The MySpace Missing Children Petition

[dogboy]

hey, boys! it's been a while, huh? Well, there’s too much to tell you where I’ve been and what I’ve seen but I decided to take it upon myself last month to come out of retirement in order to try and affect some meaningful change in this world ours, and this is what I came up with:

http://www.myspace.com/missingchildrenpetition

I'm hoping you all might appreciate something like this because Brett apparently didn't, Daron has no idea how MySpace works, and the rest of my gang is still sitting around scratching their heads... so LMK if you can get me some serious eyeballs on it, ok? In particular, I’m looking to contact every major engine out there and so I’m looking for friends in high places that are willing to 'fight the good fight' ...and I apparently don’t know any:) ...so the next time you are at one of the conferences and you finally get your chance to rub elbows with the face men for the big engines, I want you to quietly lean over your drink and whisper in their ear (so you know they are listening) and then tell them, “the dogboy would like to have a word with you” ...then smile:)

Alright then... so what we got going on here is a petition I drew up about a month ago and posted in MySpace TO MySpace that requests that they show us geo-targeted profiles of children that have gone missing in our areas based on our zip codes. There is also an ad component to make use of the eyeballs that can’t be converted into a successful recovery of a kid to help sell it to the engines.

Now, here’s the deal, I don’t REALLY want to talk about any aspect of it in here OTHER than the SEO aspect of it, because I’d like to keep as much of THAT discussion on the kids site as I can... so people go over THERE to read about it and to 'sign' it. {Gasp} hehehe ...if you know me, then you’ll know that is the very first time in search engine forum history that I just dropped one of my own URLs in a vulgar display of self promotion... but when I ran the site by Danny he suggested I post it in here for your review. (I have to admit I was a little surprised myself because if you know me, then you realize that your best opportunity to get the condensed, straight forward story, just went out the window with him:) hehehheeh ...in one fell swoop the old school SEOs just caught wind and looked up from their machines, DMOZ editors got a chill down their spine, and the moderators here just winced and got put on alert... ehheeheh I’m just funny like that:)

...so I’m posting this to introduce myself and my new site to you (if you don't already know me) ...to say a big hello to my old closet supporters out there... and, of course, this is my notice to the engines that I’m back with 6 guns blazing and a riot shotgun full of whoop-ass strapped to my back... and I’m here to party:)

[Chris Boggs]

for those of us who may not be in the know, is dogboy.org your site?

[dogboy]

no. there are lots of dogboys out there, but that isn't me... the only ones who know me as dogboy are old school SEOs, and even fewer know why...

[dogboy]

BTW, I know it's not 'free sex' but we've been ranking top 10 in google for weeks for 'missing children petition', 'missing petition', 'children petition'... today it looks like:

1 for 'missing children petition'
1 for 'children petition'
6 for 'missing petition'

... and off the charts (84th) for 'missing children' which is completely dominated by mega-sites that rightfully belong above ours. (OMG! did I just really say that!?! hheehehhe)

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

that rightfully belong above ours.

Rule number ONE, and you know this dogboy: It is NEVRER OK or fair that another site outrank you for the keywords you want to rank for. Never! :D

I haven't actually been playing around with mySpace so I am not really familiar with how much you can do to uptimize your "space"

[dogboy]

hahaahhahaah I hear you, man, but these aren't my usual suspects... and {gulp} there are 'ethics' involved here... and besides myself, no spammers... so I'm a little leery about taking sites down with friendly fire:)

hey, maybe I spoke a little too narrowly before when I said I only wanted to talk about the 'SEO aspect'. Let's broaden that a bit to incorporate everything besides posting some horror stories about kids... I get enough over there (more than I want, actually) so maybe that was a knee jerk reaction... basically, I wanted to hear your thoughts on this type of approach and ask if you see any chinks in my armor, because as of a few days ago, we just shifted into high gear... the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) backed us, after I filed it with them and they had a meeting about it, and they notified me they were passing it onto their contact at MySpace just to make sure the hard copy I sent by certified mail didn't get filed in the trash. I think that was strong move on their part (in an arms length sort of way) but really that's about all I could ask of them, so I was pretty excited about their response.

As far as not knowing anything about MySpace, all you guys better get up to speed... that place is growing out of it's socks, it's in the news everywhere, and they got huge traffic... and they are growing FAST ...so I'm hoping those of you that never played over there use this topic as a diving board to get your feet wet... it's a whole different ball game than your normal engine... it's PERSONAL.

[dogboy]

I mean, I KNOW the chances aren't too good. These things never work. But I actually think this one has a chance... maybe not a good one, but enough of one that it's worth a try. There's 87 million addicted users in there moving something like 6 billion plus page views a day... plus they already know where we live, so all that has to happen is to connect it with the NCMEC database and BAM! you got some serious eyeballs on your hands, MySpace gets good PR (for a change) and if they want to have it sponsored, they got a novel revenue stream to boot... you know? I don't know anything about programming but it cant be THAT hard. I mean it's basically just more ads, right? Hell, they hardcode it into our admin page, based on our zip we entered, and we're there... NCMEC will even pickup the bandwidth, I'd bet. Thats a win win situation, right? That's probably why it won't work:) But at least I'm trying. Nobody else is doing much about it. It's just one of those issues people dont give a crap about until THEIR kid goes missing then the whole world shuts down. And if that happened to me (eventhough I don't have kids) I'd rather have 87M eyeballs on my kid then stapling copies on telephone polls.. but, hey, maybe that's just me...

[grnidone]

Dear God. That template is awful.

Can you please use a template that is actually able to be read? White text on black background = /me hits the back button.

And there's like...500,000 things on that page. It's horrible. I don't even know where to start reading.

You might have some better luck if your page didn't suck so bad.

[dogboy]

>if your page didn't suck so bad.

eheheh, well, thanks for the constructive criticism :) I guess based on that line of thinking we can safely gauge the value of your input based on the way YOU look? :D

...one of the drawbacks of myspace is that you only really get one page to do what you want and a blog... and while you can add some HTML unfortunately, you are kinda 'stuck' working within their defined boundaries. 'Default' is that 'About Me' is always top right, and ‘Who I'd like to meet’ is always below it. And of course, my real target audience are only people that can actually 'sign' the petition, who are Myspace users, who are generally already used to the basic layout ...and so their eyes fall where they need to, naturally. The 'blog' I used not really as a 'blog' in the conventional sense, but more as navigation to additional content... FAQ, feedback, how you can contribute, and a discussion on our 1 'friend' to 3.5 'profile view' ratio (which is pretty good, in terms of trying to establish the ‘popularity’ of the idea, which I try to define in there using multiple standards.)

Now, the white on black/all caps thing, was just what the designer came up with... I usually just find a designer I like, show them my wire frame and then turn them loose instead of trying to micromanage them. Since the petition is really only about 3 paragraphs long, hopefully you all can somehow think outside the box and maybe copy and paste that text into 1" letters in a nice Crayon font into a 'word' document (or whatever you PC people use) so that maybe you can offer some feedback with a little more substance... or, if you just can't get past it, maybe suggest a new table and text color code that might be more aesthetically pleasing to you, although, I have to admit, anyone that comes to me with feedback like that is not anyone I think I'm going to take any advice from... at least when it comes to 'style':)

[grnidone]

If the only thing you did was change the white on black to black on white, you'd improve the page's readability tremendously. Maybe change the font to arial.

That'd help things a lot. Since you want those older than 20 who may have bad eyes to read your petition, you may wish to make it easier to read.

And you're right. My post was not helpful. I did it without thinking.

Mea Maxima Culpa.

[dogboy]

I think we got that (and some other things) cleared up behind the scenes, so we're all cool:)

...and despite being one of THE most opinionated people you may ever meet, I still believe opinions and math are never wrong... so my mind was working on solutions to your feedback before we even exchanged mail. Unfortunately, like I said, these 'skin' things, as they are called, aren't just straight HTML so as simple as it looks to fix, I actually can't do it myself... and like I said in my email, money is a little tight these days for me (to say the least) and I just spent what I had to get some nice banners for us. But I'll look into it. Promise:)

[dogboy]

you know, as I look around in all these forums and whatnot, I notice that none of SEOs seem to be taking much notice of myspace, and I kinda find that shocking, given the enormous potential of that place. I guess it's just me and Murdock that see it. I find that place *infinitely* interesting, and the potential for SEOs, empire builders, and yes, unfortunately, black hat spammers (that dress up in "beautiful women suits" and seduce you into a free, age verified webcam rooms and lift the $100 aff payout on their way out the backdoor) is really staggering. Just ask any of the porn stars, or bands, or anyof those people that have 10s of thousands, if not 100s of thousands of friends, when they rip out a bulletin annoucing a new cd or website that just went online.

So I didn't mean to slam BT, or my main man, SEGuru, because I didn't mean it like that at all, I'm just shocked that there isn't a buzz around here or any of my old haunts, about an engine of that magnitude and momentum. I mean, I hate to say it, but I think you guys are still watching the puck instead of where it's going... MySpace is like that silly little engine with the funny name that was always talking about link poplarity a long time ago... except instead of just indexing the web, they are cacheing/cashing it (depending on how you look at it.)

[Chris Boggs]

just because us "new schoolers" and your beloved old schoolers aren't talking about it doesn't mean it's not being used...

[dogboy]

heehhehe hey, look, I didn't mean any offense... believe me, if I did, you'd know it:) You can call me grandpa, if you prefer, because I'm a weak old man in terms of PR compared to all those whippersnappers I don't recognize in here:) But yeah, I guess I still have an affinity for anyone that was around before we even had a name for our profession... and anyone that I still see on the boards today I figure still probably deserves some respect, even if I haven't kept up with them, because you really don't have to be that good to make it once around the block, but to be in the game for the last 10 years, well, I'll still take my hat off to them when I'm in their presence because there's a whole bunch that never made it....

As for me, I've been underground for years now in a quieter, darker lounge, because all these places seem to have gotten a little too big for an SEO foot-soldier, such as myself. I actually went back to WmW right before coming in here, thinking I might broach the subject in the supporters forum, and realized I had been locked out, and actually had to 'pay' to contribute, which I have to admit kinda offended me as I think maybe somebody got that whole money for content thing backwards in there... and I thought those of us who supported Brett back before he was so popular earned the right to go where we could all just BS like we used to before all this grew up around us.... kinda grandfathered in, so to speak, but apparently my key needs to be upgraded by paypal...

... so now that we got all the pleasantries out of the way, sounds like you might be a closet myspacer yourself? Mind if I ask if you signed the petition, and if not, why you didn't? Maybe I might be able to change something about how I present the idea to you, to sway your vote, or at least make it more attractive to others? As I said before, its hard to find an SEO/MySpacer that cares ... when I got in yesterday, I private messaged about 10 people I recognized and most replied it was a cool idea but that they didn't know anything about MySpace (Mikkel, included) which still shocks me every time I hear it. I just can't believe I am in the wrong place... when I saw the sign for "Padded Room" I thought I was home at last:)

[Marcia]

hey dogboy, I remember well the days that were and how it used to be, and know how much times have changed. Many people have changed, too - but not all, even though they may not be in the same places they were or doing all of the same things. Things aren't like they used to be, but there are still some warm, cozy places in this world.

On to myspace, for me personally it's just not my thing. I simply don't care for the general feel and tone of it, but that's just me and the way I am. It doesn't much matter to me what's the new hot thing or what's big around, I personally feel I have to do what makes me happy and be around what I feel comfortable with, especially on a steady basis.

If some people like a certain scene they'll do well with it, but for those who don't, they wouldnt do well with it because of the energy that does or doesn't come across. Good for you if you're finding things of interest that are new, you've got what it takes, the background and the ability, and you'll do well.

[dogboy]

ahhh, see, there's a friendly face I remember...

ok, so if myspace doesn't float anyone's boat, lets just use this petition to myspace as a model for the petition that I'm going to fire off to, say, our friends at Yahoo:) Same things apply there... you log into their system, they know who you are, they show you missing kids based on your zip, they make a buck off the sponsor link... in short, the idea can work on any site that can geo-targeted ads.

Remember, I'm not trying to get in the middle of all this, I'm just the "ideas guy". In fact, if you watched my career as an SEO, then you know the story of my life is that I come up with a good, simple idea, then someone steals it:) Well, the new trick this old dog finally learned is to LET them. Steal it. Take it. Call it yours. I really don't care. I think I've finally learned that about the most I can hope for is just to get the idea in front of the people that could make it happen if they wanted it to, and its much harder than you might think... so, if someone can get it in front of the right people and wants to call it theirs, they can have all the glory. But dropping the hardcopy in the mail doesn't scratch the itch, like you might think...

That's what the myspace site is about... on the bottom right you will see an area where people can comment... if you click on the link that says 'view all' you can take a look at like 4 pages of what people actually think about it. And that, as well as the discussion in the 'Traffic Blog' paint a pretty good picture for anyone that cares to look at it. In short, I just tested the market FOR them. In fact the whole thing is done for them. All they have to do is pick up the phone and call NCMEC and say let's do it.... I even put NCMEC's number on the index page for them:)

...unless, of course, they hate kids:)

[Marcia]

of course, this is my notice to the engines that I’m back with 6 guns blazing and a riot shotgun full of whoop-ass strapped to my back... and I’m here to party:)I'm sure the nice folks at the engines will be delighted with some newfangled dog-boy type of whoop-ass. You always were inventive and the same ole' same ole' whoopass around nowadays must be getting awful boring for them by now.

[dogboy]

heheheheh I'm not really an eminem fan but I can't help but hum a few lines:

Chorus:
Now this looks like a job for me
So everybody just follow me
'Cuz we need a little controversy,
'Cuz it feels so empty without me
I said this looks like a job for me
So everybody just follow me
'Cuz we need a little controversy,
'Cuz it feels so empty without me...

Da um, da um, da um, da um, da um, da um, da um,
Duh da
Da um, da um, da um, da um, da um, da um, da um...


hahahaha, like NFFC always said, you shouldn't leave a man with nothing left to loose:) But it's up to them now. If they want me to blow the smoke clear from my barrels and twirl my peacemakers back into my holsters, all they they have to say is, 'ok, db, we'll take it from here' and I'll stand down. But until they do, I see THEM as our biggest obstacle between us and getting our kids back, and I amassing an army of literally thousands behind me, so if they think I won't knock on their boardroom door with the butt of my shotgun, they have absolutely no idea who they are dealing with:)

[Chris Boggs]

just for the record, dogboy, I didn't mean any disrespect. Anyone with your obvious experience and connections is someone I especially love to chat with in this forum. Though I believe you would have to cede the Tilte of Grandpa when it comes specifically to linking to Eric W. :)

[Chris Boggs]

so anyway...I have a gripe. I just logged in to myspace, and I did a search for missingchildrenpetition and missing children petition, and can't find your page. Someone needs to help these fooz out, obviously...

After actually paying attention, I found that it's simple to add you as a friend from your page :o

But the search feature still has issues, I think...

[dogboy]

right on, Chris, and I'll be happy to keep my nic the way it is, if someone else has first dibs... and if I didn't already come by and post a little 'thank you comment' on your site for adding us, like I did on about 1700 of the 2000+ people that signed up, it was because I was in here last night, writing to you, so I let some slide.... so sue me:)

I agree, their search function couldn't suck worse. In fact, it's one step above random. That place is just 'raw' right now, but it's well within the zone. In fact, for the first time in my life I actually would consider working for somebody, if they would let me in there to monetize and streamline the place for them, but I'm sure most of what I'm thinking they already thought about, and is in the works, but there is just a lag time... my guess is that search is going to be completely redone, or they will outsource it to somebody like Google. Personally, I think they should handle it in house, because it should be easier to map than standard web pages, and they could just read the formatting that they already laid out for us... page name, screen name, mission statement quote, about us... then run the left hand side for all the interests, books, movies, etc... and then tie the whole thing together using 'friend' popularity, as well as top 8 popularity, as well as their networking subcategories for profession, as well as groups to correlate 'theme'. ...but I guess if I keep giving them free consultation they may confuse it as worthless advice, huh? :)

as far as the 'add' feature goes (also known as becoming a friend) it is definitely central to what I'm doing. In the past, accounts were set up for people, groups and organizations. What I did is made one for an 'idea'. And while I'm happy to let my own personality shine through here, I purposely had to bite my tongue over there (although it hasn't been easy, nor have I been too successful in that respect.) So far I started one "virtual bulletin board riot" which resulted in the loss of my outgoing mail, and 2 other missing children awareness sites spinning off, because they didn't understand what I was doing. And one happened to be a VERY popular girl, who was friends with all the celebs, like Paris Hilton and the Victoria Secret models, and asked them to replace me in their top 8 with her site... so that little outburst cost me some momentum and my free celeb endorsements:) I also had a guy go ape-**** on me for having a girl in a g-string in my top 8, and so I had to come up with a FAQ to address that... as my only form of self expression I lean a little towards the shocking side:)

...but that's the point. My target audience is 18-24 year olds and white collar CEOs. And the problem I see is that somebody has to make the subject of missing children cool and sexy and a touch controversial so people are actually interested in it.... hence porn stars right beside a white paper proposal. Now, granted, you don't HAVE to sell things with sex, but as always, I play the game at a million levels at once, and simply put, it works. The idea is to make people pay attention and THINK. If I wanted to be like all the other awareness sites out there, I would do what everyone else does, which is just kinda plod along with no real short term agenda. Now, I don't mean to knock them, but as you may know that just isn't my style. I am into instant gratification. I got a plan. I got a solution. And I'm not asking to reinvent the wheel, just make a simple connection between two complementary systems. The database is already THERE. MySpace ALREADY knows where 87 million of us live. The whole site is about profiles and communities. The only thing we are lacking is the self awareness aspect that it's in the best interest of both online and offline communities to protect our little ones. And I don't think that's too much to ask...

I think part of the appeal of this project is that like everything else I've ever promoted I have a searing focus. This site is a petition. That's it. It's not an 'awareness site', we don't send out Amber Alerts (even though the link is on our home page) we are only about one thing... getting eyeballs and making friends. And this is done using myspace's own system 'against' them (although in this case I don't really like those connotations.) Basically people always slam me for my black and white approach to things and so I purposely designed the site to hinge on one issue, so that if you agree to the idea, you are our friend, and if you don't, you are our enemy. Plus, I wasn't aware of any radical missing children groups, so I thought I could fill a niche in that respect:) The key is that I just don't point out the problem, but I also offer a workable solution, AND I give the people something to do.... 'add us'. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but that one little thing gives them a feeling of being empowered... that THEY are doing something. Now anyone in here I imagine is probably pretty self actualized, but there are a bunch of kids out there that never realized that they had a voice, that they could actually make a difference. And THAT is striking a raw nerve with them.

And, of course, I love to push buttons:)

[dogboy]

I just tipped off MySpace to the location of this thread this morning... and I'm hoping all you lurkers out there do you're part to let a shout out to Cutts and the rest of gang that I got some ivory tower piercing ammunition ordered special, just for them:)

In other news, I just got my USPS article number EQ326728620US return reciept back in the in the mail, signed by a 'D. B-something-or-other' to let me know the MySpace corporate office got my winged snail mail on 6/26, just about 34 days after I sat down and thought this whole scheme up....

[dogboy]

...you know, since we (aka 'I') are talking MySpace and promotion here, I wanted to share something they are pushing over there on their index page... if you go to the 'Clerks II' movie page and become one of their first 10,000 friends, they will put you in the credits of the movie.

I mean, how can you all not be interested in that type of thinking? Besides the adult industry, I dont know anywhere where people make deals as dynamic as that. People keep saying, oh MySpace isn't really isn't my speed, etc... did you all forget that the web is what you make of it? They got all types in there... I met one guy that was ONLY friends with guys named 'Carlos'. I mean, how niche is THAT?:)

[dogboy]

knock, knock... you all dead or what? I seem to get that response quite a bit these days when I broach this subject in public. Kinda of an uncomfortable silence, like I just farted in church or something. Usually though, I find out that people are just hanging back to watch the fireworks and are not really in disagreement with me, just not really sure how to respond... so I won’t hold it against you:) I HAVE got a few emails though from people asking about my motivation, my sanity, and my ‘riot’ bulletin, so instead of responding individually, I figured I’d just drink my coffee this morning and lay those cards on the table since I already played them....

The riot bulletin was basically an attempt to get about 1000+ people to take over the bulletin board over there to the point that it would grab some attention in the media, by having them repost over and over a wild, half cocked note I ripped off with the subject “THERE’S A RIOT ON MYSPACE!!!” which for about a day actually worked from a viral standpoint... however, responses to it seemed to be extremely mixed, even if it was lopsidded. The people who read it, liked it, reposted it (or another version of it) seemed to have identified with the utter frustration that I expressed in it (which was evident by them reposting the bulletin.) The few people who did NOT like it, didn't like the connotations of 'riot', despite the lack of violence and destruction in the message.... they also thought I was crazy:)

The idea of a ‘riot’ was simply to grab attention. Riots get attention because it means that there are a large group of citizens that are so fed up with the current state of their situation, that they erupt in a violent and chaotic demonstration of social unrest because they see no workable solution to their problems. Governing bodies take notice because ultimately if they don't give the people a solution that they believe to be in their best interest, ultimately it will bring down that system. All it takes is just one motivated person to make a difference, and that letter was intentionally designed to do just that... stir up some emotion and to empower people that have never volunteered a day in their life, never thought about this issue, never saw any acceptable options available to them, never felt like they could make a difference...

Obviously, I wasn't trying to do any REAL violence, and I even (thought I) made that clear in my off the cuff, unedited, unreviewed, vacation message, giving them a way to keep the riot from actually taking down the board, if it actually worked. (They were only supposed to post until 1/2 the messages they saw were ‘riot’ oriented, then they were supposed to back off, so we didn’t crash it and lose our ‘voice’.) What I WANTED was for people on MySpace (as well as people in the real world) to find out what the riot was ABOUT, because even if rioting and violence is never good, there is always a truth buried under all the mayhem. Riots are a system’s last attempt to deal with a situation so grave that people are forced into desperate acts because no others are available to them. The idea was that upon further review, they would then look for the cause of this unrest and see the site, which, unlike the bulletin, was remarkably easy to agree with.

Unfortunately, I didn't make this very clear. Some people thought this would further damage myspace’s reputation in the media because of all the bad press associated with kids getting swindled by the very same people we are trying to destroy. This was the part I completely missed. I surely don't have a problem with MySpace. MySpace, to me, is nothing more than ingenious social software, servers, and good people just trying to compete in a volatile market... so the idea of MySpace being at fault for ANYTHING, is so absurd it didn't even occur to me. Myspace is nothing more than a mirror of our society today. So if you don't like what you see, don't blame the mirror, blame yourself. People don't like to do that and so they usually try to redirect the blame onto the innocent. They do that because they don't see, understand, nor know how to fix the problem. Well, this was an effort to actually HELP good PR, not hinder it. Unfortunately, I did slightly more harm than good with that one but apparently, I found the exception to the old rule that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and the shot that was heard around the world was actually me blowing off my left foot:) Yeah, that was a bummer... I lost top 8 on Paris Hilton’s, The Olsen Twin's, and Adriana Lima's (the Victoria Secret model) page, plus a bunch of other high traffic sites to the new site that popped up to counter my riot who was friends with them long before I was... but all’s fair in love and war and me and the new site formed a truce, of sorts:)

...And that leads me to my final point that this riot bulletin was indeed crazy. In fact, this whole thing is crazy. Im crazy. Who else would spend 4 weeks obsessing over missing children by developing such an unconventional strategy, with their own money and time? Surely not a ‘normal’ person. A ‘normal’ person doesn’t do anything. A ‘normal’ person barely raises an eyebrow at the news of more dead children, let alone actually try to DO anything about it.

The goal here was to try and find a common ground to get something accomplished as quick as possible. A child goes missing every 40 seconds. If you just read that sentence and it didn't almost make puke, you, my friend, have been desensitized to the situation. You haven't put yourself in the position of a PARENT of a missing child. I cant say I know that feeling at all either. In fact, I don't personally know anyone that went missing. I don't have kids. But Id like to think in this society of ours that if I ever did have kids, and they ever went missing, I could bang on my neighbors door and they would rush out in a nightshirt to help me, because if they came to MY house desperate, Id help them. Its funny why people don't think this way when they look at the big picture. I guess it isn't 'normal'...

[dogboy]

>ivory tower piercing ammunition

eheheheh I crack myself up:)

[dogboy]

wait a second, i just realized I may have given you some misinformation: I think my 6B page views/day number was wrong... it's less than that, at least for the moment. The number of users though is still skyrocketing... over 90M as of this morning.

I guess you are only allowed to edit your posts for so long here and then they are permanent, or else I would have gone back to edit my posts. I think what I read was something like 6B a month, but honestly, I think they are growing so fast that the numbers are outdated by the time you post them... they are growing THAT fast.

[dogboy]

I guess at this point of monologue you might be like, "dog, I hear you... but all this fighting with yourself, is getting us nowhere" Not true. I just found myself outranking myself for a couple terms in google, and securing my back in a few cases...

for 'myspace petition'
15 searchenginewatch.com

for 'missing children petition'
1 profile.myspace.com/index.cfm[...]
2 searchenginewatch.com
3 www.nowpublic.com (my little cousin wrote something pretty early on)

for 'children petition'
1 profile.myspace.com/index.cfm[...]
2 searchenginewatch.com

for 'missing petition'
4 searchenginewatch.com
8 profile.myspace.com/index.cfm[...]

for 'myspace missing children'
1 searchenginewatch.com
2 profile.myspace.com/index.cfm[...]

...unfortunately we took a big hit on the 'missing children' front... 84 -> 125 with no SEW in sight. By the looks of the cache, it probably wasn't a change in content (although the next update it should be) but my guess maybe a loss in the top 8s I was telling you about... but I bet you guys know more about that than me nowadays. Bummer though... that's really the only term that could get us some big eyeballs and I was hoping we might be going the other direction. the rest of these terms is just to kinda help me fly by the seat of my pants, because I got no stats to speak of, other than what we are discussing in the 'traffic' blog on the kids site to tell what I'm doing right or wrong. But at least I see a friendly face in the SERPS... my own:)

The main problem I have is the the title of the petition site: "www.myspace.com/missingchildrenpetition" which I have no control over, as opposed to the one I had control of here: "The MySpace Missing Children Petition" ... see? once again, engines ought to hire SEOs to optimize their OWN site. Why put a url in the title? uh, thats what the URL is for:) Change a little default code, help us rank, we get more eyeballs, they get more page views and sell a few more ads... we all win:)

heehheeh I know, I know, I'm preaching to the choir again:)

[dogboy]

>they are growing so fast that the numbers are outdated by the time you post them

case in point, I wrote that 2 days ago... since then, they added another half a million users... about the size of a small to medium sized city. Forget about Pavlov's bell, those kinds of numbers make me drool on my keyboard... and it's a holiday weeked and traffic all over is low.

[MrOrange99]

actually, 9 times out of 10, these missing child posts are fakes. for whatever reason - i don't know. but they really circulate fast & it seems to me like the story of the boy who cried wolf. when someone really needs to use this feature - it may be perceived as fake.

[dogboy]

>these missing child posts are fakes

...and that is precisely why MySpace should work directly with NCMEC, as I proposed in the petition, so that when a child is reported to the police and they are entered into the NCMEC database and shown on the myspace site via a direct feed, everybody KNOWS that the child is in fact truly missing and that it is definitely NOT a hoax.

...or are you just the type of person that doesn't like to read a single thing here or on the petition site, has absolutely no idea what is being proposed, and yet feels compelled to voice their opinion despite their complete and utter lack of understanding of what is going on? Because if that's the case, 9 out of 10 times people that do things like that have to have their foot surgically removed from their throat after they realize they swallowed it.

...or did I read your post wrong?

[Chris Boggs]

dogboy right on about the growing importance of myspace http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060712-102110

[dogboy]

92.5M as of this morning... so about 2.5M more than about 10 days ago. That's about the population of Toronto.

[dogboy]

so after 3 weeks of waiting for a response to the snail mail, and even longer for my email to get fixed, I finally got bored and posted in their forum. Within an hour or two mail was working like a charm:) I have to admit, that really made my day:) Until now every time I got an email I had to either visit the senders site and leave a public comment, or, I would have to switch profiles, find the person again, then email them back... then switch back over to finish doing what I was doing. This is so much easier:) In addition, it looks like they deleted all that outgoing mail that was probably jamming the system, instead of sending it, so that was probably the best case scenario for all of us.

maybe just as big (although not very big) they finally acknowledged the petition, and did so in public. Granted, it wasn't a big warm sloppy kiss, AND it was under the duress of my thinly veiled threat that if they didn't want to respond to the spokesman I could have my 2500 odd friends email support individually... but I DID warn them of that in my letter to them as well (posted in our feedback area, awaiting their 'feedback') ...but at least they took my prompting to at least ACKNOWLEDGE our existence, which I think is just short of obligatory in these kinds of situations. Three weeks is plenty of time to at least grudgingly give me the "thank you for your feedback" note that I could take back to my friends and say, "there, I did my job". What happens next I really can't say. Not that I don't know, just that I can't say:)

As far as ranking goes, look like my Threadwatch post is ranking 37 in google at the moment for 'missing children' and the petition itself at 112. (Dave tells me that the UK version of G is styling his personal post on the petition pretty well too:) The TW post is around 17 for 'myspace children' ...man, what I wouldn't give to change my title on the site itself:) Of course, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, but it's still cool to see an engine do what its supposed to do quickly when fed an appropriate diet of content...

BTW, looks like we are at 94.5M so up another 2 million from the last times we checked less than a week ago. Kinda reminds me of the McDonalds signs they had when I was a kid that tried to keep track of how many people they 'served' until they finally gave up and settled on 'billions'. I seem to be seeing their name in some seo oriented newsletters as well, so I guess its only a matter of time before seos really start getting into the mix.

[dogboy]

This is from my post in the 'myspace>general' forum, pertaining to 'filters':

>The spammers would then know how to avoid the filters.

that is it EXACTLY. That's also why if they thought I was a spammer they wouldn't have sent me any emails. It really all comes down to math. They have to tell their system how they want it to sort out a person, say, posting the same comment to all their friends, and a malicious script that is doing repetitive damage. That isn't an easy thing to do. If you have ever watched other engines implement a new filter, sometimes you will see them actually revert to their old stable index if it didn't do what they expected it to do, and it happens more often than you might think. Most of the time however they just keep tweaking it until they are happy with the results. Of course, if they delete you out of the index, its no big deal because they are confident they will pick you up on the next crawl. Here, it would be a MAJOR issue if they just deleted us out instead of just shutting down mail.

my guess, which is JUST a total guess, is that we are in fact dealing with a rogue filter. My guess was that they were trying to protect themselves (and us), adjusted a filter, it nailed a bunch of us, they realized that, backed it off some, and now are trying to sort out the bad guys from the good guys in a way that doesn't tip their hat to the spammers. THAT's why they aren't publicizing it. The problem is they don't have enough tech support and programmers to clean up what was probably a pretty minor glitch efficiently and now they are stuck waiting for people to scream before they can identify who still has a problem... because the spammers wont, they'll just move on, under the radar, chalking up their loss as a cost of business. The problem was compounded though because the filter appeared to have nailed more 'power users', not just random users. These people cant move 10, 000 people over to a new account easily, so they are stuck, and they are getting hammered by mail they cant respond to, which makes them look bad or unprofessional, etc.

Like I said, this is just one possible explanation. I really have no idea. No one told me anything so I'm just putting the pieces together and thats how my puzzle turned out. So take it as you would a fiction novel; it makes sense, but it isn't fact. My guess the reason they fixed our mail so fast is because they have been watching me since I came into this forum and posted what I was going to do in the end of may. I'm pretty sure they thought I'd go away if I was ignored, but since I combined the mail request with the petition request in this post, and notified all our friends by bulletin, AND myspace still needs more time on the petition (because they are dealing with the basic stuff still, like fixing our mail, they don't have resources for 'extras' yet and) they needed to respond to something, or they might send out the wrong signal, which might further compound an already touchy subject. That's why I still have to hand it to them... they've been good sports about all this, as least as far as we are concerned.

for those of you who still have broken mail, I went to the new 'broken mail group' forum last night and posted some (lame) tips and tricks that might help until this whole thing gets resolved... keep the faith.

[dogboy]

error message I got @ about 10:15pm, after 2 days of sketchy access:

"hey everyone! there's been a power outage in our data center. we're in the process of fixing it right now, so sit tight. hopefully we'll be back online within the hour. its 6:40pm PST now. wanna place a bet? -Tom"

... just about everything has been down. Main index page, everything. I think I'll take that bet... I wanna be able to go to the main myspace index page, my main index page on my 2 sites, login to both, and just check my mail in each. Deal? For pink slips?

[dogboy]

nothing but error pages with one single ad for 'pac man' on it. I wonder what their CTR is like on something like that... pretty high quality exit traffic, I imagine:)

I think this is the first time though I have seen an engine really grind to a halt since Excite wet the bed, ages ago. This is really something... not even an index page is up.

[dogboy]

still down this morning. same pac-man ad, same message from Tom.

yikes.

[dogboy]

looks like they have index pages up but login is still sketchy. I just read this announcement from early yesterday:

Latest Update:1:38 PM PST, Sun, Jul 23
hello everyone - so there was a power outage in LA yesterday. unfortunately it directly hit the data center where myspace's servers are located. lots of people were affected. the backup power failed and that's why myspace has been screwy since yesterday afternoon. we are still working to get everything back in order. i know what most of the problems are, it's just going to take awhile to fix them. thx for your patience!

...actually more is up than it first appears, if you know where to look... I see some of this:

http://http//home.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewfriends&friendID=32865[...]



so it looks like the petition's 2 month birthday party is going to go off after all, though I have to admit, it looks kinda bleak, unfortunately. Obviously they have more pressing technical difficulties to deal with before they can entertain our additional requests...

Sucks.

[dogboy]

Today I overnighted a packet of information to Rupert Murdock's assistant, after speaking with her on the phone about our proposal. (She was actually quite nice and friendly, which was a pleasant surprise.) I included a copy of the petition, a copy of the original letter to myspace (and the 'return receipt' to prove it was sent), copies of all my blogs, as well as copies of 3 different forums I've been posting in for some time, covering different aspects of the subject, including this one. I am trying to login to my admin there so I can post a bulletin and the letter to her in the feedback blog but so far I cant get past the latest error messages...

I think this is it though. I don't really see his office ignoring me. I imagine if they don't like the idea they will just flat out say so, none of this silent treatment. I hate to admit it but I CAN handle a ‘no’. I can also handle being politely stalled while they make up their mind. I can handle them simply stealing the idea and implementing some form of it and taking all the credit for it. But I can NOT handle being ignored. That simply fuels my fire and gives me time to reload. My initial (friendly) attempt at contacting Google was met with the same 'maybe if we turn the lights off he won't knock' type of attitude, but to be honest, I definitely expected that type of response from them, I was just hoping for a different one. Their new charity will hopefully be more charitable.

[dogboy]

http://info.lycos.com/missingkids/kids.html

...heheehhehehe NICE!!!!!! That's the first I've heard of an engine stepping up to the plate. Well done, Lycos, well done! That right there could make all the difference to kid.

huh, I'll be damned... Lycos. Good for them. Good for us.

[dogboy]

Lycos, if your listening, thank you. I just told 2800 people what you did. I hope some stick over there for you.

(and BTW your contact link on that page is broken.)

[dogboy]

well, funny enough, Lycos apparently had that page up for years ...but they thanked me profusely for telling them their link was broken:) heheehhe ...serious:) I got a little trouble ticket, a guy found out for me, and then he replied to me... I was shocked:)

....Anyway, in other news, I followed up with Murdock's assistant again and she told me they sent my 100 pages of text to the attention of a man named Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam

- Born in Kanpur, India, Nigam moved to Connecticut at age 3 and graduated from BU Law in 1990.

- began his career as a prosecutor in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office who busted gangs and sexual predators, child pornographers, and others who exploited children on the Net.

- prosecuted over 100 child-molester and Internet-predator cases as a trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in Washington DC (specializing in child exploitation/pornography, child predator, and child trafficking and computer crime cases nationwide.)

- served on the Vice President’s Committee on CyberStalking

- legal advisor to the COPA Commission (created by the Child Online Protection Act, the landmark 1998 piece of legislation defending children’s safety online, to advise Congress).

- law enforcement liaison to ISPs and filtering technology companies on child online protection issues

- left to work for vice president of Worldwide Internet Enforcement at the Motion Picture Association of America. There he built and oversaw the global strategy to combat online motion picture piracy for the seven major Hollywood studios to help them enforce their copyright claims against digital pirates.

- He moved to Microsoft to work on similar issues and also to focus on criminal complaints as the lead attorney in Microsoft's Digital Integrity Group, and Director of Consumer Security Outreach & Child Safe Computing at the Microsoft Corporation

- Nigam currently is the chief security officer of Fox Interactive Media (FIM), parent of MySpace.com and handles all education, safety, privacy and law enforcement programs for MySpace and other Fox properties.


Sources:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/07/10/8380854/index.htm
http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_291.html
http://news.com.com/Microsofts+bounty+hunter/2008-7355_3-5228216.html?tag=nl
http://news.com.com/MySpace+reaching+out+to+parents/2009-1041_3-6059679.html


... I mean, you'd think with all Murdock's money, he throw someone a little more *qualified* into the cage match with me, you know? hehheehhe ...no, I'm ready... bring on the ruckus:) I went on one last hardcore petition drive, and as of this second, I got 7718 'friends' to back me up on this. I also know where NCMEC stands and I know where Bryant Harper (the president of CodeAmber.org) stands. And I definitely know where *I* stand, because I have a paper trail (time stamped and/or signed for) a mile wide, going all the way back to May 24th. So as far as I know, my phone is plugged in, I cleaned and oiled and reloaded my favorite 6 gun and tucked it down the back of my pants... I got a knife in my boot... it's dark outside, and I'm wearing sunglasses:) ehheeheh ok, I'm going in... wish me luck:)

[dogboy]

Well, I finally had my long awaited conference call with Mr. Nigam to discuss the petition with him. Basically, it went well for a first discussion but I think we both need time to digest everything and then we are going to have some tech guys sit in (on their side) to get their opinion, and then we'll go from there:)

I'll admit though, after I got off the phone with him, I was exhausted:) ehheheeh he had me on the ropes a few times, but he actually let me off once too:) My strengths were that I was a little more technical than him in this specific area, and I was completely prepared. We also went to BU at the same time and that helped warm things up a bit at the beginning and I also caught him playing around with something cool I made on my site using the NCMEC database he'd never seen done, which I think interested him.

...But after 3 months, and the help of 9850 friends, I would undoubtedly say I finally got the idea in front of a real decision maker. He asked that I keep our discussions private and so that is about all I can tell you about what was actually said, but the message was definitely heard and prospects of something happening look bright:)

[grnidone]

"After 3 months"

That's amazing, Robert. In the whole scheme of things, that happened FAST.

[dogboy]

wait, I screwed up:) ....it was on the 23th of May that I sat down in my kitchen and dreamed this whole thing up. So really it was all summer and then some... but hey, THIS is search engine optimization, in my opinion :)

[dogboy]

Just got this emailed to me from Fox.com... looks like it's really going to happen:)


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

MYSPACE PARTNERS WITH THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN TO PROVIDE ADDED DISTRIBUTION FOR AMBER ALERTS

MySpace Users Mobilize to Help Law Enforcement Find Abducted Children Nationwide

Site Also Expands Safety Product Features to Heighten Safety and Security for Members Including Email Verification and “Over/ Under” Privacy Tool

LOS ANGELES—January 23, 2007—MySpace.com, the leading social networking and lifestyle portal, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC), announced today a partnership to distribute localized online AMBER Alerts via MySpace. In addition to its traditional distribution methods, the AMBER Alert program will now benefit from the mass distribution of the MySpace network and provide rapid, viral support to law enforcement in bringing home an abducted child. The AMBER Alerts on MySpace go live today. In other news, MySpace today announced a new set of safety features to increase online safety and privacy for its community, including email verification and an “over/ under” privacy tool for all users.

”When a child is abducted, the AMBER Alert program is a tool that allows everyone to join in the search. To date 314 children have been recovered as a result of this program,” said Ernie Allen, NCMEC president and CEO. “MySpace AMBER Alerts will allow the online community to be part of a nationwide effort to bring even more children home. We are grateful that MySpace has agreed to help us distribute these important alerts.”

The AMBER Alerts on MySpace will be updated constantly. As soon as NCMEC is notified that an AMBER Alert has been issued by law enforcement, MySpace will relay that AMBER Alert information to all users within the zip codes of where the AMBER Alert was issued. The AMBER Alert notification will appear in a small text box at the top of a profile, giving users the option to receive additional information such as the photo and description of the abducted child, suspect and vehicle. Users who have information on the abducted child or the suspect’s whereabouts should immediately call 9-1-1.

“AMBER Alerts on MySpace give users nationwide the opportunity to help in the recovery of an abducted child in their area—just by logging on,” said Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer, MySpace. “We applaud NCMEC and will continue working with industry leaders such as Ernie Allen and his team to implement creative programs that share the goal of protecting teens.”

The AMBER Alert program, named for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and murdered in Arlington, Texas, is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, and transportation agencies to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The goal of an AMBER Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and safe recovery of the child. Posting AMBER Alerts on MySpace uses the power of the connected community to provide rapid assistance to law enforcement in recovering an abducted child.

President Bush authorized the national AMBER Alert initiative as part of the PROTECT Act signed in 2003. The law formally established the federal government’s role in the AMBER Alert program, appointing the Department of Justice (DOJ) as the agency responsible for coordinating AMBER Alert programs on the national level. DOJ has officially partnered with NCMEC, authorizing them as the agent that coordinates and disseminates AMBER Alerts to secondary distributors such as MySpace.

"I applaud the efforts of NCMEC and MySpace to alert the public and increase awareness of AMBER Alerts," said Regina B. Schofield, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs and the National AMBER Alert Coordinator. "This partnership expands the AMBER Alert secondary distribution network, allowing even more people to serve as the extra eyes and ears of law enforcement as they work to bring abducted children home."

In other news, MySpace today announced a number new additions to the company’s arsenal of user protections including mandatory email verification and an “over/ under” privacy tool. Mandatory email verification requires that all MySpace users register with a valid email address and all users creating a profile on MySpace will be required to confirm their new membership via email. The “over/under” blocking tool expands on privacy features previously available only to younger users. The over/ under blocking feature prevents users under 18 from being contacted by users over 18 and it also allows users over 18 to block users under 18 from contacting them.

Other recent privacy and security features include:

• Privacy Alert: MySpace safety teams recognized that many users were misrepresenting their ages to avail themselves of privacy options exclusively given to younger users. In response, MySpace has made the full range of privacy options available to the entire community and has communicated the availability of expanded privacy options to such users. MySpace deletes an average of 25,000 profiles per week due to age misrepresentation.

• Instant Messaging and Chat Safety Restrictions: Users can only receive instant messages from other users on their Friend list. Users under 18 years of age cannot access romance-specific chat rooms.

• Safety Suggestion Alerts: All users under the age of 18-years old receive security warnings before they post content. MySpace encourages users of all ages to recognize the public nature of the Internet and reminds younger users to use common sense before posting content throughout the community.

• Age Restrictions for Communication and Content: All younger users listed on MySpace—14- or 15-years old— are tagged to be un-searchable by age on any search engine or Internet portal. Additionally on MySpace, no user can Browse for users under 16 and adults can never add users under 16-years old as a friend unless they know the user’s last name or email address. Lastly, users 19 years or older cannot search for high school students and younger users can only receive group invites from those individuals within their friend network.

• Safety and Customer Care Response:
o Law enforcement hotline, 24/7 both emergency and non-emergency
o Streamlined abuse reporting to better differentiate between the type of abuse
o CAT team development; MySpace has created a Content Assurance Team (CAT) to assume the roles of various users and view the site ‘through their eyes’
o Parent Care, dedicated parent care email and downloadable guidebook
o School Care Team, dedicated educator hotline and guidebook

• Primary Safety Tools for Members:
o All members can set profile to “private”
o Users can pre-approve all comments before being posted
o Users can block another user from contacting them
o Age-specific blocking capabilities available to all users
o Younger user birthdays only visible to friends
o MySpace “profile details” limited to age-appropriate activities for younger users
o Users can conceal their ‘online now’ status
o Users can prevent forwarding of their images to other sites
o 32,000 trained school moderators oversee forums
o Users have the option to make their profile public for those in their age range


# # #

About MySpace.com
MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends, discovering popular culture, and making a positive impact on the world. By integrating web profiles, video, mobile communications, instant messaging and more, MySpace has created a global connected community with a wide array of communication choices. As the world's top-ranked web domain in terms of page views*, MySpace is the most widely-used and highly-regarded site of its kind. MySpace’s international network includes localized community sites in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany, Australia, Italy, and Ireland.

*Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, November 2006. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to www.comscore.com.


About the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)
NCMEC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. NCMEC’s congressionally mandated CyberTipline, a reporting mechanism for child sexual exploitation, has handled more than 419,400 leads. Since 1984, NCMEC has assisted law enforcement with more than 125,200 missing child cases, resulting in the recovery of more than 107,600 children. For more information about NCMEC, call its toll-free, 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST or visit its web site at www.missingkids.com.

[grnidone]

That's AWESOME, dogboy!