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I’d been offline all weekend, so this morning I decided to check my Twitter page. Twitter is a web site that lets users microblog with 140 character messages typed into the web site or mobile text messages. 

I had a few new followers whom I did not know in real life, and each of them had weird names. A few reminded me of the passwords AOL used to stamp on its disks and CDs, while others were straight from a spammer’s imagination:

• agoraindex
• tarahbrown
• MyInternetBusin 
• HarbourHeights 
• WallpaperManica
• she0foreclosure 
• xiaopan
• Rhonda1989

As it turns out, these were all attempts at sending me Twitter spam. My Twitter profile is public, so anyone can follow me. 

To make matters worse, Twitter has no system for mass blocking profiles. I had to block each of these profiles one by one, and each block required a round trip through 5 web pages. 

Adam J. O’Donnell of Cloudmark has a good ZDNet article called Twitter’s holiday battle with spammers that has some good observations.

Twitter has enough problems as it is - the service goes down for hours at a time, and has inspired users to name one of Twitter’s network outage notices as the Fail Whale.

LinkedIn, which has become the leading social network for professionals, tripled its size last month. Europe, North America and India are the main sources for new members, and the site is adding 5 languages in a push beyond the English-speaking world.

I like LinkedIn. There aren’t any apps. No flashy pages. I can network with adults.

But is LinkedIn really worth a billion dollars? Maybe. Depends on how quickly LinkedIn can add useful intranet functions like private company groups and directories without breaking their business model.

See these articles on Portfolio.com and the New York Times for more details.

Related posts and pages on billso.com

• LinkedIn
• 23 May 2008: My social networking activity
• 17 May 2008: Please phrase your LinkedIn question in the form of a question
• 12 April 2008: Finding business contacts and passwords on the Internet
• 4 April 2008: Get LinkedIn with billso.com
• 3 January 2008: Impression management and Facebook
• 10 August 2007: Forty-somethings flock to Facebook
• 2 July 2007: CXOs face malware email attacks
• 20 June 2007: Facebook vs MySpace

On 31 March 2008, Hawaiian Telcom’s Cliff Miyake published an article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on how to find business contacts in Google. It’s not that hard to do, especially with the growing acceptance of social networking by professionals.

LinkedIn is another good way to track down contacts. The free service is limited, but most users find that it’s enough to get the job done. I like LinkedIn because its user interface is much cleaner that other social networking sites. No music or video players, no flashy graphics - LinkedIn seems like a better way to make a good impression on professionals.

Have you revealed too much?

As I’ve mentioned before, some people and companies need to address security concerns. Many social networking sites want users to reveal their lives in detail, to create compelling profiles and additional links among users.

But what if a user inadvertently reveals their password on their profile? it can happen. I’ve met people who use their children’s names and birthdays as passwords. Place of birth is a common security question that banks and financial services companies ask as part of a multiple authentication scheme. Social networks also ask for that information - as part of user profiles.

Related posts on billso.com

• 4 April 2008: Get LinkedIn with billso.com
• 14 March 2008: Social media in action
• 3 January 2008: Impression management and Facebook
• 10 August 2007: Forty-somethings flock to Facebook
• 2 July 2007: CXOs face malware email attacks
• 20 June 2007: Facebook vs MySpace
• 11 January 2007: How to create a secure password

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, here’s an interesting idea: the University of North Texas is using Facebook to post lists of lost-and-found items. Facebook users at the university can join a group and see these lists.

UNT has partnered with a for-profit service called Trace.com, which in turn is part of another web service called MyThings.

I’m more familiar with another service called StuffBak, which sells adhesive labels imprinted with serial numbers. Users apply a sticker to an item, and then complete a registration form on the company’s web site. I wrote a brief article back on 20 September 2006 about the service.

An online inventory

MyThings has a broader set of features, including document archiving for receipts and invoices, as well as a database of manuals and documentation for products. It makes sense for universities to offer product registration and recovery services to students, who often bring high-value electronic devices to campus each day.

Linking the service to a popular social network may spur students to try an online registration and inventory service. Over time, campus police departments can use these services as another tool to manage and reduce theft on campus. Theft is one item that US universities must report to the US Deaprtment of Education each year, as required of the Clery Act and discussed at Security on Campus.