Pigeon has cracked the MySpace MSPlinks code.
In his words:
The obfuscated part of an msplinks URL is simply the original URL preceded by two digits and encoded using base64. Thank the Lord that it’s not actually encrypted. This makes it simple to recover the original URL.
The good news is that you don’t need to know programming of any sort to remove the MSPlinks.com redirects. Pigeon has created a bookmarklet that solves the problem.
Hiitch is a desktop social networking platform. It’s open source. You can actually download the source and create you own private social network with others you invite.
I’m still new to Hiitch so I’m still exploring its functionality, but it looks very exciting. I will definitely post updates as I get more accustomed with Hiitch’s social networking functions and others features.
The MSPlinks.com redirects are a backward step for online safety. MySpace has knowingly made users more vulnerable to online predators in its quest to increase profits.
If you haven’t already read how MySpace sacrificed user safety to boost revenue, you may want to.
You may also want to read about how MySpace used scare tactics to muscle users into viewing MySpace.com content in order to get big advertising deals. And their plan is working.
Pali Capital considers August 17, 2007 a monumental day for social networking and Myspace in particular, as Coke paid $1 million to have a Coke-branded MySpace home page for that entire day.
MySpace and Coca-Cola have in fact struck up a larger advertising deal that involves targeted advertising on all MySpace-produced MySpace pages (they won’t be advertising on pages that contain user-generated content.)
How was MySpace able to gain the confidence of major advertisers?
Let’s review the recent chain of events:
Round up of SMO coverage from the San Jose SES conference taken from unofficial SEO blog. SMO Speakers at SES included:
Todd Malicoat gave examples for types of linkbaiting hooks:
He also listed top title ideas and other social media optimization tips.
Rand Fishkin explained social media marketing and said that the social media marketing goal is to build friends and relationships in the blogosphere and at online social sites. Your target social media marketing audience is not same demographic as your customers.
New to social media? Rob Crumpler maps out six social media tips to start you in the right direction.
Plus other articles:
Share your content for Web 2.0 success
A Marketer’s Guide to Emerging Social Networks
My last post discussed how MSPlinks.com redirects make MySpace. com more dangerous for users. Since then, I’ve stumbled upon a brilliant MySpace GreaseMonkey script by Jason at smert.net that reveals the true destination of MySpace outgoing links that have been dangerously hidden by these MSPlinks.com redirects.
MySpace is irresponsible to impose these MSPlinks.com redirects. It is yet another example of how MySpace treats its millions of loyal, dedicated users as enemies. However in this case, MySpace’s profit squeezing is actually jeopardizing their users’ safety as well.
MySpace has openly displayed a blatant lack of concern for user safety by installing those msplinks.com redirects . In case you need a quick refresher, MySpace has installed software that forces every outbound link (links to other sites) on any MySpace.com pages to filter through the domain msplinks.com. Each link is then redirected to the original destination.
One very dangerous effect of these redirects is evident.
The msplinks.com redirects unquestionably make MySpace users even more susceptible to fraud, phishing, viruses, and other shady dealings.
MySpace has started limiting users’ access to 3rd party applications.
Revver. Imeem. Hoooka. All Banned. It appears MySpace wants to Monopolize the widget landscape.
Ironically, this seems vaguely reminiscent of the demise of Friendster. To recap the past, Friendster kicked off it’s biggest user (the now infamous Tila Tequila) for receiving too many friend requests.
MySpace (the rookie/underdog social network at the time) welcomed Tila into it’s social network with open arms. (Tila comments on this in an interview) Since then, MySpace has never enforced a quantity cap on ‘friends’ and everything went on to be hunky-dory.
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‘Friends First’ sound like a take-it-slow dating guide, but it’s really should be the MySpace marketer’s manta. Relationship building is the most effective way to reap results from your MySpace marketing. Kathy over at AttractionBiz.com seems to be giving her clients a fair representation of the strengths and limitations of MySpace marketing.
Take a look at this snapshot of an actual MySpace user’s incoming friend requests (photo taken by tlianza). Every person pictured here is a spammer. This is an actual example of how SPAM is shaping the MySpace user experience. MySpace is a social site. It seems to be logical that a MySpace marketing plan should include strong social elements to be truly effective. Social elements seem to be a key element that these spammers don’t seem to understand… well that and respect. But I’ll lump respect & accountability in with all the other social skills that are required for sustainable interpersonal marketing. |
Could the overload of MySpace SPAM or their lack of an open API (like Facebook) increase the popularity of newer social networking sites?
