Wednesday, December 30, 2009

How I used Google translation tools to find a Chinese spam comment

As many of you know, I run several sites and blogs, including the Parenting and the Internet blog. I have all the blogs set up so that I have to approve every comment, in part to keep spam comments out of the blog. This morning, I got a somewhat long comment in Chinese:

免費日本成人圖片 -
天馬流行音樂網 -
哈啦免費視訊網 -
洪爺自拍貼圖網 -
UOUO成人影音聊天室 -
成人交友聊天室 -
辛辣聊天室(限制級聊天室) -
小高聊天室 -
免費影音聊天 -
免費影音聊天室 -
成人影音下載 -
淫娃免費視訊聊天室 -
免費影音播放軟體下載 -
日本美女成人AV免費 -
OL絲襪美腿圖庫 -
下載免費防毒軟體 -
免費中文防毒軟體 -
免費線上掃毒 -
中壢電音急診室 -
080-6K聊天室 -
視訊相親館 -
東部網友聊天坊 -
同志交友俱樂部 -
愛情廣場聊天聯盟總站 -
拉子女同志聊天室 -
酷兒男同志聊天室 -
柔情聊天網 -
柔情聊天室 -
有間遊戲網 -
天馬音樂網 -
真情夢工廠聊天室 -
戀愛天堂聊天室 -
080北部人聊天聯盟 -
Kiss聊天聯盟 -
摯愛中年同志聊天室 -
080台中聊天室UT -
豆豆6K聊天室 -
6K小高聊天室 -
6K南台灣聊天室 -
天馬080聊天室6K -

Not having a clue about what it said, I went to Google's Language Tools page for help and got the following translation:

Free Japanese Adult Photos --
Pegasus Pop Music Network --
IMs as text Free Video Network --
Hung Shing Yeh Self-mapping network --
UOUO adult video chat rooms --
Adult Dating Chat --
Spicy chat rooms (adult-rated chat rooms) --
Small high-Chat Room --
Free video chat --
Free video chat rooms --
Adult Video Download --
Yinwa free video chat rooms --
Free audio and video player software to download --
Japanese AV beauty adult free --
OL Stocking Legs Gallery --
Download free antivirus software --
Free Chinese anti-virus software --
Free online anti-drug --
Chungli denon emergency room --
080-6K Chat Room --
Video deeply attached to each hall --
User chat Square East --
Comrade Dating Club --
Love chat Union Square Station --
Chat Room Latin Comrade children --
Queer gay male chat rooms --
Tenderness Chat Network --
Tenderness Chat Room --
There are games in net --
Tianma Music Network --
Truth DreamWorks Chat Room --
Love Paradise Chat Room --
080 Northern someone to talk to union --
Kiss Chat Alliance --
Comrade middle-aged love chat rooms --
080 Taichung Chat UT --
Peas 6K Chat Room --
6K small height Chat Room --
6K southern Taiwan Chat --
Tianma 080 Chat 6K --

It wasn't a perfect translation, but it was good enough for me to know that the comment had no place on a blog giving parents advice on how to manage their online children.

The lesson from this episode is to always approve comments before they go on your blog, and to translate the ones you can't understand before you approve or reject them.

Just for fun, I ran the following through the Google translator from English to Chinese and back to English:

Original- Keep your spam comments out of my blog

Chinese (Simplified) - 不要让你我的博客垃圾评论

Back to Eglish: Do not let you spam my blog

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Are You a Manager Looking for Insights into the New Media? - Check Out 'Read This First'

If you are a manager who is trying to get an idea of how the new media (podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) can help you with marketing, sales, or customer service, then the latest episode my favorite social media podcast, Marketing Over Coffee, may provide an easy to digest introduction. The show featured Ron Ploof, a long time social media expert, and the author of the new book Read This First. You can check out the Marketing Over Coffee episode, or go to Ron's blog RonAmok.com and check out the free audio book chapters.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Three Practical Twitter Tools You Can Use Right Now

One of the great things about Twitter are the many Twitter-related services provided for free by hundreds of providers. Three of them have been particularly useful for the work of AirSafe Media.

Search Twitter at search.twitter.com
This is the top Twitter tool used by AirSafe.com, and is especially useful for fast moving news items. Often Twitter users link to interesting online resources, and often these are excellent sources of information located in obscure areas of the web. Also, because new tweets are indexed almost instantly, you can often find out new information before it shows up on a regular search engine like Google or Bing.

Shortening URLs with bit.ly
This service shortens a URL of any length to one that is about 20 characters long. If you sign up for a free account, you have access to a range of performance information, including how many times your bit.ly link was clicked. If other bit.ly users converted the same URL, then you can see how many clicks happened for all users, and compare how many of them were yours. Drill down some more and you can see things like who retweeted your Twitter post. You can get real time feedback on which of your links are of interest to your audience.

Use Twitterfeed to Combine Your Social Media Efforts

One of the things that Twitter can do for you is to announce new items on things like your blog, podcast, or anything with RSS syndication. With a very small amount of work, your blog posts will automatically be passed along to your Twitter audience.

Previous AirSafe Media Twitter-related Posts

How Twitter is used on AirSafe.com
Associating Twitter with a blog and an automated mailing list
The evolution of social media use on AirSafe.com
Using Twitter during a blackout

Thursday, December 3, 2009

12 Things You Can Do to Help Your Favorite Nonprofit

The podcast and blog Marketing Over Coffee has an excellent idea for helping nonprofits--Over 12 days introducing them to marketing related ideas that can help them move forward. Naturally, there is an emphasis on Internet-related activities.

You can visit the blog at MarketingOverCoffee.com and see for yourself. On the first day, they suggested the following:

Introduce them (your favorite nonprofit) to the concept of Twitter (don’t set up an account yet), and work with them to pack the sum of what they do into 140 characters. Typically, non-profits have noble goals but can’t explain them especially well, leaving you with a vague sense that they do something good.

Help your non-profit by developing the following:

1. A mission and/or vision in 140 characters or less.
2. A list of keywords by which other people would find them.
3. Why, in 140 characters or less, someone would donate time or money to them.


I suggest checking out MarketingOverCoffee.com for more ideas, and to put some of these ideas of your own for your favorite nonprofit organization or community group.