My friend Pete informs me of his Google Buzz experience, and it’s not positive, either.
He is no stranger to technology and is more expert than I am on these matters. He had turned off Buzz, and was surprised to find that it was still taking his information and publishing it to his followers.
His sister took a screen shot of what she saw on her screen, which is shown above. Notice at the top of the screen, it says that Pete is following her—even though by this time he had turned Buzz off. In Pete’s words: ‘I’ve now had to go into settings where there is a further option to disable it altogether and kill all your posts. I’m hoping that stops it!’
I hope so, too!
If any of the old Voxers are still around reading this blog, I met up with Paikea (a nom-de-plume of one of my neighbours and friends on the old Vox blogging platform) on Sunday. It was a wonderful catch-up and it was as though we had been Real World 1·0 friends for years. Sometimes, blogs really do help you get into the mind of others so you know if you would hit it off or not.
I look forward to meeting her husband in the near future, too, and we have exchanged phone numbers and emails. I wonder if Linda-Joy and her husband might be next, as they are nearby in Melbourne.
Finally for tonight, how about the above? These are the followers on one Twitter account (I have an inkling who it is, but it’s not my place to say so). If you want me to feel honoured and very flattered, then following HM Queen Rania al-Abdullah of Jordan, Shakira Ripoll, Sir Richard Branson and Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately afterme will do it. I am also in good company with my dear friend Manas Fuloria over in Gurgaon.
Even though I am no longer blogging on Vox, I have some good news there: the cars’ group that I founded got its 100th member today.
It’s actually the third time we’ve crossed 100, but on those previous occasions, it was sploggers that got us over that number. And each time I’ve had to go and delete those folks from the group, taking our total down.
While there are still some questionable accounts among that 100, none of them have the usual signs of joining multiple groups (probably by way of a script). None have come and posted spam into the group, either (which is immediately deleted, though at least one of our members had to learn the hard way).
Vox might be technologically flawed, especially with Six Apart’s lack of attention, but I have a responsibility to these groups, some of which I set up. In fact, one of the reasons this cars’ group exists is that the former one, called Cars Rock!, was overrun by spammers after its creator and moderator left. (In fact, one member there is called Splogger.) I’d hate to be the guy who let the side down, though I can foresee a day when I’d get so frustrated with the spam that I might have to (at left are the most common keywords among the Vox groups—looks like splog city to me).
I’ll leave the proper way, mind: I’d hand over to a new moderator, then walk away. I don’t think I’d let the group die as so many others on Vox have.
Is it any wonder Vox’s resources are taxed? Here’s a chap that does 3,265 posts in a month—all off-site spam. (I won’t give them the privilege of a link—no point raising their search engine rankings.)
I vote that Vox has some form of alarm at HQ for people who blog too often. Twitter and Facebook, as I understand it, has a trigger point for excessive posting, even if it catches legitimate users from time to time.
But set the per-day bar high enough, and they should be able to catch abusers like this.
I know: I really shouldn’t care what happens there any more. However, I still have a few groups that I manage there, where I am particularly alert about spammers and sploggers.
Is it any wonder 
