Matt Crist's Blog

Give spammy employers a taste of their own spam

mattcrist — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:06:28 +0000

When you’re looking for a job and you get an email that indicates a potential job offer, it creates excitement. Once you discover the job is not exactly what you’re looking for, it can be a huge let down. If you discover that you’re actually the target of random spamming or part of a mass email list of people being recruited, it pisses you off…right?

Here’s the email I just received–no different than emails I have received time and time again from similar companies:

Hello Mathew,

I reviewed your resume on-line and it appears that you possess some of the skills and abilities needed to succeed at Sterling Health Plans. I am interested in interviewing you for a position.
Currently, we are seeking Field Sales Managers and Sales Professionals who are enthusiastic, goal-oriented, persuasive, and friendly individuals who desire an excellent career opportunity.
Sterling Health Plans, Underwritten by Sterling Life Insurance Co., is a dynamic Marketing and Sales organization that is dedicated to

…blah, blah, blah…

We will be holding interviews in our Cross Lanes office on Wednesday at 10:30 AM and 2:30 PM.
Please call (304) 776-1283 to schedule an interview. In preparation for your interview, please visit our web page at www.sterlingplans.com.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Rick Roberts
Market Manager
Sterling Health Plans
418 Goff Mountain Road #205
Cross Lanes, WV 25313
Phone: (304) 776-1283

First of all…if anyone is interested, please call Rick Roberts I’m sure he will help you out. Now, here’s my problem with the unsolicited email and what I did about it. [aside: Not to scare any potential employers away, but let's get real. Life insurance companies are not doing good. They need help, they need workers, the job sucks and it's not for me. I have no intention of ever working for a life insurance company, unless it involves content management or online marketing.] I have received dozens of unsolicited emails from companies just like Rick’s–insurance companies that think I’m the guy for the job. Yeah, right. Anyone who will show up is the right guy.

Well, after all my incensed rage was gone from having received another false hope email, I started to think about how I could waste some of their time and possibly turn my waste of time into an opportunity.

I responded:

Rick, thanks for the opportunity, but working in life insurance sales is not exactly my area of expertise. I’m more of a computer/Web guy with Internet marketing skills. If you think your company has a need for someone who can help out with the Web site or recruitment, please let me know. I’m sure I can offer help with employee recruitment, your customer landing pages, email broadcasts, Pay Per Click/online ad management and/or social media.

Hmmm…on second thought, maybe I’m a salesperson after all!

Hey Rick, about that job…

Searching for domains? Go international.

mattcrist — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:28:10 +0000

Occasionally, I’ll spend some time searching for clever domain names. It’s kind of fun and it helps break up the monotony of my work day. Unfortunately, many of the clever .com domain names are already taken. Heck, even the not so clever ones are often taken.
When I think of a domain name, I usually wind up on GoDaddy searching for it or some variation of it. It’s often frustrating to find out that some mega domain buying company has every variation of everything related to the topic of your search OR that some nimwit is sitting on your goldmine site doing absolutely nothing with it. I did a search for “lipstickonapig.com” on GoDaddy, only to find out it was taken…then “lipstickonapalin.com”, also taken, I was left wondering, “WTF!!! Exactly what names aren’t taken? Who in the world would spend $10 to buy lipstickonapalin.com and why?”

Here’s an at random search on the following nonsensical, but potential .com domain names–one’s I haven’t searched for before.

See what the results are below:
(there’s no use in trying for anything under 4 character’s, so we’ll start with 4 and work up)

QQQQ
ZZSER
Goolash
pixelfish
taternuts
taxthepoor
orangebuddha
laughingstock
zipupyourpants
bagofjaggedglass
bagofsulfuricacid

Now I’ll plug these words into GoDaddy and see what I find out:

PRQT is already taken.
QQQQ is already taken.
GOOLASH.COM is already taken.
PIXELFISH.COM is already taken.
TATERNUTS.COM is already taken.
TAXTHEPOOR.COM is already taken. (pending renewal)
ORANGEBUDDHA.COM is already taken.
LAUGHINGSTOCK.COM is already taken.
ZIPUPYOURPANTS.COM is available!
BAGOFJAGGEDGLASS.COM is available!
BAGOFSULFURICACID.COM is available!

As you can see, it’s sometimes hard to find quality domain names. Anyone who has tried knows.

Lately, I’ve been looking for funny/clever domain names outside of .com and finding very different results. For instance, on Internic’s Morrocan domain registration site I found that tra.ma, dalilla.ma, barackhusseinoba.ma, and until recently zi.ma were available. Unfortunately dra.ma, dog.ma, phar.ma, stig.ma, oba.ma and some others have already been taken. Here’s one I found, but I had to take a screenshot to give you the full effect:

.ma domain search screenshot

It’s obviously easier to find clever/funny/purposeful names when the domain registration is not .com. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes pretty pricey. Morrocan registered domain names start at over $230.
Anyway, if you have found any interesting domain names, feel free to post them here.

“Alternative” energy is a misnomer

mattcrist — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:02:56 +0000

I have come to realize that the use of the term “alternative energy source” is really a misnomer. It suggests that people are going to abandon old methods of energy extraction and consumption in exchange for supposed cleaner methods like wind, water, solar, nuclear, giant batteries, methane gas, corn oil, etc. The fact is that humans are increasingly more and more energy hungry. As soon as we reduce one industry’s dependence on coal, another will come along and demand more. Furthermore, as long as old technology (i.e. one’s that use coal and oil) is better than new technology (i.e. one’s that use wind and solar), there will always be demand. Fuel sucking cars, tractors, machines and technology are still being sold, driven, and operated. These machines have more power, more speed and cost less. While they still have gears turning and gas pumping they are going to be used. Therefore, we have a long way to go before we start supplementing one type of fuel with another. This is a key component to helping “green” politicians win over the public with no real threat to the existence of energy giants.

If we really want to reduce our dependence on coal, we need to reduce our dependence on energy as a whole. ‘How do we do that?’ you may ask. “Alternative” energy sources–wind, solar, water–are all good, but they don’t fix our addictive nature. We have to make sacrifices. Transportation changes like you mentioned–light rails, mass transit, walking, biking–result in less consumption. General consumption changes–turning off light bulbs, recycling, re-using, settling for slower cars with less power–also will help. But, even this is not enough, and in a world of such excess, who actually believes everyone is willing to sacrifice. Perhaps we should explore a system that rewards good energy spending behavior and punishes bad energy spending behavior. Ya know…like Cap and Trade…but for the individual.

You have 200 credits today. Spend them wisely.

Motivated in part by Paul McNeely’s blog post WV: Think Forward (#abetterwv) and ABetterWV.com’s social media challenge.

Looking for a Job? Here’s a list of Job Search Engines

mattcrist — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:38:07 +0000

Spread out your search! I haven’t had much luck on Monster or CareerBuilder. I’m spreading my search to include the following additional online job search arenas:

Job.com
6figurejobs.com – for jobs over 100K only
Linked In
Jobster – this one looks promising
CareerJournal
Mkt10
Craig’s List – watch out for spammers though
Hotjobs
Dice
Netshare
Simply Hired
Indeed
TheLadders

Developer, Programmer: where to begin?

mattcrist — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:25:37 +0000

At times, I get ambitious and feel the need to publicly proclaim my goals–for accountability. So, here goes: It’s time for me to start being more productive, a more proactive learner. I want to learn programming and developer tools and not necessarily go back to school to do it.

I’m already a mediocre designer, know basic HTML, some PHP and Flash action script-ing, and I understand the concepts of database design. The problem is that I do not excel at any of these and I want to learn more universal applications that will take me farther as a developer/programmer.

I also have no idea where to start. I was thinking about starting with Visual Basic and moving through some tutorials I found on Microsoft.com’s website. Alternatively, I could begin with some good CSS training first. Any suggestions? I’m looking for the path of least resistance and I’m a very visual, step-by-step learner.

CTC at WVU Tech uses social media to help select new name

mattcrist — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:00:47 +0000

WEEKEND UPDATE: The results are in! (so far, and yes, I stole weekend update because that’s exactly what it is)

Winning: Yeager Tech with 3 votes

Other Suggestions:

WV Polytechnic (I like this one)

WV Tech (nice, but this is their old name–i think)

WVU SUCKS BALLS TECH (not funny, not practical…well kind of funny)

UPDATE #2 – more names

Vec Tech

Initech

Cryo Tech

Win Tech

Cru Tech

I have included some existing name suggestions, but no decision will be final until July 1, 2009. CTC at WVU Tech is changing there name and I thought it would be cool to poll some of my friends here on WordPress. Thanks for your feedback!

mattcrist — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:49:39 +0000

Train to WTC

mattcrist — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:40:27 +0000

Hello world!

mattcrist — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:37:36 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Was Twitter First in Reporting Tim Russert’s Death?

mattcrist — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:26:08 +0000

Twitter alert: Tim Russert dead at 58?

June 13, 2:59pm

Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, was pronounced dead June 13, shortly after arriving at the hospital at 2:23 p.m. He was 58. While news of his death has ruled the airways in the past few days, the mainstream media was slow to pick up on the initial story. It wasn’t until 3:22 p.m. that I was able to confirm the news on The Huffington Post—nearly an hour after his death. According to several Internet reports, Wikipedia may have actually been the first widely-used media source to have confirmed Russert’s death.

Along with many others, I first heard speculation and unofficial reports on Twitter. After receiving the message, “Is Tim Russert dead???” I began scouring the Internet for verification. I started off doing what most Internet scavengers would probably do. I Googled it.

To my surprise, the results were outdated. Google search and mainstream media were behind the curve. News of Russert’s death had not hit the mainstream media and Google failed to produce relevant results. NBC had still not reported the news although the tragic event happened right in one of their studios. CNN and several others claimed to have withheld reports of the news out of respect for NBC. Meanwhile, Internet social networking sites were abuzz with the latest reports, and spreading like wildfire.

Back to Google.

Prior to 3:22 p.m. on June 13, a Google search for the keywords “Tim Russert” yielded no immediate results on his death. A search for “Tim Russert” AND “dead” was also ineffective.

At 3:22 p.m., I searched the keywords “Tim Russert” and “June 13” and found an article posted on, among others, The Huffington Post.

In retrospect, the best source of news on Russert’s death was not Google.com, MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews or [insert media mogul here]. Clearly Twitter or, better yet, Summize—a site that complements feeds off Twitter, allowing users to search “tweets” for commentary keywords (editor’s note: Summize is now owned and operated by Twitter as Twitter Search)—would have been an ideal source for investigating this breaking news.

In the interest of exploring this notion further, I have pasted some screenshots, which I will examine in greater detail, below:

Unfortunately, I didn’t screen capture the result an hour earlier but, as you can see here, at 3:56 p.m., June 13, 2008—only a few hours after Russert’s death—comments were flooding the Internet, Web 2.0-style on Twitter. This screenshot from Summize shows posts coming in at 6 per 20 seconds or higher. I can attest the actual rate is much higher.

So who was first?

In checking the history on Summize, the first person to include the words ‘Tim Russert’ AND ‘dead’ in a comment while relevant to the actual death of Tim Russert was user @SpaceyG.

Here is the actual comment which was posted June 13, at 2:59 p.m.:

“SpaceyG: Rumor that Tim Russert is dead of a heart attack.”

The first person to include the words ‘Tim Russert’ AND ‘died’ in a comment while relevant to the actual death of Tim Russert was (apparently) user @sethkeever.

Here is the actual comment which was posted June 13, at 3:05 p.m.:

“sethkeever: Tim Russert died! Unconfirmed reports from a bunch of sources, including (apparently) Wikipedia”

(Perhaps less significant, the first person to include the words ‘Tim Russert’ AND ‘June 13’ in a comment was me, @mattcrist—oh yeah)

Here is the actual comment which was posted June 13, at 3:37 p.m.:

“mattcrist: @martinbowling: June 13, 2008 03:22 PM / Tim Russert Dies Of Heart Attack At Age 58: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/?davos”

Most of the reports I have read indicate that Wikipedia was first in reporting the actual death of Tim Russert, but I wonder: was Twitter first? Wikipedia reportedly confirmed the death of Russert at 3:01 p.m. This is 2 minutes later than Summize recorded the post by SpaceyG—which is significant in breaking news coverage.

At 3:03 p.m. SpaceyG sent out a follow-up post which stated, “Can’t confirm. Hearing it from source at major news org. based in Atlanta.” I contacted SpaceyG and, like any good journalist, she would not reveal her source. (Editor’s note: CNN is, of course, based in Atlanta). But it’s interesting to note the pattern of news information.

Below, I have presented a diagram of how I see the news traffic flow has adapted with the adaptation of new media, and especially Twitter.com:

The new “viral news cycle” is more immediate in reaching the public, because social media networks act as a direct source for the public. The public, therefore, no longer has to wait for mainstream media to report newsworthy events. By subscribing to networks, engaging in conversation and socializing with groups, people can obtain news from all over the world, instantly.

While it’s certain that most of the world got wind of Tim Russert’s death via some major media source on TV or the Web, those of us engaged in social media began disseminating the news with passion and curiosity—long before NBC announced the tragic event.

What are your thoughts? Is breaking news on social media a good or bad thing? Why? Share your thoughts.