YouTube Marketing & Spam Concerns

There was a time I seriously considered getting out of the software business. Too many folks were taking multisocket myspace friend adders that could do things like add 500 friend to an account in about 4 minutes, spamming the hell out of the site and, basically ruining it for the legitimate MySpace users.

I have many, many famous customers. Folks who’s names you know, who’s movies you’ve seen and music you’ve heard. Folks who’s comedy has probably amused you. These guys used friend adders because it’s simply IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with the load on their accounts by hand. They’d use Badder Adder to send event invites to their friends when they were in an area and doing a show, they’d comment the people who’d added them as friends with a “Thank You,” they’d use that auto-accept friend request feature to go accept the thousands of friend requests they received per day.

They used MySpace exactly as MySpace intended – to network. I know some of them who had accounts closed, tripped by an overzealous spam filter. They were reinstated and told it’s ok to continue using the bots. MySpace knew they’d leave without the automation a bot provides, as they simply wouldn’t be able to keep up. MySpace didn’t hate the bots. They hated the mortgage, “male enhancement,” camgirl and profile tracker spam.

Then, of course, was my less famous customers. About 85% of them were in the entertainment industry and just trying to get a leg up. They used Badder Adder in much a similar way as the ultra-famous did, but on a slightly smaller scale. It managed their fanbase and helped them keep in touch.

With MySpace being a social networking site, it’s perfectly legitimate to add friends, even if you don’t know them. And once you have friends, it’s legit to comment them about what you’re doing and send them event invites & messages.

I was forced to close Badder Adder because of the few that ruined it for the many, and it’s a shame because my customers were not spammers. I wish there was a better way to differentiate genuine users from those that are legit. I wish that legitimate users who need the help of a bot to manage their fan base still could do so without fear of losing their account.

Enter Tubeinator – a product that raises many of the same questions about YouTube.

I know my customer base for Tubeinator will be similar to my customer base for Badder Adder. They will be entertainers and educators trying to get the word out about their work. They will be real people, providing real content.

I was looking at YouTube’s TOS, and while I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on the internet), I thought the following was interesting:

E. Prohibited commercial uses do not include:

uploading an original video to YouTube, or maintaining an original channel on Youtube, to promote your business or artistic enterprise;

So, it’s clear to me that YouTube has no issue with using video to promote oneself or one’s business. Plus:

You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, “robots,” “spiders,” or “offline readers,” that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser.

This is particurally interesting, as they are specific in saying that the “robots” can’t go faster then a human would in a conventional browser.

Because Tubeinator is based on a conventional browser and will only move as fast as one’s internet connection and YouTube itself, it only moves as fast as a human can. To add a friend with Tubeinator you have to go through the same pages as you would by hand, the buttons have to get clicked and so on.

I feel like YouTube has a much more realistic view of what their website is about and what people use it for then MySpace does, and I think their TOS reflects that.

So yeah, I thought about getting out of software.Â No matter how cliche it sounds, I get emails every single day from people wanting me to listen to their music, check out their website or otherwise hear their message.Â And you know what?Â A lot of it is really good, a lot of it deserves to be seen.Â I’ve heard too many success stories from customers to stop; I’m very proud of what each and every one of them does and want to see them continue.

Besides, video is the new wave of the internet, even John Reese says so.Â