As you may or may not have noticed, Twitter.com disappeared for about an hour last night. Their DNS records were apparently compromised by someone claiming to be the (previously unheard-of) “Iranian Cyber Army”. The DNS entry, which essentially tells your web browser where to find individual sites, was apparently changed by some mischief makers to point to the wrong place. Some users saw a message from the “Army”, while others simply couldn’t access the site. It was back to normal in an hour or so.

It is unknown whether the “Army” acted in response to my repeated exclamations that “Twitter Must Die“.

It’s not the first time Twitter has gone down, though it’s certainly the most spectacular. Unfortunately, the crew at Mashable.com, who (as we’ve repeatedly noted, are obsessed with Twitter), reacted to the outage with Hindenburg-style hysterics.

Ben Parr, Mashable’s intrepid co-editor and repeatedly failed entrepreneur according to his own web site, breathlessly reported that Twitter had been hacked (a statement he later tweaked for accuracy purposes). Parr stated:

For one of the world’s most popular websites to be compromised and taken down, even for a few minutes, is a big problem. This type of thing should never happen, regardless of who is to blame.

You tell ‘em Ben! This should never happen! Twitter should never make the rookie mistakes you made with your own start-ups.

In his follow-up piece, Parr grew far more hysterical (and repeated the inaccurate, irresponsible “hacking” charge). Get a load of this:

We’re still in shock over what has just transpired. Twitter was just hacked.

…

Little compares to what has happened tonight. Even if it was a third-party DNS attack, Twitter still gets the black eye.

This is unacceptable for one of the world’s top 20 most-visited websites. There needs to be accountability for this situation (no matter if it’s within Twitter or within a third party), and a more detailed explanation is warranted. Twitter also needs to find a way to assure that this never happens again.

This is a tragedy beyond compare! It is unacceptable! Something must be done!

To their credit, some more intelligent Mashable readers called out Parr for over-reacting and being absurdly dramatic. But most of his readers joined right in:

Who knows if the hackers got our passwords and personal information?

I’m thinking about deleting my Twitter after this….It seems so unsafe now!

Do these people have all my info???

What will I do with out Twitter?

Can’t connect either from venezuela… There’s a hole in my heart and is killing me forever (8).. and is only being there for 30 min now =|,

I am having withdrawal symptoms already. Twitter down, not good :[

God Damn those fuckers, and Twitter has got to do something about the God Damn security on its website… damn it I am pissed off

PRAISE JESUS. TWITTER’S BACK.

Ben, you and your readers need to get outside and get some fresh air. You’ll feel better, I promise.

Time for another experiment in soul-crushing nonsense: a series of posts exclusively determined by Google Trends popularity. This time though, I’ll attempt to monetize them. Yes, I’m breaking my advertising ban, but for experimental purposes only.

For this experiment, I’ll place AdSense ad units within the experimental posts, and we’ll see a bit more about the behavior of the searchers that come through. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that my click-through ratio will be fairly high, as long as I keep the posts short. Presumably once the visitors realize that the rest of this site is unrelated to their query, they’ll need somewhre else to go. And unless I’ve given them everything they want on the subject, they’ll have two options: click the back button, or click an ad. We’ll see.

Based on the logs from the last experiment, posts about attractive women and/or violent criminals (preferably both, e.g. Amanda Knox) are popular, as are self-improvement topics. I would suggest that a self-improvement program might start with ignoring this kind of garbage, but hey, for the moment, I’m here to satisfy the crowd, not lecture it. Just for the moment.

And so, dear readers, please bear with me until the experiment is through, or my soul is adequately crushed, whichever comes first. Unless of course I start seeing some decent money from this, in which case it’s goodbye forever and see you in hell!

Deepak Chopra, SFGate.com, Nov. 30, 2009

“The perils of skepticism”

If you’ve ever used Google Alert, you know the jolts it can deliver. Whenever anyone in the blogosphere decides to blow a poison dart your way, Google is happy to deliver the news, along with the more positive mentions, of course. Most of my stinging darts come from skeptics. Over the years I’ve found that ill-tempered guardians of scientific truth can’t abide speculative thinking. And as the renowned Richard Dawkins has proved, they are also very annoyed by a nuisance named God.

Statistically, cynical mistrust is correlated with premature sudden death from cardio vascular disease. Since the skeptics who write venomous blogs trust in nothing, I imagine that God will outlive them. In the interests of better health, these people should read scripture, or at least a poem, twice a day. Doctor’s orders.

I’ve debated skeptics, including Richard Dawkins (I spoke with Dawkins for over 90 minutes on camera in Oxford. He extracted 30 seconds from the dialogue and dubbed me the enemy of science.) and am amazed that they mistake self-righteousness for happiness. A sort of bitter satisfaction is what they reap. No skeptic, to my knowledge, ever made a major scientific discovery or advanced the welfare of others. Typically they sit by the side of the road with a sign that reads “You’re Wrong” so that every passerby, whether an Einstein, Gandhi, Newton, or Darwin, can gain the benefit of their illuminated skepticism. For make no mistake, the skeptics of the past were as eager to shoot down new theories as they are to worship the old ones once science has validated them.

It never occurs to skeptics that a sense of wonder is paramount, even for scientists. Especially for scientists. Einstein insisted, in fact, that no great discovery can be made without a sense of awe before the mysteries of the universe. Skeptics know in advance — or think they know — what right thought is. Right thought is materialistic, statistical, data-driven, and always, always, conformist. Wrong thought is imaginative, provisional, often fantastic, and no respecter of fixed beliefs.

So whenever I find myself labeled the emperor of woo-woo, I pull out the poison dart and offer thanks that wrong thinking has gotten us so far. Thirty years ago no right-thinking physician accepted the mind-body connection as a valid, powerful mode of treatment. Today, no right-thinking physician (or very few) would trace physical illness to sickness of the soul, or accept that the body is a creation of consciousness, or tell a patient to change the expression of his genes. But soon these forms of wrong thinking will lose their stigma, despite the best efforts of those professional stigmatizers, the skeptics.

OK, maybe he’s just a self-righteous douche.

Since January, they’ve also changed their tag-line from “All That’s New on the Web” to “The Social Media Guide”. Its a smart move, I’ll give them that; instead of a shotgun approach aimed at the entire web, they’re focusing on the niche that is currently getting the most attention. That’s one of the side benefits of having a name that means nothing: if they decided to cover cake recipes starting tomorrow, they could do it.

Another change seems to be including the advertising pitch right in their “About” page. Usually the general public doesn’t see its own demographic pitch, but Mashable puts it right there for the its readers to see:

Mashable will put your brand in front of the most tech-savvy early adopters, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, influencers, Web 2.0 aficionados and technology journalists. Mashable is also popular with bloggers and members of social networking sites — an increasingly influential demographic.

Wow – I’m impressed by how influential and tech-savvy I am, but I must say I feel a little dirty being used for my demographics.

Anyway, the purpose of today’s post is not to simply slag Mashable in any way possible (for example by posting links to hilariously bad early versions of their site, all of which pitch the latest “hot” web 2.0 startups that have since shriveled and died). No, today’s purpose is to simply point out how far off the deep end Mashable has gone into Twitter obsession.

At least in the early days, Pete Cashmore & Co. had the sense not to put all their eggs in one basket – they seemingly pitched any site that sent them a press release. But now it seems they’ve decided that Twitter is the future, period. Unfortunately, that makes it tough to run a web site, since there’s only so much to say about a service that sends tiny messages between users. So let’s take a look at the latest “social media news” according to Mashable:

Flirt140: Can You Find Your Dream Date Via Twitter?

Tweetmeme Shows Off the Future of Twitter Search

Tweet Street: 7 Extraordinary Twitter Uses in the Home

OneRiot Speeds Up Twitter Search and Adds Digg to the Mix

Scamming Twitter Trends: This Needs To Be Fixed

ThreadedTweets: Turn Your Twitter into a Realtime Conversation

TwitterJobSearch: Find a Job on Twitter

Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter

The Retweeting Movement Adds Some Powerful New Tools

Please – anyone who gives a crap about about any of the above topics, write me and let me know why.

Of course, if Mashable is wrong, and Twitter is not the future of the internet and the next evolutionary step of mankind, they can always change their focus again. But as long as there’s an Archive.org, some of us will be here to throw it back in their faces. Sorry Pete, you deserve it for feeding into (and feeding from) the self-perpetuating “hotness” vortex of a phenomenon that is destined to end up here.

• Swine flu: Twitter’s power to misinform from foreignpolicy.com
   
• How False Rumors Can Cost Lives from canonical.org

And, because I can’t resist, a few (actual) recent Twitter updates. Names are unchanged, to expose the idiots. Is there really any difference from the cartoon above?

Realtime results for swine flu

2135 more results since you started searching. Refresh to see them.

• 
  NYKitten3483: i am so not taking my baby anywhere. this freaking swine flu! so not cool. a baby died from it. i am so not happy.
  less than 20 seconds ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  GinBlossoms_Guy: Packing a bowl at the job-site with my new friend Miguel. How do I bring up swine flu without sounding too racial?
  3 minutes ago from Twittelator · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  Trevor_Latulas: I was really sick this morning. Hope I don’t have Swine flu. That would sux
  3 minutes ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  stphmli: swine flu is a conspiracy.
  6 minutes ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  nickicortese: Someone in the US died of swine flu! Holy Shit!!!!
  6 minutes ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  isnotanarab: Bin laden homies made swine flu…check the facts
  6 minutes ago from AndTweet · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  TTownTommy: Hmm the new movies coming in May may play 2 empty seats with the swine flu outbreak
  8 minutes ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  theimaginarykid: is not shaking anybodys hand and I’m about to start rockin mask and gloves like Mike Jackson. just heard swine flu hit the chi.
  10 minutes ago from UberTwitter · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  butterrs: so my roommate is sick, hope its not swine flu.
  15 minutes ago from TinyTwitter · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  brittanylovato: an entire family in Cibolo with swine flu. I am officially terrified. IT’S GONNA GET ME!!!
  17 minutes ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

That’s still a lot of people, no doubt. But it’s still a baby learning to crawl when compared to facebook, or even myspace. Hell, it’s not even as popular as friendster, which is apparently only still used by a few people in the Phillipines.

But wait, you say – Twitter has 14 million members! Well then why is daily traffic only about a million? Well, for a start: 1) lots of those “members” aren’t real people, and 2) the proliferation of bots, spam, fake “marketing” tweets and just plain boring “what I had for lunch” updates are driving away real people in droves.

Am I going to predict Twitter’s death? No, not just yet. It’s too early in the disease cycle. But this is one very sick baby. And ugly, too.

Result: Like a “fun-sized” candy, life is made byte-sized, interaction relieved of character. Twitter is to conversation as porn is to making love.

OK, now it’s your turn.

[Inspired by Phil Baumann's Twitter Pitch in 140 Characters. Thanks Phil.]

• It is currently mid-February. It might be a good idea to wait until December is a bit closer before making our “best of” lists.
• By various counts, there are at least 200 million blogs in the world. Either Time spent an incredible amount of time and effort on this, or…well, they didn’t. The fact that most of their choices can be found on Technorati’s list of the most popular blogs would suggest the latter.
• Though a list of 25 items could easily fit on one page, Time puts each and very entry on a separate page. This is designed to get 25 clicks and 25 page-views from every reader, inflating Time’s perceived popularity. It’s actually pretty smart, but also rather annoying to the reader.
• This is basically their version of linkbait – the method used by bloggers to get others to link to their posts (as I did above), increasing their rankings in Google. Lists are the most common form of this technique – anytime you see a blog post starting with a number (“25 best ____”, 5 Ways To ____”, “10 New ____”), you’re looking at linkbait. Including when I do it.
• Time’s post also incorporates two other well-known forms of linkbait: the “useful” post, and the “controversial” post. Casual readers will be attracted to it as a useful list, tech-savvy types will be complaining all day about it on their blogs – as I am doing now. See how it works?

As a kicker, in case they didn’t generate enough controversy, there’s a list of the 5 Most Overrated Blogs, sure to get a few more people ticked off, and generate five more page-views per reader.

Oddly enough, Gawker.com went from last year’s “best” to this year’s “most overrated”. Apparently in 2008 “Gawker’s relentlessly critical, headache-inducing cynicism” was a good thing, but in 2009 “the economic downturn and the near-collapse of Wall Street has made Gawker’s snarky worldview seem not only cruel but pointless.”

Oh, Time. The zeitgeist is getting sore from you having your finger on it.

As a service to you the reader, and because my annoyance knows no bounds, I present here Time’s lists on one page. The only value Time adds for your clicks is a screenshot of each, and a short paragraph seemingly written by someone on the way to work.

Time’s 25 Best Blogs 2009:

1. Talking Points Memo
2. The Huffington Post (down from #1 last year. Perhaps it was that little plagiarism problem.)
3. Lifehacker
4. Metafilter
5. The Daily Dish
6. Freakonomics
7. BoingBoing
8. Got2BeGreen
9. Zen Habits
10. The Conscience of a Liberal: Paul Krugman
11. Crooks and Liars
12. Generación Y
13. Mashable
14. Slashfood (“Slashfood is food for thought”…ugh. Didn’t they teach you about lazy writing in journalism school?)
15. Official Google Blog
16. synthesis (the choices are getting a bit better – this is a pretty thoughtful, interesting one)
17. bleat (a “pop culture ephemera” blog – not bad, but much like 100,000 others)
18. /Film
    
19. Seth Godin’s Blog (bleh. Self-important aphorisms daily from a self-proclaimed web guru, followed by slobbering fanboy comments. No thanks.)
    
20. Deadspin: Sports News
    
21. Dooce (riding out her micro-fame. I don’t care about your OB-GYN visit, really.)
    
22. Confessions of a Pioneer Woman (they had blogs on the frontier?)
    
23. Said the Gramophone (how did they choose one mp3 blog?)
24. Detention Slip (something about education apparently)
25. Bad Astronomy

Hey Time, what was your mission again?

On Friday I executed a crude proof-of-concept experiment, sacrificing this blog (and my own integrity) at the altar of scientific research. I made a total of 10 posts in the course of this experiment, which covered two updates of Google Trends (about four hours apart). I used different formats for each, ranging from all pictures to all text, from well-formatted for human eyes to pure data dump, intended only for Google’s robotic eyes.

I also posted on a wide variety of hot topics, from the death of painter Andrew Wyeth, to the Presidential Oath of Office, to some things I still have no clue about. Who is the “Numbers Lady”? Why were people seeking information about her on Friday? I have no idea, but I simply dumped the first page of Google results about that phrase into a post.

So what were the results? 

The Good

Google BlogSearch was easy to dominate. These posts had the number one position for most of these topics within a few minutes. However, Google web search was another matter. Since this blog is only three weeks old, has no PageRank yet, and few incoming links, these pages were buried deep in the web results.

Traffic tripled compared to normal. This will artificially pump up the numbers for the month – something I could use if I was negotiating with advertisers. Also, virtually all of these visitors were “uniques“, making the numbers look even better. And if I had CPM (pay-per-impression) ads on the pages, that would have made me some easy money. 

The Bad

On the other side of that coin: these unique visitors are people who will not return, so there is no long-term benefit.

Also, some of the pages had few hits. In retrospect I can see that they simply had too much competition – for example, a bio of the pilot who landed the plane in the Hudson River. Every major news outlet had this covered, so almost no one found this little corner of the web.

The Ugly

Because all that traffic was hit-and-run, there were no comments and zero interaction. Because I was posting on topics I knew nothing about, the experience was completely clinical, and in the end somewhat soul-crushing.

Worst of all, the most popular post by far was one entitled “Amanda Knox pics“. I had no idea when I posted this that Amanda Knox is apparently an attractive 21-year-old alleged murderer and sex criminal. I only knew that she was a hot search topic, and probably some new starlet – not far from the truth, as it turns out. So I did a Google image search for pictures of her, and dumped the results into a post. 

It was hugely popular; by far the most-visited of the day.

The lessons of this experiment are not pretty. What do the people want? Sex and death. How do they want it? In color.

So there it is: I did what I had to do; I visited the Dark Side, and I don’t care how much it pays – I’m not going back.

OK, back to business.