The math behind Twitter is simple: the more followers, the more powerful you are (well, not that simple, please read on:)). It is quite natural Tweeple are obsessed with the following numbers and are ready to try various (often questionable) tactics to increase that number.

Of course, the only (legit) way to make your following grow is to make it worth it: post great updates people would love to follow. Naturally, this takes time and effort and not everyone has the patience to do it the right way.

Hence the popularity of other ("spammy") methods to make your following number grow, and here I am listing the 3 of them.

Don’t get me wrong I am not going to tell you why it is unethical or bad to use them: who am I to educate you? (Besides, I have played with all of them just for the sake of an experiment, so I am kind of guilty myself.)

This post is why those tactics are ineffective and even dangerous, but it’s for you to decide is you want to use them or not.

1. Automatic Following Communities:

They work the following way:

• You give it your Twitter login info and allow it to access your account;
• Sometimes you need to specify your interests (but this seldom helps any targeting);
• After that you just start getting hundreds of mutual friends day by day.

Why is this ineffective?

Read the rest of this entry »

I have already listed a few weird things about Reddit, and here’s a follow-up listing some more things Redditors themselves keep wondering about:

1. Where do my saved threads go?
2. Why do the vote totals fluctuate by about ± 3 votes when you reload the page?
3. What’s the red envelope next to my username? Why is it red but sometimes empty when clicked?
4. How do I add formatting to my comment?
5. Why does a dot sometimes show up where the score should be?
6. How can I filter submissions on Reddit to ignore those I didn’t like?
7. How do I filter comments to a story?
8. What does it mean that the submission number is colored?

1. Where do my saved threads go?

There is an option to save the item under each link on Reddit. But many people wonder where those links are saved.

“Saved” category can be found when clicked on “More” link on the front page:

Read the rest of this entry »

Reasons that make you network on Facebook may vary. Some people are there to promote their businesses. Others – to become popular and get known…

But most people are there to meet with friends, have fun with common games and share photos and news. In a word, Facebook is an advanced time-waster that people sometimes prefer to real-life meetings with “offline” friends.

But what if someone told you that you could make money from that time-waster? What would be your reaction? Mine is complex.

Making money from your friends feels somewhat wrong. We keep hearing those sentences like “Learn to sell yourself effectively” and “Buy from / Sell to people you trust” – and both of them sound awful! My personal rule is to keep friends away from my money issues. I would never want to make them buy anything by fooling them into believing I recommend that.

On the other hand, online friendship is a bit different. More often than not, those people I meet on Facebook or Twitter are rather “partners” than “friends”. I am not ready to discuss personal matters with them but I often do trust them more than impersonal banner ads I keep seeing now and then.

That said, your monetizing strategy should depend on how you perceive your online networking. If you are there for “real friendship” or just extend your offline communication, this tips are probably not for you. If you are more about “business” networking, keep reading!

Sell Your Own Stuff to Your Friends

1. Marketplace (powered by Oodle.com) is the a highly popular and widely used Facebook application that lets you sell almost anything on Facebook. Facebookers use the app to buy, sell, give things away or support the cause.

The service sorts the sales in the following four categories:

• Items for Sale
• Housing
• Vehicles
• Jobs

You can also filter the list to see what your friends are selling or to only browse the products which are being sold nearby.

Read the rest of this entry »

Reddit can be both a pleasure and a mystery. Even long-time users admit Reddit can be weird (to say at least) and very often they just fail to explain some of its behavior.

My story with Reddit was very common: I was first only browsing and reading without really participating – and I found it exciting.

Then I registered and started commenting – that’s when I started noticing some weird things happening.

I participated more actively and just stopped paying attention to strange things – I thought that were some glitches.

Then I came to realize what and why was happening – and that was a relief, so I decided to share it with you.

Note: if you think my assumptions are wrong and you can offer a better explanation, please comment – I am open to discussion

• Why is my submission nowhere to be found in the “New” section of the respective category?
• Why are my comments invisible to everyone except myself?
• Why can’t I see my page on the front page?
• Why does my submission suddenly start getting plenty of (*rude*) comments?
• Is there any “unwritten” etiquette on Reddit?
• Why did that story of mine get so many downvotes?
• Why don’t I see all the available categories when submitting the story?
• Is there any Reddit terms I should be aware of?

Read the rest of this entry »

There are plenty of completely non-sense records in the world – like largest hamburger or the most tattooed body.

But when it comes to art and creativity, anything seems to make sense.

So here are 10 largest and tiniest masterpieces created recently:

1. World Largest Sand Carpet

A group of Iranian artists have created the world’s largest sand carpet.
The unique 39,370.078 square foot (12,000 sq. meter) world record carpet was created by 25 visual artists made entirely of 70 types of colorful sand. (source: lifeinthefastlane.ca)

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Not all scams are harmless, unfortunately. More often than not, scams are intended to steal your money or personal information or fool you into doing some work for free.

Well-spread types of Internet scams include: phishing email messages (stealing your information while you complete a web form or login), paid-for-review sites (and other sites making you work for free), sites that advertise some services but never deliver the quality work, etc.

So how to get protected from these?

Once you come across some great offer and wonder if you should try it, take time to follow these steps:

Check out if someone has already fallen prey to this or similar scam:

Scam.com is an awesome forum that has an active section for Internet Scams. You will find it interesting and useful, I am a daily reader there. People share thoughts and experiences on practically all newly launched projects you may be interested in. Read the rest of this entry »

Internet scams are numerous, some of the hoaxes are totally harmless, others are designed to steal your money or private information.

On the other hand, there are scams that look like totally legit things, while others are obvious hoaxes that are designed to make you laugh.

Those totally obvious hoaxes are often used as satire to ridicule some idea, concept or realia.

Otherwise, those sites are just entertaining designed to trigger emotions.

The Onion: Your Weekly Source of Fake News

The Onion is a satirical weekly publication published 52 times a year on Thursdays… The Onion is not intended for readers under 18 years of age. The Onion uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.

Be sure to check their Video section out: their fake-news CNN-style videos will make your day! Read the rest of this entry »

The first Coca Cola sale was at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents.

Coca-Cola’s promotion has had a significant impact on American advertising and its overall culture. It is even (erroneously) credited with the invention of the US traditional Santa Clause image.

Anyway, Coca Cola advertising history demonstrates how the marketing science has been developing over time. Below there is a visual tour into the company print advertising:

1890 -

Drink Coca Cola

Coca-Cola first print ad was published in 1895 featuring a young Bostonian actress named Hilda Clark who was the company spokesperson.

The ad campaign featured various people and concepts. Read the rest of this entry »

After numerous huge brands got on Twitter, it is no wonder TV and movie characters do that too.

Those imaginary people get second life on Twitter – they become real: they talk and think, answer their fans’ questions, discuss the story line and comment on their daily routine.

Most awesome examples of how Twitter ‘enliven’ popular TV and movie characters are listed below:

Darth Vader is a highly popular Twitter profile for Star Wars evil genius. Other Twitterers from the Star Wars galaxy include his son Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca, beautiful Princess Leia, wise Jedi master Yoda, Han Solo, beeping bot R2-D2 and his friend C3PO. Evil side is supported by Darth Sidious and The Emperor.

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I don’t want to introduce this post by saying why smoking is bad. I was a smoker in the past. I quit only because I wanted to have a baby and I believed me smoking was harmful for my child. But I am still annoyed when people start educating me why smoking is bad.

I think that’s every person’s business and choice. So what I was looking at in the following anti-smoking campaigns is not the educative value (I personally doubt smokers aren’t aware of the risk already) but creativity and original idea (the way it was implemented).

Street campaigns:

Stop Smoking Bus Advertisement: “Ready to quit?”

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