  We introduced DM filters and the ability to clean up your stream, making us the first, and one of the only services to make Twitter and the Social Streams you belong to cleaner places.

We’ve been able to do this all with just one-time purchases on the services we offer.  While we don’t anticipate that being the only business model for us forever, we do appreciate your support, and we hope to keep a cheap, easy option available for everyone.  Each and every one of you has helped us grow, and keeps us releasing new and better features to complement the experiences you have on the Social Web.  We know you like the service, as most of our traffic comes from word-of-mouth referrals from people like you.  Because of this we’re enabling one more feature for the New Year so you can give this gift to others.  Now you can purchase SocialToo features for your friends!

Starting now, if you click on the “Track” link in the bottom of the home page before you login (do you like our new design?), you’ll see a popover appear.  Just enter the Twitter username of anyone you want to purchase the daily stats e-mail for, pay the $20 through your Paypal account, and voila, when you’re finished just tell that person you created an account for them.  Even if they don’t yet have a SocialToo account, the next time they log into SocialToo through Twitter they’ll see the feature you purchased for them.

We want you to be able to share our best features with others.  The one-time services for life will be there for life, so why not buy one for a friend or coworker or two?  As of the moment this is only available for our daily stats e-mails that show who followed you and who stopped following you on Twitter the day before.  We’ll be adding the ability to add our other services as gifts very shortly, so keep watching.

2010 is the year SocialToo is going to fly!  My hope is, with your support, we can push it further and far beyond what we accomplished in 2009, and continue to bring more useful features to you enabling you to automate better, track better, and most importantly, clean up your stream better.  So if you haven’t thought of it before, think about someone you think that could use the service and share with them this excellent gift for the New Year.

I’d like to wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year!  This definitely won’t be the last time you hear from me.

Jesse Stay
CEO, SocialToo.com

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SocialToo Launches Anti-Virus Solution for Twitter

September 23rd, 2009 by Jesse Stay

VirusViruses and worms are rampant on the web.  Until only recently this has been a big problem on your PC.  Surely, you wouldn’t think of running your computer without an anti-virus solution, but what about the viruses and worms spreading throughout the social networks you belong to? While they may not directly affect your computer, they can cause just as much damage, including: identity theft, stealing of your private and financial information, takeover of your accounts, and embarrassing situations!

Just today, in fact, a worm is propagating through Twitter direct messages (DMs) trying to trick unsuspecting members into thinking it’s a legitimate message from a friend. Today, we have a solution for that at SocialToo, and we are launching automatic anti-virus solutions for Twitter and other social networks.

Starting now, as part of a new premium service we’re offering, anyone who goes to SocialToo and checks the “Send SocialToo DM e-mails” box will no longer receive malicious DMs we detect as rampant on Twitter, as we will be stopping them at their source.  We’re taking a proactive approach to this now, and all our users will not receive those DMs we’ve confirmed are malicious.  For instance, the “hey. i make $300-500 a day online. this website showed me how” DMs that have been flooding the network over the last few days will automatically be deleted from your Twitter DM box and reported to Twitter’s @spam account on your behalf.  Also, the “rofl, this you on here?” DMs will never show up.

As your companion for the Social Web, one of our main roles is to protect you from getting conned or tricked into clicking on a malicious link and having your account compromised as well.

Here’s what you need to do for it to be most effective:

  • Click “Sign in With Twitter” on SocialToo.com.  Click on the Preferences tab and check the box “Send SocialToo DM e-mails”. Be sure your e-mail address is entered and click “Submit” at the bottom.  It’s now enabled for your account!
  • Go to the “Settings” link in the upper-right hand corner of Twitter.  Click on the “Notices” tab, and uncheck the “Direct Text E-mails” option.  You don’t need this any more because we’ll replace that e-mail with more useful DM e-mails.
  • Go to your Devices tab and turn off device notifications – again, the SocialToo e-mails will replace this – and we’re also working on some better mobile solutions to replace this functionality.

Once you have done all of the above, SocialToo will now be responsible for notifying you of new DMs.  We will not forward those that have known spam or worms or viruses in them, and  you will only get the good DMs.

This new automatic virus detection is free until November 1st for all SocialToo users. We are still working out the details on the new plan, and we will notify each user that has signed up so you can make the choice at that point if you want to continue with the service.  This includes our existing auto-dm and spam service subscribers – again, it’s 100% free until November 1st.

We will need input from our users as you see malicious DMs. Please be sure to add them to your spam keywords as you see them, and we’ll be tracking trends through those keywords.  Also, if you feel it’s of particular importance please let us know by DMing @socialtoo on Twitter or e-mailing us at contact@socialtoo.com.  We’re hoping to make this smarter and smarter as we move forward, and you can expect to see much more from us in the future.

Lastly, if you’re a developer and would like access to any of this information, we do have an API. Contact us to find details. I’d love to work with you to integrate this same spam and virus protection into your own Twitter clients.

It’s time we put an end to worms and viruses on Twitter. You wouldn’t want to be on a PC without anti-virus protection. Why would you be on Twitter without SocialToo?

Consider SocialToo your vaccine for the Social Web.

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Tag Your Twitter Friends From Facebook With SocialToo Status

September 15th, 2009 by Jesse Stay

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Yesterday Facebook launched their new tagging feature worldwide to their users.  The feature is simple – to tag one of your Facebook friends, you just start typing their name, prefixed by “@”, and their name appears in a drop-down that you can select.  Their name will then be linked to their Facebook profile in their status update on Facebook, and an e-mail sent to that individual to notify them they were tagged.  This also works with the Pages you are a fan of, and applications you use.  As you know though, SocialToo Status has provided friend tagging for several weeks before Facebook announced this new feature.

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Today I’m happy to announce that we’re enhancing our tagging even further.  Now, no longer do you have to type your friends’ names in the box (in fact, we’ve removed the box).  Now you just have to select the SocialToo Status green quote icon, enter your status update as you normally would, prefixing any names you want to tag with “@”, just like you would with a normal status update, and when you hit submit, those names will automatically appear next to your status update as tagged, just like they used to, but much less effort necessary on your part!

There’s more though.  Now, when you tag your friends on Facebook and enable SocialToo Status, if you check the “Twitter” box, we’ll automatically search SocialToo’s large database of Facebook users with Twitter accounts. If the users you have tagged have already registered their Twitter account with SocialToo and associated that with a Facebook account we will automatically replace the tagged name with their Twitter handle, in @reply fashion to get their attention on Twitter as well!  If the user is not yet in our database we will just put their Facebook name in its place.

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If you ever had a reason to convince your Twitter friends to try SocialToo Status now’s the time!  Be sure to check out our #socialchange contest and you, or they can have the chance to win free status e-mails for life!  We’re continuing to change the Social web landscape with SocialToo – keep sending us your ideas!

You can learn how to enable SocialToo Status on your Facebook account via our earlier blog post.

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Make Social Change With SocialToo – Enter Our Contest!

September 14th, 2009 by Jesse Stay

socialchangeThe last few weeks at SocialToo have been especially busy as we roll out new features, and I would like to keep that trend going. Today we’re going to start something new, and based on your feedback, at the end of this week, I’ll be giving out 10 free stats e-mail and priority service upgrades (each a $20 value, making $200 of giveaways!).

Here’s what you need to do to participate:

We want to know what you like about SocialToo, but we also want to know your ideas for how we can get even better! So starting today (as of this e-mail), we want you to share what you like, along with an idea of something you think might change the web. It can be anything really, but you have to assume SocialToo can solve it. To win, you’ll need to Tweet, or share via SocialToo Status (this can be to Facebook or Twitter) something you like about SocialToo, and an idea you have that will change the web. Your post must include “socialtoo” somewhere in the post, along with the hashtag, “#socialchange”. Here are some examples:

“@socialtoo I love your SocialToo Status! I think SocialToo should help eliminate Twitter spam. #socialchange”

or

“I love my SocialToo Stats Emails! I really would like this to work with LinkedIn too! #socialchange”

At midnight this upcoming Sunday (that would be 12am MDT on September 20, 2009) I am going to randomly pick 10 posts that meet that criteria and give those users free e-mail stats and priority following for life! You get to help change the web, and enter to win SocialToo services that change the web at the same time. I think that’s a fair deal!

Want to learn more about our stats e-mails?  For $20 for life, you can get a daily statistics e-mail that shares who followed you and stopped following you on Twitter the previous day.  We also tell you lots of useful stuff about each follower, such as how many followers and friends they have, their location, number of status updates, and more.  We’ll even approximate which Tweet you posted around the time they started or stopped following you.  In addition, we add you to a prioritized server that runs your auto follow and unfollow much faster than our other users.  It’s a lot of value for just a one-time fee!

If you want to try it out just sign into SocialToo, and you can purchase any of our premium services under your Preferences tab.  Of course, if you end up winning our contest I am always happy to give your winning entry to a friend!

Let’s work together and make Social Change – let me know what amazing things you think SocialToo can do to change the world through our contest this week!

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SocialToo Extends War on Twitter Spam With One-Click DM Management

September 3rd, 2009 by Jesse Stay

A few weeks ago I pledged to provide more ways for you to filter the automated DMs you were receiving on Twitter.  For many, this annoyance has driven them to the point of completely unfollowing their friends (which SocialToo has a tool for).  To me, the ideal auto-follow tool should foster real-life relationships, and keep out the fake ones.  For many people, auto-following introduces too much clutter, and can reduce the quality of the real-life relationships you’re trying to build on the social networks.  One of our main focuses at SocialToo has always been to clean up the clutter.  That’s why, starting now, we’re launching some new tools around this that will help you remove the spam entirely from your inbox.

Today we’re declaring war on Twitter spam.

Introducing SocialToo DM E-mails

Starting right now, you can log into SocialToo.com by clicking on the “Sign in with Twitter” link on the home page. On your Preferences page you’ll see a few more options to help you combat spam on your Twitter account.  The first item we’re launching is a DM e-mail that can replace the DM e-mails you’re receiving from Twitter.  Here’s the cool thing about it: there’s nothing you need to do on your part to get it working! That’s right, no forwarding e-mails, and no changing anything in your Twitter preferences.  Simply check the box, “Send SocialToo DM e-mails” and include your e-mail address on your Preferences page on SocialToo, and the next DM you receive will come straight to your e-mail inbox.

socialtoo-dm-e-mail-preferences

Now, every DM e-mail you receive will enable you options to flag that DM as spam.  You’ll have the option to flag the sender as a spammer, auto-DMer, block the user, or just unfollow them.  You can even respond via public reply or DM, or even delete the DM straight from the e-mail!  Even more, when you mark a user as a spammer, a message automatically gets sent (via DM) to @spam on Twitter notifying them as well.  And now that they’re marked as a spammer, you’ll never auto-follow them again, and it will help others with the right preferences in SocialToo to avoid following them as well.

socialtoo-dm-e-mail-format

Should you later want to remove them from your spammers list,  just go to the “Lists” option in the left navigation on your Preferences page and you can remove and add people to your spammers and auto-DMers lists easily.  You can also whitelist anyone and we’ll never unfollow the people on that list on your behalf.  You may also want to enable the option, “Delete DMs when users are unfollowed, marked as a spammer, auto dmer, or are blocked from the DM e-mails” on your Preferences page – with that enabled, we’ll also delete each DM after you mark them as a spammer or unfollow them from the DM e-mails you get.

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Spam Filtering – the Perfect Complement to DM E-mail

DM E-mail from SocialToo is just one part of combating spam from those you follow, and discouraging the practice as you go. With this new feature, we’re also launching another new feature, automated spam filters, that will help you completely remove the spam and automated DMs you receive on Twitter.  Here’s how it works:

Log into SocialToo.com through the sign in with Twitter link and go to your Preferences tab.  On that tab towards the bottom you’ll see a new “Automatic DM Filters” section.  This, with the SocialToo DM E-mail, are your friend when it comes to stopping DM spam you receive on Twitter.

automatic-dm-filters

The way it works is that for every keyword or phrase (keywords and phrases are exact, so including a quote or punctuation will search for DMs with that quote or punctuation) you add to your DM filters, we’ll process that DM, apply the actions you select (unfollow, mark as spam, mark as auto-DM, delete) for the DMs that match that rule, notify @spam via DM if they’re a spammer, and they will not be included in the next e-mail you receive from us.  So, if you disable the DM E-mails you receive from Twitter in your preferences on Twitter.com and enable the SocialToo DM e-mail instead, you now have the potential to completely rid yourself of spam DMs from others, with little to no effort on your part.

So to get started adding filters simply click the “add keyword” link under your DM filters section on your Preferences page at SocialToo.com, enter a keyword or phrase you want to have it search for, set the actions you want to occur for that phrase, hit submit, and you’re done!  Some keywords I’ve set up include (without the quotes) “thanks for following”, “thank you for following”, and “You should send me a gift back”.  You can add as many of these filters as you like and we’ll stop each and every DM that meets those terms from entering your inbox.  I should also add that you do not have to auto-follow for any of the features we are launching today to work.  These features will work for anyone, and they’re 100% free!

Today is the day DM spam on Twitter stops for our users. We’re proud to play a part in that process at SocialToo.  This is only the beginning though.  We will continue to improve this process, listen to your feedback, and hopefully apply this to other networks you belong to as well in the future.  We’ll continue to find new ways for you to remove these DMs from your workflow.  If you have ideas, suggestions, or questions, we’re all ears.  And if you’re a developer we may be able to work with you as well to integrate these tools into your own product, perhaps enabling you to know before presenting DMs to a user if they pass a SocialToo spam test first.  The possibilities are endless!

I look forward to hearing your feedback.  These features are completely free.  If you do like what we’re offering though, we also provide a nightly report of who followed you and stopped following you within the previous day.  The cost is just a 1-time $20 charge for life, and you can turn it on or off any time you like.  SocialToo is your companion, and friend, to the social web.

Jesse Stay
CEO, SocialToo.com

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SocialToo Status – Your Central Hub for Posting to Facebook and Twitter

August 24th, 2009 by Jesse Stay

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Facebook has long been one of the best places to connect with family and friends and update what you are doing. Now, new tools and communities have grown, such as Twitter, and you may want to update your friends on those networks as well. It has become simply too difficult to manage all this from Facebook, that is until now.  Today we’re announcing SocialToo Status.

SocialToo Status makes Facebook your central hub for posting updates to the networks you belong to. Via a simple app you install on your Facebook profile and home page, you can now use your existing status update box (or “Publisher”) in Facebook to share your updates to Twitter, any Facebook Fan Page you manage, and even your own personal wall – on a post-by-post basis.  This new tool enables you to control who sees your updates, when you want, for every single status update you publish to Facebook.

When you publish via SocialToo Status, your updates appear in your personal stream, along with a link to each destination we also sent the status update to.  This helps promote your other Facebook Pages and Twitter account, and gives others a sense of whom else you are speaking to.  The little green SocialToo quote icon with each post also helps your status updates stand out – we do no promotion of SocialToo in your updates so it looks just like a normal status update.  Our goal is to do all we can to help promote discussion for each post you publish, and at the same time give you the control in a single interface to tell where those updates end up.  We think that’s pretty powerful!

Here’s how you get started – it’s actually quite simple:

  1. Go to http://socialtoo.com and click on the “Facebook App” link in the upper-right corner – you’ll want to hit “allow” on the prompts it asks you so we can properly publish status updates to your stream.
  2. Once the app is added to your account, you’ll notice on both your home page and profile page (you can update from either location) a new green SocialToo Status quote icon in the “attachments” section.  You’ll probably have to hit the down “more” arrow to get to it. The more you use it, the more likely it will appear outside that drop down in the future!
  3. Click on the green quote icon, and a new SocialToo Status-branded Publisher will appear.  Congrats – you’re all set up!

If you have not yet associated your Twitter account, a “sign in with Twitter”  button will show up in the new SocialToo Status Publisher.  You’ll want to click on that and associate the Twitter account to publish to from Facebook.  It will only go to this account when you check the box (you’ll see this in a bit).  Also, if you want to publish to the Facebook Pages you administer, just go to the link in the new publisher box that it prompts you with, and approve each Page you want to publish to.

Now, every time you send an update to Facebook, click on the little SocialToo Status green chat icon, select Twitter and/or the Facebook Pages you want it to go to (or none of them), and it will go to each one you select.  The power of Facebook Status updates are in your hands now with SocialToo Status.  Let us know what you think!

You can see the full howto with screenshots at http://apps.facebook.com/socialtoo/status.  This is only the beginning!

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Posted in Announcements | 36 Comments »

There’s an App for That

August 2nd, 2009 by Jesse Stay

Swiss Army KnifeHalf of SocialToo’s focus has always been to reduce the spam and clear out the noise for you on the Social Networks you belong to. Recently, a trend has been to unfollow everyone on your followers list and start fresh.  Many people are reporting this has cleaned up things for them and made their life much easier so they could more effectively listen to the conversation.  We support that decision – we are not an “auto-follow company”.  We’re an analytics and anti-spam through social tools company, so auto-follow is only one of the features SocialToo offers.  For those that want to unfollow everyone they follow, yes, there’s an app for that, too.

To unfollow everyone you follow, just go to your Preferences tab, make sure you’re logged into Twitter, and purchase the item, “Unfollow EVERYONE you’re currently following?”.  It’s a one-time only $25 charge and you can run it for free as many times as you want after that. In under 5 minutes, your entire list will be unfollowed.

unfollow all option

There’s more. If you like to auto-follow but don’t like auto-dms, we offer options for that as well.  If you see an auto-dmer, go to the “Unfollowing Preferences” link on your Preferences page, and be sure to blacklist them.  Then, enable the unfollow filters on that page to automatically unfollow those that meet your criteria for auto-dmers. Power by the masses will keep the auto-dmers out.  In addition, we’ll automatically send a request on your behalf to TweetLater’s @optmeout to keep their auto-dms from hitting your inbox if you select the checkbox on your Preferences page.  Anyone you don’t want it to unfollow, just add them to your whitelist.

Of course, you’ll want to tell others about this so more people are marking spammers and auto-dmers as such. Please send out a Tweet to your followers, letting them know about these features and maybe pointing them to this blog post.  In addition, starting today, we launched a way for you to invite your Facebook friends as well.  If you are logged in via Facebook (just click the connect via Facebook button), you’ll see an “Invite Friends” link at the top.  Click that any time and you’ll be presented with a list of all your Facebook friends, giving you the option to invite them to use SocialToo.

Invite friends

Starting this week, I’m going to be focusing on even better filters for SocialToo auto follow.  Expect to see filters around allowing you to auto-unfollow people that DM you with DMs that contain certain keywords.  Expect to see ways to auto-unfollow people with certain keywords in their bio, or with default avatars, or even with certain words in their username.  It’s time to put an end to spam on Twitter, and SocialToo is going to do all we can to help you out in this process.  Yes, we have an app for that, too.

Jesse Stay
CEO, SocialToo.com

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Posted in Announcements, Status | 15 Comments »

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