I’m not trying to make light of anyone who got caught in the scam, but it seems that Twitter caught the wave of some “phishy” business over the weekend.

A lot of people were affected, including Fox News, Britney Spears and CNN’s Rick Sanchez.

If you got a random direct message from someone and clicked a link that redirected you to twitter.access-logins.com/login/, DO NOT FILL OUT YOUR INFORMATION.

I haven’t been personally affected by phishing on the social sites, but my wife has received some strange Facebook messages from friends on her wall with alleged “pics” of her on sites like “barkjump.com” and “fittry.com.”

If you didn’t know, this is also a phishing scam, just on Facebook.

AriWriter has a list of the all the different .com’s that are part of Facebook phishing. The culprit behind these recent phishing scams is access-logins.com, which is based in China.

We e-mail. We search. We blog, txt, & tweet.

For the first time, a person running for the most powerful position on earth did, too. Now that the race to the White House is complete, what happens to Barack Obama’s immense social media presence?

Most of those who follow @barackobama know that the information provided by his Twitter account was never earth shattering. There was never a tweet about how bad he needed some Starbucks or rants about how frustrating it is that his internet connection is slow.

That said, will the new President-elect continue to use the power of social media in his new role? His Twitter account continues to grow today at about 3 followers per minute.

I’m not the only person wondering this. Here’s a random sample of tweets from Twitter Search this AM.

DavidStewart: Do you think Obama will stay on Twitter as President?
erika_strange: @czdebel I think obama will be too busy when he’s president to update his twitter account.
Thracks: @czdebel I think that it would betray Obama‘s message to let the twitter stream die.
bakapetro: Will Obama use twitter after inauguration? It would be cool, but, personally, I doubt it
topslakr: Since Obama was elected he has not posted to twitter. Does that mean he is done using it? I think a lot of people are hoping he stays active
minda31180: So now that he’s been elected president, is Barack Obama going to continue updating his twitter?

Here’s the deal. Most of his social profiles will only require a job status update and address change come January. His Twitter account really only receives one or two updates per day, telling you where he is and what’s he talking about. Does that sound like such a difficult project to maintain?

Most Twitter users already space their tweets with other daily tasks. Millions of the people who voted for him developed their trust and support because of his use of social media. Much like Thracks and topslakr above, I think something should be done to keep his use of social media presence alive. His campaign was never 100% transparent with the use of social media to begin with, although the way his campaign used the internet was extraordinary.

So… I ask…

117,000+ Twitterers want to know… and will be following.

For some more reading on Obama and social media, Jon Burg posted a thought-provoking post on the same topic - “Where Vision Meets Reality.”

I am pleased to be here writing my first ‘official’ ProspectMX blog post on a subject that I truly love - Twitter!

If you’re not quite sure what I’m talking about, maybe we should start with a brief explanation. Twitter is a ‘Micro-Blogging’ / Social Media, kinda thing. You can follow people that interest you… and “Tweeple” can follow you. I know that’s a pretty basic explanation… but I have lots to cover so moving along. 

I’ve been using Twitter since March of ’07. Now that the company is on the radar, and even CNN & Fox News have been quoting their twitter streams on live newscasts, I think it’s time for the average everyday SEO Joe to make sure that your clients / customers are efficently using this FREE service.  So where to start?

• Pick a memorable username (maybe the name of your company?)
• Spend 10 minutes making a custom background
• Check out Twellow - align yourself w/ ppl that interest you
• Speak your mind (be transparent!)
• Do get a TwitPic account (Uber Cool)
• Don’t become a Tweethead! - it’s okay to go offline from time to time.

(more…)

Our home city - Lancaster, PA - has seen visits from both major party presidential candidates in the last week. Since the 2008 election is fast approaching, and the candidates have been playing the politics game in our backyard so frequently, I wanted to take a second and analyze each president’s internet marketing campaigns.

For starters, each candidate is using the essential social media and networking sites - Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg. Obama has the appearance of being more “tech savvy,” thanks to his Twitter profile with over 78,000 followers.

Obama’s use of the web as a driver for donations has been well executed. In a random selection of ways to get to Obama’s online home - Google organic search results, Google PPC links, direct website visits, and mobile searches by Blackberry - our team found four custom lead generation forms to fill out before hitting the main page. Two were e-mail capture forms, two were for donations.

Only one pay-per-click ad led to a donation form on the McCain site, but the Arizona Senator isn’t neglecting the internet. The Wall Street Journal noticed McCain’s camp is using an ambush pay-per-click campaign. Search “Joe Biden” and check out the top sponsored listings - “Joe Biden on Obama” links to McCain’s site. Very sneaky, sir.

McCain’s campaign is placing a heavy focus on this year’s election issues with its PPC. Search “housing crisis” and “U.S. economy” in Google… McCain will have a PPC ad there - Obama won’t.

The internet is definitely playing a huge role in this year’s election. Its cool to see how each candidate has found a completely different way to use the power of the mighty internet and search engines to their advantage.

Any other cool internet marketing tools the candidates are using that we missed? Drop us a line below.

As I’m sure everyone’s blogging about today, the big news is that once again, Twitter was the first media platform to report breaking news: the NASA probe Phoenix found water on Mars AND brought it back for extensive scientific testing.

While I’m personally not a huge Twitter fan (for the longest time, I just didn’t get it), if it keeps up with breaking news stories open before even mainstream media, I’m down with that.

No, I don’t want to read about the fact that you just threw a load of laundry in and are now watching TV. Really, nobody wants to read that…

I DO however, want to read about the NASA findings, about earthquakes hitting the LA area, even that you spotted a famous celeb out getting trashed at a bar (gotta love celeb news, can’t help it!). If that’s what Twitter has to offer, than I suppose I just may have to start paying more attention.

On a side note, as reported by The Press Association, Dr. William Boynton was quoted as saying “…this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.”

Um…I don’t know if I’d be so hot to be tasting Martian water so soon…sheesh.