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Avatar Went Hot: March 17, 2008 - 6:35 am
Posted By: annie7 129 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.seo-chicks.com)
Category: Networking
Have spammers and phishers finally begun the slow take-over of Facebook, as they did MySpace?
17 Comments     

Comments

from Jill 129 days ago #
Votes: 2 | Vote:
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Good post by Jane. I have taken to unfriending anyone who I don't actually know who invites me to install any crazy application.  I kind of wish I was more vigilant with who I friended in the first place, but I wasn't.

One question about this article though...can't only your friends write on your wall? If so, wouldn't unfriending the spammers do the trick? (Or only friending people you actually know.)

from smallbiztrends 129 days ago #
Votes: 0 | Vote:
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Excellent article. Sites that get red-hot super fast all seem to have a short life cycle.  They get superheated and then the wrong element moves in.  The faster they get hot and the bigger they are, the faster they seem to get taken over by the wrong elements.  

In a way, there's a benefit to being successful yet not TOO successful.

from SlightlyShadySEO 129 days ago #
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It's been in the works for awhile(not by me).
A lot of the people I've heard of doing it were actually just fed up with the restriction of facebook's PPC program.

from evilgreenmonkey 128 days ago #
Votes: 0 | Vote:
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FaceBook has always been as easy to game as MySpace, it's just that MySpaceBetweenMyEars users are coming across to FB and falling for the same tricks.

  1. Create a FaceBook account with a generic female name
  2. Upload a photo of a really hot "girl next door" to your profile
  3. Use RapLeaf to cycle through your mailing/spam lists and grab accounts with FB profiles
  4. Send a Friend Request saying "It was great meeting you briefly the other week"
  5. Sit back and watch your friends list grow
  6. Send a friend request to their friends saying "I'm also a friend of X and I think we met briefly"
  7. Post comments to the wall of your new found friends
The interesting part is data collection using innocent looking FB apps :)

from bwelford 128 days ago #
Votes: 1 | Vote:
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I find Facebook + all its apps too complex from a usability viewpoint so it's not surprising that spammers find it easy to infiltrate themselves.  The simplicity of Twitter is much to be preferred.

from Feydakin 128 days ago #
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I blame all the people who friended everyone that asked.. If it hadn't become such a popularity contest a lot of this wouldn't happen because friends don't do these things to friends..

from annie7 128 days ago #
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@Jill: unfriending the spammers should definitely help...

from Eavesy 128 days ago #
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You spammer evilgreenmonkey - I had the exact same idea (girl next door looking photo and everything) LOL. I dugg this post.

Edit: Oh my christ the diggers are lapping it up.

from Scottie 128 days ago #
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I actually know all my friends... so far I haven't been spammed by any of them but if I was, I'd know who to smack around. ;)

from baiduyou 128 days ago #
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Facebook spam shouldn't really be a problem if you're only adding genuine friends. Having to scroll through several feet of shitty applications to actually find someone's wall in the first place is the real problem.

from DanThies 128 days ago #
Votes: 1 | Vote:
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Isn't this the ultimate fate of every social networking site that doesn't make it a huge PITA to send friend requests? Didn't we see the same thing with Orkut? LinkedIn doesn't attract nearly as much noise, but OTOH, I gave up trying to build out that network.

from stillwagon428 128 days ago #
Votes: 0 | Vote:
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Well, this stinks.  Nothing is ever safe anymore.  Once a site grows and get lots of traffic, in come the parasites.  I agree that you should only friend people you know of.

from PPCLab 128 days ago #
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This isn't anything new.  I've been getting other types of spam like someone mentioned above on Facebook for a while now.  Wrote about it last month http://www.ppclab.com/2008/02/either-im-incredibly-sexy-or-facebook-has-a-problem/

from DarkMatter 128 days ago #
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Love the title on this submission! don't really know why, but it cracked me up...

from MikeDammann 128 days ago #
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Facebook is too easy to spam, especially being able to mass email everyone in your hotmail, yahoo and gmail accounts.

from annie7 127 days ago #
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@DanThies

LinkedIn doesn't attract nearly as much noise, but OTOH, I gave up trying to build out that network.

can't agree more :)

from crazycat 127 days ago #
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This is bad! I'm an active Facebook member and what I want is just clean fun.


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