MySpace Porn Spam: Marketing Bots in Social Networks
The past couple times I've signed on to MySpace I get a friend request within about 15 minutes. From a MySpace spammer who's selling porn.

Tell-tale signs of a MySpace ho spam friend request include:
• As mentioned, it arrives about 15 minutes after I've been tooling around MySpace leaving comments and what not.

• The profile has a semi-exotic sounding name, like "Myriah."

• The profile has 7-15 friends (doof bags with auto-friend-accept apps running or who are indiscriminate/+horny).

• The profile has very little "about me" text - or it has your typical porn spam copy about being lonely, sexually exploratory, new to town, etc.

• The pics/video link goes to... explicit pics on another myspace profile page. So the spammer hacked the standard page up some (very easy to do) to dodge image censors.

Changing face of porn marketing in MySpace:
Given the typically low number of friends I suspect these profiles are auto generated, somehow target people who are actually online, and auto-link back to a fairly static porn pic page.

I've seen porn marketing MySpace profiles that are actually updated and maintained by the star herself or her images' marketers. These often have thousands of friends and profile comments and especially image comments. (for example http://www.myspace.com/jennajameson)

As MySpace cracks down on porn marketers (who aren't at least nodding to the rules) watch for more of these hit-and-run type of on-the-fly porn marketing tactics.

And watch for more friend request spam tools like the Adder Robot: http://www.adderrobot.com/ "Think about this, when you connect to MySpace... you connect to millions of people. Take advantage of this, promote your self, your band, or whatever it may be. Do it the smart way, and save time with Adder Robot!" (one of many MySpace bots...)

Here's a tell-tale ho spam friend request. Followed by a ho spam profile page with the doof bags who accepted the request:



























Absolutely nsfw profile page is: http://myspaceprivate.ebloggy.com/.

Bots and the future of social networking:
How will social networks keep the bots out? Will they start to build and enable bots for users? How many sickos troll for victims with bots? What kind of effect could bots of this nature have on attempts to derive search relevance indicators from a given individual's social network?

I mention social network spam practices in Changes in SERPs Display and Relevance Measures Will Fuse Organic SEM and PR. There I referenced The Value of MySpace, which includes blackhat discussion of MySpace porn spammers.

Are you in MySpace? Request the amazing experience of being my online friend.

update (parenthetical observation + musing):
(Sitting in coffee shop listening to college-age girl on CELL PHONE being lead through a friend's MySpace profile on her LAPTOP - and conversation's FOCUSED on the friends there.

She's asking questions and getting an overview of her friend's social network and the history of the relationships. A who's who of her friend. Social networking sites - ideally - serve to contextualize us and illustrate the connections that drive meaning. Or business, in the case of LinkedIn.)

update 2: more MySpace stories:
MySpace User Notifications in Cingular Phones (+relevance to Seach Marketing)
Yahoo MyWeb's Gonna Kick MySpace in the Jimmies (where I conflate MyWeb and 360)
MySpace Classifieds Discovered (MySpace + Oodle makes sense to me...)
Yahoo's Upcoming Assault on Mount MySpace (my thoughts upon Yahoo's purchase of Upcoming)
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |