Follow Fails: Types of Tweeple To Avoid on Twitter
The rise in Twitter viruses and malware, plus the trolls just desperate for followers, make me leery of following anyone.
Being followed by another Twitter user: It's a delightful feeling that fluffs the ego as we bask in a dopamine rush inside our brain. I'm somebody!
Print
While it is polite—however not required—to reciprocate the following, recent waves of malware and virus attacks born in Twitter's womb, as well as Twitter trollers just looking to boost their following by following anybody and everybody, have made me apprehensive about following Twitters users with what I consider "suspect" profiles and bios. (Got Twitter questions? Check out CIO.com's Twitter Bible.)
Of course, you can't fully judge someone by his Twitter handle, brief bio and profile pic. But I've noticed some tell-tale signs that particular Twitter users are either malevolent or just looking to gratify their egos. In other words, think twice before following these tweeple.
Any Twitter handle that includes the words "baby," "real," "stud" or "fake." Not Good
Too white teeth. Trolling for Followers
Any image that resembles a hastily-sketched cartoon that my six-year-old could have done better. Don't Touch with 10-Foot Pole
The "too professional" glamour shot. Probably Safe, But Going to Annoy You with Self-Important Tweets
Any image that contains: female and pillow. Stay Away
Bare midriff. That's Probably Not the Actual Carly Fiorina
The "Glory Days" photo from a decade (or two) ago. Safe, But Sad
Anyone who's pictured with their child or children. Typically Safe and Genuine
Image of celebrity. Be Wary
Image of Miley Cyrus. Too Late—Just Looking at the Image Means You're Infected
If the follower's RT complements your physique. Stay Away
Heart, skull or crossbones. Might Want to Avoid That
The "tool cool for school" guy with sunglasses on and hat on backward. Hey, That's Me! I'm Normal. I Swear!
Do you Tweet? Follow me on Twitter @twailgum. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.
Previous Post: Bringing Down the House of Enterprise SoftwareNext Post: Oracle OpenWorld: What You're Missing
What is Tech Briefcase?
TechBriefcase is a new, free service where IT Professionals can Search, Store and Share IT white papers and content like this. Learn more
Bookmark content
Speed up your research efforts with content across the web.
Search and Store
Find the white papers you need. Create folders for any topic.
View Anywhere
Open your briefcase on your iPhone, tablet or desktop. Share with colleagues.
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
