Bookmarketing - Selling Internet Integrity One Tweet At A Time

The social networking phenomena have blown up in recent years enabling users to send photos , links and general messages to friends and meet new people . It's almost natural business can't leave well enough alone - they have to grab a chunk of the pie . There are hundreds of MySpace "friend" adder sites that are mainly used to add Mafia Wars buddies or to promote indie bands and because one has to approve their new "friends" , it's pretty harmless.

Then there is uSocial .

uSocial is a big business based in Australia that offers all kinds of services targeted mainly at businesses . For around $1200 , they will spam the fuck out of Facebook until 10,000 people agree to become your "fan" . They will also find you target "friends" for you to incessantly annoy . I have made the mistake of accidentally adding people who wind up filling my inbox with spam . It's a pain in the ass .

Their Twitter service is much the same and partially banks on some people using auto-follow programs with the remainder being people who will add anyone who asks . Once you follow back , the the fun REALLY begins . Expect a flood of Direct Messages and requests to advertise on your website or blog . I'm not sure how they can guarantee it , but uSocial claims to be able to get you 100,000 followers for the low , LOW , price of $4970. Using a "mathematical" system developed by uS , such a package should generate about $120,000 annually for your business , but there has been no proof of this. I NEVER buy from spammers and neither does anyone I know . I think this is at best wishful thinking , and at worst fraudulent. But that's not all...

The worst thing that uSocial does is the selling of guaranteed front-page space on several sites , including StumbleUpon and Digg , for the sole purpose of advertising businesses. That's right - you or I or the geek down the street could author the article of a fucking LIFETIME and it can get booted in favour of " Bill's Yoga Palace Announces a Price Reduction" , provided Bill forks out a few hundred dollars for the honour. They claim to not sell votes on bookmark sites , but when uSocial launched about a year ago , that was the ONLY service offered . This is an absolute kick in the balls to journalistic integrity . Independent journalists have a tough enough time navigating the jungle without having spammers get all of the top spots. It's just not fair .

uSocial is not the only service that sells votes and space , but they are the most dominant Twitter and Facebook spam enablers.

About the best things to be done are to simply block the spammers and when the little guy writes something epic , Digg the fuck out of it . It's about the best solution until the Bookmark sites can boot Bookmarketers for good.