Comments on: Social Network Message Autoresponder

By: JTF Mulder

JTF Mulder — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:59:56 +0000

I like your “Social Network Autoresponder”, I am going to give it a try. I found this blog post by searching for some close to “Social Network Autoresponder”. I was really hoping to find software that can help manage my online social networking.

I am curious if your example is really automated or is an elaborate copy and paste routine?

By: Email vs. SNS Messaging: How We Communicate

Email vs. SNS Messaging: How We Communicate — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:46:44 +0000

[...] activity specific SNSs, but then I’d just be replicating all of the work done by Scott Beale here. (Note: if I lived in San Fransisco it’d be interesting to set up Beale and Hawk in a [...]

By: beach

beach — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:15:48 +0000

yup most kids use myspace commenting and messaging or Facebook wall posts or messages to communicate. they rarely use email.

one reason is spam. why use email address when 90% of the messages are spam? social network messaging, though crude, do a better job of not allowing spam through the door… Facebook being the best.

It’s also convenient. If i’m already on a social network, the same network where all my friends are, why would i use another system to communicate with them…

it sounds to me like you’re on too many services, my friend ;)

By: scot nery

scot nery — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:41:42 +0000

I recently tried quitting myspace because it was annoying for the reasons already mentioned and because i get distracted by videos and psuedo hot girls eventually making me decide it’s a good time for pornin’ out.

STAGE 1:
The first thing I tried was making my profile pic a bunch of text that says “I’m quitting myspace. send me your contact info” as well as using the other bulk mail options provided by myspace (bulletins & event invites) I think I got 3 responses.

STAGE 2:
send individual messages to my friends saying:
1) I’m quitting
2) there is a better way
3) this is my contact info (email, city, phone, birthday)
4) what is your contact info so we can stay in touch?

It worked great. I didn’t keep stats, but I got a bunch more responses, some through email, some through PMs and they most contained what I requested. Followed up with emails.

This attempt was painful on my wrist. It took me like 6 clicks each to check my computer’s address book, send them messages and get a thing sent. I have 500 friends whom I actually know and I got through half of them.

STAGE 3:
my final stand was to zero my myspace inbox — Going through and sending this info request message to anyone necessary then deleting the stuff in my inbox. That was much more rewarding.

Next, to make it more difficult to contact me through myspace, I put this css rule in my profile

.contactTable, .friendsComments, .latestBlogEntry, .orangetext15 { display: none; }

I put my real world contact info big and bold on my myspace page.

RESULTS:
I know that this doesn’t make me invinsible, but I haven’t gotten a message since and if I do, I won’t give them all my reasons for emailing me, I’ll take the more proactive approach of requesting their info. That way, I fill up my hungry address book and can communicate on my terms.

By: Katie

Katie — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:25:11 +0000

I’m not sure of which mobile device you’ve got, but this may apply to you:

7) Reading and responding to messages from my phone is time-consuming and frustrating, so I’m much more likely to respond if you send emails.

By: Masking yourself | Fun Anymore

Masking yourself | Fun Anymore — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:42:21 +0000

[...] But I must take exception with a recent post entitled Social Network Message Autoresponder. [...]

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:27:28 +0000

I attended a usability test the other week. One person, a 19 year old college student, said that he and his friends rarely use email any more. They just use myspace and facebook. I couldn’t understand that at all. I must be old.

By: Danny Howard

Danny Howard — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:26:57 +0000

If you’re going to build something that smart why not have it just tease out the e-mail address of the sender and relay it to your inbox, falling back to auto-responder only on those social networks that conceal contact information from you?

(Or it can even set up a fake “e-mail” service that goes and sends your reply back through the social network …)

-danny

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:59:02 +0000

Great suggestions. I’ve added a modified version of each to my list.

By: Cal D

Cal D — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:55:24 +0000

I am doing something similar, but have been hand-crafting them up until now.

5) Social networking mail systems generally have terrible editors, second only to blogs in their utter lack of usability features.

6) You won’t be unintentionally ignored when I have moved beyond the honeymoon stage with whatever the formerly hot networking system was.