The SocialToo Blog

September 3, 2009

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

Filed under: Announcements — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jesse Stay @ 3:02 pm

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.

pointing-out-socialtoo-lists

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

August 2, 2009

There’s an App for That

Filed under: Announcements,Status — Tags: , , , , , — Jesse Stay @ 5:09 pm

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

June 1, 2009

Cut Down on Spam With Lists and Filters on SocialToo

Filed under: Announcements — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jesse Stay @ 3:51 pm

SpamWe’ve talked here before about SocialToo’s commitment to providing you with a much cleaner experience on the Social Networks you belong to. We’ve provided an opt out of auto-dms through perhaps the largest source of these, TweetLater (and we thank them for providing that tool!). We’ve enabled you to blacklist people you don’t want us to ever follow on your behalf. We’ve enabled you to automatically unfollow those that unfollow you on Twitter. We’ve also enabled you to just unfollow those that unfollow you within a given number of days on Twitter.

Today I’d like to take that a little further. Starting now, you can log into SocialToo, click on the Preferences tab, and click on “Unfollowing Preferences” in the left navigation menu. You’ll notice your blacklist has moved there, along with 2 new lists. The first list, a whitelist, enables you to specify individuals you want to be sure we never unfollow for you. Consider this your “favorites” list – trust me, this will become even more useful very shortly, but for now it means even with auto-unfollow on or any of the filters or blacklisting on, we’ll never unfollow the people in that list.

Unfollowing Preferences

The second new list is an “auto-dmers” list. We want you to use this. This is your list, and only applies to you – we can’t make this decision for you. If you’re as annoyed with automatic direct messaging on Twitter as many on Twitter are getting, we’ve provided you a way to ensure these users are unfollowed, identified, and never followed again until they’re removed from the list. Why not just unfollow them, you may be asking?

Here’s the reason. When you add someone to your auto-dmers list, we give those users a score. The higher the score, the more users have been annoyed by their activity. We can’t tell 100% that these people are manually or automatically sending these, so we have to go by you, the user’s annoyance level. If they annoy you enough to unfollow them, we think that warrants an increase in their auto-dm score. We’ve done the same with your blacklist. The more people that blacklist an individual, the higher their “spam score”. This is an anonymous score that only we know, and is entirely controlled by our users. We have no control as to what goes into this list.

Now here’s the fun part. You’ll notice above those 3 lists a few new filters. You still have the ability to unfollow those who unfollow you, unfollow those who unfollow you in a given number days after they follow you, or do nothing at all with those unfollowers. However, we’ve added 2 new filters that I think are very powerful, especially the more people use them and populate their lists.

Now, if you check the boxes, “Never follow if friends have a spam score greater than [3]” or “Never follow if friends have an auto-dm score greater than [2]” we do some additional magic. If someone has been blacklisted by greater than 3 people on SocialToo (you can change this number), we’ll automatically unfollow them for you and never follow them again. If someone has been marked as an auto-dmer by more than 2 people (you can also change this number), we’ll automatically unfollow them for you and never follow them again as well. Change the numbers, and we’ll follow and unfollow accordingly.

We’ve just given complete control to you, the user, to determine who on Twitter is a spammer, and who is not. We’ve even automated the process for you and you can now choose to only follow those other users have not considered to be spamming, or auto-dming (assuming you consider that is spam) on Twitter. Have an exception to the rule? Just add them to your whitelist!

We have several more announcements this week we’ll be rolling out shortly so please stay tuned to this blog as we announce them. Most of all, we need your help spreading the word to get as many people populating these lists as possible so the system becomes as useful as can be. It’s 100% free so please fill out your lists, set your filters, and enjoy as your spam loads go down significantly. Most importantly, spread the word!

UPDATE: The blacklist, auto-dm list, and whitelist features are now under a sidebar link called “Lists”.  We have moved the rest of the unfollowing preferences under the main “Preferences” tab.

February 28, 2009

Time to Take a Stand – Yes, We’re Ending the DMs

Filed under: Announcements — Tags: , , , , , , — Jesse Stay @ 11:00 am

The Buck Stops HereI created SocialToo to solve problems. I discover things I can’t find on the Social Networks I belong to, and I create them. I then add them into our service to provide one complete companion to all your Social Network needs. On Facebook, we’re providing an easy-to-remember URL that redirects to your Facebook profile (See mine at http://jessestay.socialtoo.com). We’re also providing unique ways to poll your followers through Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed via our SocialSurveys product. These were to first solve my need to constantly have to look up my Facebook profile URL when giving it out to friends and family, and secondly, I needed a way to learn about my followers in a simple manner, initiating discussion around a particular topic that I could then track solid results around. Our nightly statistics e-mails for Twitter were also built around this premise.

For Twitter, as my followers grew, I wanted to show the gesture of at least following those people back that were showing interest in me. It was the least I could do, even if I could not pay attention to each and every one. (We’re working on that second problem)

I began by manually following those that followed me, and when my numbers were still small I would even message them, some times privately, some times publicly to thank them for their interest in me. This became a repetitive process for me, and therefore I wrote a script, and eventually an entire service which became SocialToo.com, around this.

Evidently, many others of you had the same problem, because we took off, really fast. Within just a few months, of over 13,000 of you, almost 8,000 of you are following those that follow you. At the same time, near 6,000 of you are sending DMs to the new people who follow you. Some of those sending DMs are auto-following, some are not. It is clear that people like to show some token of gratitude and maybe a little bit of information to those people that follow them.

However, it seems many people either have not understood the service, or are simply abusing it, as I believe the spammers have started to take over this system. People are complaining. Here are a few examples, with great reasons:

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/social-media-is-no-place-for-robot-behavior/
http://loiclemeur.com/english/2009/02/twitter-robots-killed-me-and-why-i-apologize-i-may-not-be-following-you-anymore.html
http://www.twitterbusinessbook.com/index.php?p=754

Based on my statistics, while a small percent of you are using auto-DMs for legitimate business reasons (for instance, sending instructions to followers if you are doing an online promotion that includes following the Twitter user as part of the promotion), over one-third of you sending automated DMs have some sort of URL in your message to followers. The remaining majority is just sending simple thank you’s, which while I think are truly genuine, are now being ignored by most people that receive them. Some are even going to the extent of deleting all their followers in order to remove this burden.

We provided a way you can block these, both on messages from our site, and on messages from other sites that do this, and proudly, around 1,500 of you have taken advantage of this (500 of those are still sending out auto-dms despite not wanting them for themselves). This has reduced significantly the number of DMs many of you are receiving, both from us and those other sites that do this.

Starting today, we’re taking this one step further. As of this blog post, we are completely disabling auto-DMs to our users’ followers in order to stop this practice and bring back the usefulness of direct messaging again. This is a tough move for me, as many of you are using this service, and I think many don’t really have an issue with these DMs. However, with entrepreneurship comes leadership. As CEO of SocialToo, I’m taking a stand against automated DMs, and hoping other sites that do this will do the same. With what used to be a useful tool, came too much abuse, and someone needs to put an end to it. Until we can come up with a better solution we’re going to put an end to it.

In addition, starting today, while you will no longer have need for blocking SocialToo users’ automated DMs, we encourage you to invite all your friends to come check the same option you were using to block SocialToo DMs, and we’ll block other sites that do automated-dms. If you provide your Twitter username and password (this is required because other services require it – it will be via OAuth in the near future) and check the box, “Turn off automatic Direct Messages from other services?“, we’ll set you up to block DMs from as many services that do this as we can, automatically.

This is a big move for us, and my hope is that it will cascade and encourage others doing the same to also remove this option. My other hope is that Twitter will also put in limits to discourage this practice (add it to the Terms of Use?). If you would like to show your support, please feel free to donate via the link at the top of SocialToo.com, sign up and check out our many other services, or contribute new ideas for the service on our GetSatisfaction page – perhaps there’s a way around this we’re not thinking of. Here is a list of all the services we still offer (available in more detail on our About page):

  • Auto-Follow those who follow you
  • Easy-to-remember Facebook profile redirect URL
  • Unfollow filters – specify when to unfollow someone who has been following you
  • Twitter Blacklisting – we’ll do something really cool with this shortly
  • SocialSurveys – poll your followers on the social networks you belong to
  • Nightly Stats E-mails – tell who followed you and stopped following you in a day (our most popular feature!)
  • Many more to come shortly!

In the meantime, please feel free to discuss this in the comments. I’m still listening, and if your for, or against this, I want your feedback – do you have any ideas on how we can re-enable this in a way that doesn’t offend others? Would it be better we re-enable this in the future, requiring users to pay for it? What other ideas do you have, and is this the right move? I want your suggestions!

(Photo Courtesy Marshall Astor)

January 23, 2009

Auto Reply Glitches, Incorrect “Last Tweets”

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — Jesse Stay @ 11:25 pm

(UPDATE: Some of you are asking if you actually sent that message in your report. That update was only a typo in the report – you did not actually send that message. Your following/unfollowing stats are accurate, minus the last tweet message.)

Some of you may have noticed this morning and late yesterday that if you had the placeholders, <<firstname>> or <<lastname>> it was placing someone else’s name in it’s place instead of the intended destination’s first and last names. In addition, in your nightly e-mail last night you may have seen the wrong “last tweet” listed.

We Tweeted about this on our Twitter account this morning and disabled the incorrect messages sent, and we have tracked down the problem. It appears the problem was due to a bug in the Twitter libraries we had switched to yesterday. We’ve fixed this, and your auto-reply dms should be correct now. Tonight, you may still have some incorrect “last tweet”‘s in your nightly e-mail, but after that it should be business as usual. We apologize for this inconvenience and have put in place measures to keep this from happening in the future. As always, you may e-mail contact@socialtoo.com if you have any issues or questions.

Stay tuned – as we mentioned we’ve slowed down our auto-following for a few days, but we have a few solutions coming very shortly that will make that much better. Be sure to subscribe to the blog to get updates! Also, if you have problems be sure to check our Twitter @socialtoo account to see if we have posted a resolution.

January 10, 2009

Fight Twitter Spam With Unfollow Filters

Filed under: Announcements — Tags: , , , , , — Jesse Stay @ 5:22 am

At SocialToo, my biggest priority is to do all that we can to make Twitter a better, more “social” place for you.  Our goal is to do all we can to enable you to focus on connecting with your friends and building relationships, while we handle the rest.  Unfortunately, with those that abuse the system and seek to solely focus on gaining followers, it gets harder to do so.

One of the most heavily-used techniques for gaining followers by spammers is to follow people on Twitter, then, quickly unfollow them once those people auto-follow them back.  Some people do this via services like SocialToo.com, while others do it manually, but regardless, it’s easy to gain a lot of followers you could potentially target for spam in the future using this technique.  I’ve referred to this flaw in Twitter’s system a “free no-reply address” given to each user that joins Twitter.

Last week we launched a feature enabling you to block automatic DMs from other SocialToo accounts.  Through this feature, only those that want to receive auto-generated DMs will receive them, providing more targeted marketing, and less unwanted messages for those that are annoyed by the feature.  Tonight, I’m proud to announce a new feature that will further this effort to ward off spam on Twitter. I think this is game changing.

Starting tonight, if you log into your SocialToo.com account and click on the “Admin” tab, you’ll see a new link on the left titled, “Unfollowing Preferences”.  You still have the usual features of being able to unfollow all those that unfollow you, or just leave them alone, but we’re adding one new feature.  Now, if you opt to enable it, you can specify that we unfollow anyone who unfollows you within the first “x” number of days after they follow you.  We default this to 1, as that is common for spammers, but you can fine-tune it for your needs.

Also starting tonight, we are defaulting this to “on” for all new SocialToo.com users in an effort to further fight these types of spamming efforts on Twitter.  Existing users will keep their existing settings, so please go in and adjust this if you are already a user.  We plan on expanding this even further in the future with some free, and possibly some premium features, but now you can feel safe that, so long as you and your friends are on SocialToo, Twitter will be a less-spammy place!  So go out and invite your friends, encourage them to switch to SocialToo.com to discourage these spammers from using this technique. The more of you that use SocialToo, the more effective we will be at fighting this technique!

Photo Credit: freezelight

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