Mar
06

Credit Repair With Lexington Law, Real, Honest & Up Front Review

No funny business, no pay offs and no holding back. I made the jump today, March 5th, 2013 at around 8pm CST after I called Lexington Law after nearly three months of sitting on the idea of repairing my credit. I was really inspired to give these guys a try because my brother, Jordan Mackey, used them religiously to build his credit rock solid and he definitely knows his stuff when it comes to credit and getting loans. My wife and I are getting pretty serious about getting a house in the near future and it was about time that I make sure my credit is as good as it can be so that I can get a good loan.

My Credit Score Sucks

Let’s be real honest here up front, my credit score sucks major you know what. Yes, my score is completely horrible because I have went by the motto all my life that I can just use cash to pay for everything. It’s always worked for me because I’ve been able to pile up enough cash to buy things that I need, even cars. I’d prefer to pay for everything in cash anyway, but let’s be serious. If I’m looking to buy a nice house, preferably one on the beach, I really need a good credit score. I don’t know exactly what my credit score is but I can tell you that it is about 540. I think a credit score of 540 will get you a simple laugh and a rejection when trying to get a home loan.

How did my credit score get so bad?

I have a good enough salary at work and I have side businesses with my wife that make pretty good money as well. So how did my credit score get so bad? Well the first answer to that question is student loans. When it was all said and done I think my student loans racked up around $80,000 total after interest started to add on. I had some major medical bills that were in the $50,000 dollar range from a bad leg / ankle break and lots of old debt. Now let me tell you about this old debt that has been hanging on to my ass for a very long time. Have you ever had people tell you that things roll off your credit after 7 years? Well, I’ve been told all my life that after 7 years things just magically disappear off of your credit.

The myth of the 7 year credit report roll off

So what did I do? Well when things were getting close to 7 years I wasn’t very inspired to sink in and try to pay them off or take care of them, I thought they’d roll off since I’d dealt with their pain for seven entire years. Guess what happened? You’re right, they didn’t disappear at all. In fact, from as long ago as when I was 17 years old I still have things haunting my credit report now at the age of 33 years old. How you say? Well, every time these debts would get close to 7 years old they would get bought by a new company and somehow, it seems like that 7 year limit would just magically start all over.

Fair Credit Act & 7 year Debts

Tonight I was told by the “Paralegal”, who admitted to me the title really just means he works for a lawyer and does this all day long… that those debts that have been hanging on past 7 years are against the Fair Credit Act. Now he’s no lawyer but he did instill some hope in me telling me that some of their products do in fact fix some of these issues with your credit report. Part of Lexington Law’s credit repair services are to make the Credit Score companies – TransUnion, Experian and whatever the other one is verify your debt. At the Concord Premier level the company agrees to also dispute the items on your credit to the lenders and creditors as well.

Sending in credit response communication from the mail

It was interesting, I was told that I need to act as fast as possible and help Lexington Law fight my case by taking any letters and communication that come in the mail and getting copies to them. They ask you to agree to forward on all communications from Credit Reporting Agencies as well as lenders, bill collectors and other agencies representing your debts. Apparently they use this information to respond quickly and more precisely with the type of communication that companies are sending. Time is really of an essence when you’re repairing your credit report, I’ve been told by Lexington Law and my brother, because most companies, credit report companies and debt collectors have a 60 day period to respond to Verification / Verify Requests given to them.

Deceiving Tricks, Be Careful

I will admit one thing that may make me look a little stubborn, which I am. When I called Lexington Law the first time tonight to start my credit repair process I ended up letting the first agent I talked to go. Everything was going fine as he asked me to tell my story, tell him why I wanted to repair my credit and asked me other questions like what I was planning on doing, how my credit got to where it was etc etc. First of all, the guy’s speech wasn’t that incredible and his name was Xavier. I will admit, I judged the book by the cover from the beginning. I really wanted the most professional and adept person possible dealing with my credit and getting it repaired. When we started talking about the plan options the agent from the Law Firm told me that the Premier Plan was the best plane because it was the only one that Intervened with companies and credit agencies like TransUnion & Experian.

Real difference between the different priced plans

This is where I started to get pretty frustrated. When I’m dealing with my future, my credit and getting things set straight I need honesty, integrity and full details that are precise. You see, the deal is, I’ve been toiling on repair my credit seriously since I submitted a request for more information from Lexington Law in December 2012. I’ve read their information, sales literature and plan options many times and I knew what I was getting into on top of talking with my brother in depth about the process. So, when the first Lexington Law agent repeatedly told me I would only want to get the Concord Premier plan because it was the only plan that included Goodwill Interventions, Escalated information requests and Debt Validation, I was peeved. I told the credit repair customer service rep that I was well verse with the plans and was looking at the website online as we talked and that he was lying to me and that the middle level plan which was only $79.95 a month also included the same things he was touting. I told him it looked like the Premier plan just included a lot of monitoring tools that seemed like unneeded fluff. His response to me was, “So you don’t feel like you need these tools to monitor your credit?” My response to him was basically that I didn’t care either way but that I had lost any trust in him because he had been straight up lying to me about the plans and I couldn’t complete a business deal with someone that was willing to lie to me to make a sale. I told him politely that I was going to have to let him go and that I was very disappointed. The agent politely replied and said that he really apologized for misleading me and wished me good luck and to have a good night. He was kind and let me go after that.

Back to Square One, Called Lexington Law Again

After I quit being a big baby and sat there for a few minutes griping about it to my wife, I realized I still needed to repair my credit. As upset as I was, I really need to get the ball rolling on improving my credit score because time is NOT on your side when you’re repairing your credit. The law provides for 60 days response time to companies responding to their Debt Validations requests alone, so just that part will take 2 months. So I sucked it up and called back Lexington Law and started the process with a new agent again giving the my name, date of birth, address, situation and eventually social security number. I told this agent that I expected them to be very thorough and that I had already talked to one agent that night and that they really irritated me by lying. At this point the new agent was very descriptive in what all plans of service include at Lexington Law. The credit repair service levels all include a first work fee that is $99.95 to start the letters and work towards creditors to get them to verify debts. There is a Regular Plan that is $59.95 a month, a Concord Plan that is $79.95 a month and then the big daddy Premier Plan at $99.95 a month. All plans include the $99.95 fee.

The Hidden Fee Lexington Law Charges You

There is a fee that no one tells you on the website or in any sales information that you’ll be paying until you’re almost at a point where you can’t turn around. I was told that Lexington Law has partnered with TransUnion to provide a credit report to you but this does not come free. I asked if they were partnered why I was paying for it and also if I could go get it for free myself, why did I have to pay them for it? They replied there wasn’t any way around this even if I brought them the report myself. To be honest, once again, it really sounds like a load of bull hockey if you ask me, just another money grab to nickel and dime you. I had been getting my credit reports from Free Credit Report dot com for nearly 6 months before that. I was paying a pretty low fee then. Anyway, I finally agreed because what am I really going to do, at this point it’s just another fee. The fee for the TransUnion Credit Report is $12.99 which really isn’t exactly the industry standard because you can typically get all three for free every 6 months to a year. When I was agreeing for the umpteenth time that they could pull my credit and charge me I heard them rattle off a company name something like Progression Marketing as a 3rd Party agent between Lexington Law and TransUnion. If you ask me, it doesn’t sound like there is a direct relationship but some type of affiliate relationship between Lexington Law and this marketing company <rolls eyes>. Whatever, right? I know that I’m picky but you know what, I’m paying good money for this stuff and I want it to be right.

More Updates Coming On My Credit Repair Case Study

I’ll continue updating this tomorrow after I’ve had some sleep. Needless to say, my credit repair is an adventure. I’ll tell you from beginning to end where I end up and if I was able to increase my credit score. You won’t have to spend the money and watch me gamble away my hard earned dollars and see how well this works. I chose the Premier Plan… if I’m going to try this out, I’m going to do it right. Here we go!

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Aug
20

Who does Facebook think you are searching for?

I found this article mentioned on Mashable. This information and process will allow you to see who Facebook thinks has the closest connections to you. This shows your historic activity with people on Facebook over time and orders all your friends by the amount that you stalk them. This data could also be effected by how often they stalk you as well. I would like to preserve this information so that everyone can learn the behind the scenes Facebook tracking that goes on. I pulled the Google cache version to get the article below. Also included are backup copies of the Javascript that is requesting information from Facebook’s first_degree.php file.

If you are coder / programmer and can make the data file you get from Facebook display a more user friendly view of their friends and First Degree Index rankings let me know! I’ll be messing with it the next few days to get it working as well. If this is properly working you’ll be able to see which friend’s Facebook is putting prominence to in your Facebook News Feed, associated rankings, values and tokens they have attached to them. This is a complete reverse engineering of Facebook’s feed algorithm. Very interesting stuff! :)

Latest UPDATE (easiest way to get this data):

First you need to get your Facebook Numeric ID. You can do that by visiting link #1 below. You’ll need your vanity name for Facebook. The next thing you’ll do is use link #2 to enter in your ID # into the URL to pull your entire First Degree relationships in order. There is a possibility that the output will give you an error because your Facebook is being accessed with HTTPS, if you see https://www.facebook.com then you’ll need to change your Secure Settings in Facebook. To do this go to this link and disable secure browsing: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=security

1. Get your Facebook Member ID # HERE
2. Get your Facebook First Degrees Data file HERE

Once you have your Facebook Data file you will have a lot of strings of data, the order of the people are the people that Facebook thinks you stalk the most. Each person is given an Index Ranking Number. Typically you have a very strong connection and stalk people that are in the NEGATIVE index numbering. For instance a -14.5230519 would be an incredibly high stalking rating. My high ones start at -1 and go from there. The higher the positive number the less of a First Degree’s connection that person and you have.

If you look beside people’s names they’ll have a field called tokens. If you take any of these words and put them in Facebook search it will bring up their Facebook profile.

My next task is to find something that will clean up this data for your easily and make it more readable in a pretty way. :)

Below is the original article & comments:

Have you ever wondered how Facebook orders your search results? Clearly they have some ordering about who they think you are looking for, and they seem to guess pretty well. I can only guess, but it seems like they order it based on who you interact with, whose profile you look at and who you have recently become friends with.

Well Facebook gives explicit numbers to the directed edges (connection going from you to your friend), about how much they think you are looking for this person. I wrote a bookmarklet that makes it easy to see this list. Although you already know who you look at most, it is eerie to see the list they have come up with—and the numbers they give. The more negative the number, the more Facebook thinks you are looking for them.

To try it out, just drag the image here up to your browser’s bookmark bar. Then go to Facebook and click the bookmarklet. More explanation below.

Note: This is really interesting, but may be embarrassing to you.

Facebook Friends

Try dragging this link if the image doesn’t work for you.
Facebook Friends

Tested on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. If bookmarklet does not work on chrome, just try creating a new bookmark with the javascript as the url.

(Note: If you have https on, it won’t work. You can disable it temporarily by going to Account Settings/Security/Secure Browsing.)

How We Discovered this Link

We were working on our autocomplete search for the website we are building this summer called raunk.com and we were wondering why our autocomplete was so slow. If we typed fast, we could type faster than the results would show up. I thought, “Maybe I just type really fast, faster than the results can load.” We then checked Facebook. If we typed faster than Facebook autocomplete then it had to be okay. Well we started typing, and no matter how fast we typed, they already had results showing up.

How did they do this? Were their servers just that much faster than ours? (They are that much faster than ours.) But what turned out to be the difference was this file that they were preloading called first_degree.php. If you open up the Network panel in the Chrome Inspector or Firebug, you can see this file being requested asynchronously. Select XHR to only see AJAX requests.

First Degree Example

Well in this file there is a lot of great information. It’s just JSON. There are probably two files, one which loads your first degree friends, and one which loads your “first degree” pages and events. Well if you open up the JSON file you will see, an ordered list of who Facebook thinks you are looking for.

Basically, you will find a list which is mostly who Facebook thinks you are Facebook stalking. And if you expand the entry you will see a field called ‘index’. ‘index’ is the number they give to that edge. The lower the number the earlier they show up on your search results.

And this stuff is all client-side, so it is all visible to you, and most likely will be for quite some time. This list is surprisingly interesting to check every now and then, and it will make you wonder how their algorithm is working and how those people go there.

Other Interesting Parts of this File

If you look a little more at this file you will find lots of other interesting information. There is an optional field that shows up in some results called ‘tokens’. This ‘tokens’ field stores common aliases to your friend’s name. For example, I have a friend named Michael, and his tokens says ‘mike’. My brothers is named Zach, but his tokens says ‘Brother’. Under Daniel it has ‘dan danny’. So look through the tokens, and find a friend who has a token that is not all close to his or her name. If you search it, you’ll notice that your friend will come up. That’s how it works. These are just common aliases for the name–not ones specific to your friend.

How the Bookmarlet Works

Here is how the bookmarklet works: It creates a script element on the page, gets a javascript file from my blog, and this file makes a request to the file first_degree.php with the correct parameters, and then it displays the results formatted nicely on your page.

This entry was posted in Computer Science, Internet and tagged ,  by Jeremy Keeshin. Bookmark the permalink.

112 THOUGHTS ON “WHO DOES FACEBOOK THINK YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR?”

  1. Really neat, thanks for diving in and explaining this so well.

  2. Wow very nice work…embarrassed to see that i am stalking my old college friend for such a long time any ways nice work

  3. Hi,
    I’d like to interview you for PCWorld. WOuld you like to answer some basic questions on the information stated in this article?

  4. very impressive! i love how it works!

  5. I’m not certain, but in my list, it looks like some of the ranked names are friends of my friends who were looking at my page, as opposed to me looking at them.

  6. FYI
    I ATTEMPTED THE DRAG AND DROP. IN CHROME THE DRAG AND DROP WORKED BUT WOULD OPEN. IN IE8, THE DRAG AND DROP DID NOT WORK FOR ME.

    CANNON

  7. well it only worked once, can’t get it to work again, what do the numbers on the right side mean?

  8. Mauro Balbino on August 18, 2011 at 5:48 am said:

    Well done, guys! Wonderful job!!

  9. Oliver on August 18, 2011 at 5:51 am said:

    Nice find! If you can work out how they come up with these numbers, that would be amazing.

    Things that seem very likely to me:
    - The list is based on quite recent interactions
    - It seems to matter a lot more if you visit someone’s profile than if you just reply to something on your newsfeed
    - Facebook doesn’t care if you’ve blocked someone from your newsfeed (in fact, this seems to help: Andy isn’t on my newsfeed because he spams like crazy, I go to his profile once in a while to see what he’s been up to, Facebook see that I like going to his profile)

    What I’d like to know:
    - Does mucking around with photos etc matter?
    - Does the ‘friendship’ page matter?
    - Does my rating of someone effect their rating of me?

  10. Did not work, I have https enabled by default, so Chromium blocked the insecure request. Enabling the loading of insecure content I still got errors:

    XMLHttpRequest cannot loadhttp://www.facebook.com/ajax/typeahead/search/first_degree.php?__a=1&filter0=user&lazy=0&viewer=number_censored&token=v7&stale_ok=0. Origin https://www.facebook.com is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin.
    edges.js:39Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘payload’ of null

    • That’s cause if you have https turned on, facebook with block the http-request. The request for the first_degree.php is done over http, and is thus blocked by facebook.

  11. Pingback: Here’s How To Reveal a Secret Facebook List of People You’ve Been Stalking | TechKawn
  12. Pingback: Here’s How To Reveal a Secret Facebook List of People You’ve Been Stalking

  13. This is very embarrassing.

  14. Jeroen on August 18, 2011 at 6:13 am said:

    Awesome, nicely done!

  15. Didn’t work on chrome

  16. Pingback: Browser Extension Reveals The People You’re Most Active With On Facebook | TechCrunch
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  19. Brilliant! How about the other way round, who are looking at our profile, like many spams use the trick to spread their virus…??

    • yourprofileon August 18, 2011 at 10:56 pm said:

      I have no proof, but I thought that others have said (maybe even FB) in stories about those scams, that that info is not kept, or at least not available at the browser end at all.

  20. Error on Chrome 13 on Win XP:

    Uncaught ReferenceError: Env is not defined
    (anonymous function)

    line 22 of edges.js

  21. Pingback: Bookmarklet Reveals The People You’re Most Active With On Facebook | Redwood Falls News

  22. Nice Bookmarklet. But you should mention that it works only if you switch secure browsing (https) off at your facebook account security-page.

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  25. Sidrah Zaheer on August 18, 2011 at 7:26 am said:

    Hi,

    Thanks for discovering this Facebook stalking measurement tool. I wonder if it will stay there.

    And you, despite being referred to on Mashable, have no comment here. Will you be deleting me too?

  26. cool stuff. great post.

  27. Freakin brilliant. Nice hack. Not sure if I agree with results 100%, but there’s certainly some degree of accuracy.

  28. hahaha.. It shows my own name in negative and all others as positive. Wonder that that implies eh :-/

  29. Pingback: Bookmarklet Reveals The People You’re Most Active With On Facebook | Delano News | Delano Local News

  30. looking at ex girlfriend isn’t the best thing? :)

  31. Would it be possible to get this data for users through their API (for use in app development?)

    Or is it already possible and I’m missing something?

    Thanks
    Jan

  32. Pingback: Bookmarklet Reveals The People You’re Most Active With On Facebook | Orono News
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  34. Simply put – you’re awesome! Thanks for sharing this.

  35. Pingback: Here’s How To Reveal a Secret Facebook List of People You’ve Been Stalking (Mashable) | News Bulletins

  36. Didn’t work for
    Safari 5.1 (6534.50)
    Opera 11.01
    Firefox 4.01

    Worked for
    Chrome 13.0.782.112

    All on Mac OSX 10.6.8

    And thanx, interesting info

  37. Pingback: Come scoprire quali sono gli amici di Facebook di cui leggiamo più spesso i post e i commenti. | Guadagnare con Adsense
  38. seesky on August 18, 2011 at 9:49 am said:

    Excellent ! merci

  39. Pingback: Bookmarklet Reveals The People You’re Most Active With On Facebook | Ebay shopping tips
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  41. totally cool. why would it be embarrassing though?

  42. curious on August 18, 2011 at 11:21 am said:

    oh god is there a way to delete this?!

  43. You are GOOD. Thanks for sharing

  44. Pingback: Bookmarklet Reveals The People You’re Most Active With On Facebook | BEERtainment.tv
  45. Pulque on August 18, 2011 at 12:13 pm said:

    It seems to be very heavily weight towards recent as well as recurrent look-ups; people who sprung up on my newsfeed this morning whose profiles I checked out for the first time in years are in the top ten.

  46. I have 2 duplicate (it looks like) lists. Problem is, a lot of these people are not even on my friends list nor have I ever looked at their profiles nor do I even know who they are. It must be 2 sided. People who are also looking at my profile. Just an FYI

  47. Henry M on August 18, 2011 at 12:34 pm said:

    It appears the list also shows who has looked at you, as people i have never looked at appear on my list!!

    • I agree, it seems to somehow blend some of my recent lookups with searches by complete strangers I never “touched” on FB.

  48. Sander on August 18, 2011 at 12:37 pm said:

    Nice job. Doesn’t work when secure browsing is enabled in Facebook though.

  49. Pingback: ??? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ???????? | ????? ????

  50. You could make this work in https on by changing the requested url on runtime. Instead of doing $.ajax({url: “http://www.facebook.com/ajax/typeahead/search/first_degree.php”}), you could use window.location.protocol in place of the “http:”, so just call $.ajax({url: window.location.protocol+”//www.facebook.com/ajax/typeahead/search/first_degree.php”})

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  52. Interesting to see that the list contains both people that are not my Facebook friends (and that I haven’t searched for etc).

    Recency gives high ratings as a friend I connected with only yesterday is high in the list although that is my only interaction with her (haven’t seen a status or even looked at her profile yet).

    Nice work!

  53. This has to be 2-sided. People I never heard of and never visited their profile are showing up in my list. A little more investigation shows them as friends of friends or in some cases co-workers.

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  56. John Martinez on August 18, 2011 at 2:37 pm said:

    NICE! Of course, I have very few friends on Facebook (<100), so the top of my list is the usual suspects. The bottom of the list has a whole bunch of people I don’t know…

  57. This is very interesting, and I’d love to know how they calculate this. Great find!

    There was a random person that appeared quite high up (at #50 with a score of ~0.12), so that I had never heard of – I checked her page and we had 10 mutual friends. I’m wondering if this is maybe a result of her recently checking my page (perhaps I was recently one of her ‘suggested friends’), or because other friends have recently added her, as I know there are plenty of other people with more mutual friends that weren’t anywhere near as high up in the list.

  58. There is definitely something going on with the names with the numbers above 1.0

    Id like to think that Facebook wouldnt actually have a “who is visiting your profile” anywhere near client side given all the scams. My guess is this has to do maybe with people they think you might want to be connected with?

    But just looking at my list there is a clear demarcation between >1.0 and <1.0 for the index.

  59. Pingback: Lista secreta revela o seu lado Stalker no Facebook; veja o tutorial aqui! | InsideTechno

  60. It seems to be ranking people that you recently interacted with much higher, so either the dataset is limited to recent activity, or it is time-weighted somehow.

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  63. Thingamijigga on August 18, 2011 at 6:52 pm said:

    Damn, I need to stop FB-stalking my hot mechanic.

  64. Pingback: Here’s how Facebook keeps track of who you are stalking | ZDNet
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  71. This is great, though to get it to work I used Firebug. I opened the console, then the command line and executed basically your code:

    var script=document.createElement(‘script’);
    script.type=’text/javascript’;
    script.src=’http://thekeesh.com/js/edges.js’;
    document.getElementsByTagName(‘body’)[0].appendChild(script);

    And it worked like a charm.
    Very nice hack!

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  77. The list doesn’t make a lot of sense. The top few are correct, but after that it doesn’t make much sense. The order is all wrong

  78. Think about it dude. “Graph” API. Edges. Nodes/vertices. A discrete mathematician’s or computer scientist’s wet dream, to fiddle with these things and play god and architect how people interact online. Of COURSE they measure all of this shit… they run the servers. They serve the pages. They write the scripts. They maintain the databases. They can do pretty much whatever they want save for reaching out and touching you.

  79. Shocking, but not surprising results when I thought about it a little. It looks like some of them ranked higher from viewing lots of photos.

  80. Bit more insight, someone who I know reasonably well in real life but have no mutual friends and I am sure that I have never looked for (didn’t even know full name) appears near the bottom (top? highest number) on the list. So others searching you must have quite an effect.

  81. suspicious on August 19, 2011 at 2:52 am said:

    Can you please post the source of the javascript file from your blog that it runs? I’m not running unknown scripts on facebook.

  82. Thanks very brilliant!

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  90. I don’t think it is showing other people that have looked at you. The people at the top of my list have all participated in conversations with friends I have interacted with recently. This list is friends, and friends of friends and also friends adding new people to their lists. There is a particular person high on my list that a lot of my friends know and they have been adding him, because it appears as “friend has added” regularly on my news feed this is why they are high.

  91. Pingback: Secret file shows how Facebook ranks search results | The Secret – news and articles.
  92. Daniel on August 19, 2011 at 11:45 am said:

    Works very well with Windows XP Home. Firefox 6.0.

    Order and content of the list makes intuitive sense. A friend-of-a-friend, whose music I like, whose page I just looked at, is at the top. Friends I have not looked at for a long time are at the bottom. Fascinating.

  93. sre sre on August 19, 2011 at 12:46 pm said:

    what does the numbers mean?

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  95. john smith on August 19, 2011 at 1:45 pm said:

    How can I restore the settings?
    This turned out to messup my FF, Chrome and even Safari. I cannot access to FB anymore. All I get is an incomplete initial page loading screen with all the layout dispersed.

    Help anyone?

    Mac OSX 10.6.7

  96. Robert on August 19, 2011 at 1:49 pm said:

    Boo, does this not work anymore? I tried the bookmarklet and pasting the javascript into a new tab and…nothing.

  97. Pingback: There’s A Way To See Who You Stalk On Facebook – COUNTRY 107.7 WGNA-FM
  98. Pingback: Want to See a Secret List of Who You’re Stalking On Facebook? It’s Easy . . . And It’s Not a Scam

  99. I doubt the accuracy as there are people in there whom i hardly see on FB even! The 4th person on my list i have commented on once and he is not even really active, or in any case i cannot remember the last update he had on FB. Whereas my boyfriend is number 3 only….i am tagged in pics with him, emailed with him, commented on his status and we both wrote on mutual friends’ walls… how can it be that he ranks only one place higher then this guy i have been in touch with on fb perhaps once??

  100. Pingback: Friday Social Scoop #7 |
  101. Pingback: Facebook venner… | Lars Rønning

  102. How do you do this with Internet Explorer?

  103. I have also figured out some Facebook hacks.. I have complied code to allow you to inject a song into your status update ON YOUR MAIN PAGE… No stupid App pages… I can also inject flash games into status’s as well as “shout boxes” which in turn can connect to a blog for twice the hits…..
    Proof on my blog…
    jonnyf5ve.blogspot.com

    Nice find though J

 

Categories: Hacking
Tags: , , , ,
2 Responses
Jan
23

HP Warranty Scam

I just purchased a new HP Computer about a week ago and was excited to a have a powerful Desktop Beast again. I’ve been using laptops for the last few years and finally decided we needed a stable workstation that can handle a lot of automated processing, home media and other things. This morning I logged onto our awesome HP Computer that has a 27″ monitor, I know, it’s more like a TV, hah… anyway, I was greeted with a notification to complete my HP Warranty Status. I clicked the button and sent HP some private information that it claimed would help me. After a couple minutes I got a message pop up which I am providing in a screenshot below that told me that my warranty had started on 7/16/2010 and that my warranty would end on 8/9/2012.

HP Warranty Scam

HP Warranty Scam

What is crazy about this is that I just purchased this PC on 1/10/2011 (the day of my Birthday) at Costco here in Overland Park, Kansas. Yes, I still have my receipt and no it wasn’t a used computer, it wasn’t a rebated computer and it wasn’t some refurbished computer either. This was a fresh brand new computer from Costco.

I decided to immediately take care of this and contact a support representative at HP through their HP Support Assistant program. I will post for your enjoyment and your consumer warning my conversation with the HP Support representative named Regina. One issue I found annoying right off was that each time you send a chat message you have click back into the window to chat. Incredibly minor but certainly a pain in the butt, who designed this chat?

Regina went on to tell me that I would have to mail in proof of purchase to HP in order to receive my full warranty. You can see in the information below from the chat all the information I have to include to HP to have them authorize my new warranty period. The problem is, when I purchased this computer I filled out all that information to register the computer with HP and my warranty.

How and why would my brand new computer already be activated? Well Regina told me it was because, and I quote: “The issue could be due to activation made by the Computer Center earlier. Do not worry, the issue is resolved, as we have a separate POP team to verify the entries and rectify it.” I was told that Regina and HP were sorry for the inconvenience of this issue. My response was: “It’s not inconvenience it’s theft and scandal. This is not something you can say sorry for. You’re a corporation ripping off thousands of customers a day. You’ll be exposed for the shit service company you are.” I’d say this smells like an HP Warranty Scam.

If HP Computer does this to every single customer, or heck even if they just do this to 10% of their customers do you realize how much money they’re saving? They could be saving millions in warranty repair and service issues. Just systematically reduce people’s warranty by 6 months and you save millions. Brilliant!

I was told by a guy named Brad on Twitter his opinion of this issue at this tweet: http://twitter.com/#!/Wopatoolie/status/29250149955932160 which stated “#SCAM your pc was returned to be fixed previously and replaced by hp w another one; typical ‘fix’ – reboot entire OS. return it.”

So this raises the question, what is my issue? Was my computer preused and then sold as new? Was it a refurbished computer? Is this standard HP Computer Center practice to pre-activate computers? All I know is that if this is even happening to 5% of customers only 20% of those customers are noticing or taking care of this issue. HP is counting on people being lazy or stupid and they save millions of dollars. I’m not sure what your idea of a scam is but I’d say this fits nicely into the corner of scandal and scam.

If you love HP and think I’m being harsh, feel free to comment and let me know about it. If you hate them and are being ripped off be sure to leave that as well.

In search for the keyphrase I thought I should rank for, I found this interesting conversation about extended HP Warranties and how HP rips people off with these, interesting enough for a good read if you plan on purchasing an HP Computer. You can read it here: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware/How-can-you-get-HP-to-honor-its-warranty/m-p/402261

I will give HP props on this, at least they allow negative information to stay on their HP Forums. Maybe they’ll stop scamming people. I’ll update you on HP takes care of this issue after I’ve taken pictures, faxed copies, spent money, wasted my time and begged HP to give me the warranty that I’m owed. I paid nearly $1400 for a new desktop PC and have to spend more money and time now that I own it. Brilliant! I love big corporations and their red tape, scams and fine print.

If you would like to talk to HP directly in a public place and hold them accountable for any issues you’re having, feel free to talk to them on Twitter in a public setting at:
http://www.twitter.com/HP_PC

Read the HP Warranty Scam chat below:


[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:07 PM] — Automatically generated message:
Your support request has been submitted and is in queue. Please wait momentarily while the system connects you with the next available support specialist.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:12 PM] — Automatically generated message:
You are now chatting with support specialist Regina S.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:12 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Hi Regina

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:12 PM] — Regina S says:
Welcome to HP Total Care. My name is Regina. Please give me a few moments while I review your problem description details.

NOTE: For security reasons, PLEASE DO NOT send credit card information via chat

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:13 PM] — Regina S says:
Hi Joel, how are you doing today?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:13 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Not to bad. :)

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:14 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
I’m submitting a Support Request because I just got a notification of our warranty and it makes no sense whatsoever. We have had this computer for 1 week, bought brand new from Costco.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:14 PM] — Regina S says:
Let me try my best to ensure we resolve this issue together so that you feel better.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:14 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
The warranty states it started on 7/16/2010 and ends 8/9/2012.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:14 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
I’d be very short of calling this a scam.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:14 PM] — Regina S says:
Do not worry, let me check the warranty status as per our record

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:15 PM] — Regina S says:
Please confirm if the serial number is MXX0270BFG

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:15 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
How do I confirm that?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:15 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
I don’t know what the serial # is. Where do I find it?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:16 PM] — Regina S says:
You can also press Ctrl + Alt + S (simultaneously) on the keyboard to get these information regarding your computer.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:16 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
I just saw that # on a sticker on the side of the computer.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:16 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
The serial # is correct.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:16 PM] — Regina S says:
Thank you for the confirmation

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:16 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
This chat is horrible. Once I send a message I have to click in the chat window again to continue sending another message.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:17 PM] — Regina S says:
I am sorry to know about your recent experience with the issue and the chat tool. HP values you as a customer and we would like to assist you. I will forward your feedback and suggestions to the concerned department.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:17 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Thanks. :)

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:18 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
And the warranty?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:19 PM] — Regina S says:
Please provide me 3 minutes while I check the details

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:19 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Ok.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:21 PM] — Regina S says:
Thank you for staying online

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:22 PM] — Regina S says:
May I know the date of purchase of PC?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:22 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Looking for the receipt.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:22 PM] — Regina S says:
Okay

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:24 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
January 10th, 2011 was the purchase date.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:24 PM] — Regina S says:
Thank you for the information

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:25 PM] — Regina S says:
Joel, as per the record the start date of warranty is 07/16/2010 and end date is 08/10/2012

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:25 PM] — Regina S says:
So, I request you to send the proof of purchase to our POP team

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:26 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
That’s fucking crazy. Scammy service.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:26 PM] — Regina S says:
I request you to fax or e-mail the proof of purchase (pop)/receipt. Please fax or e-mail the pop to the following options.
Fax: 1-800-563-4860
E-mail: hp.pop@mail.support.hp.com
NOTE: Hard Copy of the Receipt must be attached.
Along with the fax or e-mail, please include the following:
* Name of the owner:
* Phone Number:
* Physical Address:
* E-mail Address (Optional):
* HP Product Name:
* HP Product Number:
* HP Product Serial Number:

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:26 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
I’ll bury you on Twitter and make you look like the scam you are.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:26 PM] — Regina S says:

We will update your registration information within 48 business hours from the time the fax or e-mail is received and then process the order for parts/service.
NOTE: If you have e-mailed your proof of purchase, you will receive a notification once the update occurs. If you fax the request, no response is given. You will only be notified if there is a problem with the warranty.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to you in this regard.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:27 PM] — Regina S says:
Sorry for the inconvenience caused

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:27 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
It’s not inconvenience it’s theft and scandal. This is not something you can say sorry for. You’re a corporation ripping off thousands of customers a day. You’ll be exposed for the shit service company you are.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:29 PM] — Regina S says:
The issue could be due to activation made by the Computer Center earlier. Do not worry, the issue is resolved, as we have a separate POP team to verify the entries and rectify it

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:31 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
This issue is not resolved. You’re forcing me to take my valuable time to fax something, pay for the fax and send you information that I should not have to bother with. I bill at $35 an hour and this will take at least 2 hours. Nothing has been resolved you’re still ripping me off with my warranty until I prove to you that you’re scamming me. How many unsuspecting victims are either too stupid or too lazy to take care of their warranty like I have to do? This is what HP is counting on, customer lazyness or stupidity so that they can scam people out of their warranty. COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:32 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
What this also tells me is that my computer is not brand new and someone else was using my computer before I paid full price for it.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:35 PM] — Regina S says:
I understand your concern.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:36 PM] — Regina S says:
I do apologize for the situation you have been put in, but these are the things which don’t happen every time and I’ll make sure it won’t happen again by making a proper note and send to the concerned department

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:38 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Don’t bother, I’ll let the whole world know with a blog post and daily scheduled tweeting to my 97,000 followers to reveal that HP is scamming US customers out of their warranty. I don’t need your help or scammy service. Tell that to the concerned department.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:39 PM] — Regina S says:
I understand how important your valuable time is. Let me help you take care of this problem in the best possible way. Please send the proof of purchase and we will make sure that these kinds of issues will not be repeated.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:41 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
I can take a Twitpic.com of the receipt and then it takes me less time. But that would be too easy for me. You’d rather me jump through hoops so that the probablity of me STILL getting scammed out of my warranty is higher. You’re not helping me, you’re scamming me. I’m the one that is helping myself.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:41 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
I’m done with this conversation now. Bye. You can enjoy the firestorm at http://www.twitter.com/webaddict

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:42 PM] — Regina S says:
Alright

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:42 PM] — Regina S says:
Please let me know if you need any more clarification

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:43 PM] — Regina S says:
I appreciate your efforts in resolving the issue by yourself.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:44 PM] — Regina S says:
Let’s hope things get better and everything gets resolved.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:44 PM] — Regina S says:
However, if you send the proof of purchase, we’ll go ahead and set things right for you immediately.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:45 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Things can’t be resolved because me getting my warranty fixed is not the problem. It’s the scam you have going on with your warranty program. That’s the problem. Theft of warranty from thousands of unsuspecting customers. I’ll get my issue fixed, guaranteed.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:49 PM] — Regina S says:
As informed, we have a separate warranty rectification department. And, it is due to the activation issue and the PC is not used one, but it is just due to the activation that is done at the Authorized Computer center. However, this is not a theft or not scam. It is not a HP policy to scam the customer with the warranty program. HP provides a best service to the customers and we are here to assist you better.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:51 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
So HP sends every computer to an Authorized Computer center before they ship to the stores to make sure that they authorize the computer before it’s purchase date so that customers are scammed out of their warranty? Why would you activate my PC 6 months before anyone had purchased it? What is the reasoning behind that?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:53 PM] — Regina S says:
It is not with all the PC getting activated, and we have a separate warranty maintenance department to verify the functionality of the PC etc and done for some genuine purpose. However, for more information, you can check with our Proof of Purchase department on this

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:57 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
What I’ve been told is that this computer was used, returned and then HP has now sold a used & repaired piece of shit to me for full price at Costco. Is this true?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:58 PM] — Regina S says:
Joel, may I know from where you were given the above information?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 12:59 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
From someone that had a similar experience with HP. They are sharing their nightmare story with me on Twitter @Wopatoolie

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:00 PM] — Regina S says:
Okay. In this case, for more information, I suggest you to contact our POP team, as they will provide you with all the details, why the warranty of the PC is pre-started before PC purchase or our phone support

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:01 PM] — Regina S says:
HP Phone Support :
1-800-474-6836 / 1-800-HPINVENT

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:02 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
So you want me to talk to someone that is trained in disceiving me into believing that there is some plausible reason that HP has stolen my warranty? I’m done talking with anyone from your company that is going to waste my time and cost me more money and headache. Instead, I’ll expose your scammy scheme. Have a good day!

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:07 PM] — Regina S says:
To get the proper and true information which is not done with the thought of reducing the actual warranty period, I suggest you to contact the concerned department, as we do not have much information on the warranty details, as we are dedicated to HP Desktop technical support team

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:09 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Well I’m pleased to be speaking with someone that has not details on the warranty when the option I selected was for the HP Warranty. I see that your customer support is effecient and properly organized… wait, no it’s the opposite. This makes no sense. You don’t have to chat with me anymore. I’m just keeping this window open so I can copy all the statements you said into my blog post. Feel free to move on to the next customer.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:10 PM] — Regina S says:
Alright

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:10 PM] — Regina S says:
Is there any other technical issue related to HP Desktop I may assist you with today?

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:11 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
Am I talking to a robot? What I just said above would answer that question.

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:13 PM] — Regina S says:
It was a great experience and pleasure working with you. Hope, you have a nice weekend. Please make a note of activity id: 8761838 of this chat session for your reference

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:13 PM] — Regina S says:
Thank you for contacting HP Total Care Real-Time chat support. If you need further assistance, please contact us again at:

http://www.hp.com/support/chat

Chat support is available 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Please take the time to register your HP product and the products Care Pack at:

Registration: http://www.register.hp.com

Care Pack registration: http://www.hp.com/go/hpcarepack/register

For information on keeping your HP and Compaq products up and running, please visit our Web site at:

http://www.hp.com/go/totalcare

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:13 PM] — Joel Mackey says:
That’s what she said!

[Sunday, January 23, 2011 1:17 PM] — Automatically generated message:
The support specialist has closed your support request.

Update as of January 25th, 2011:

I received a private DM from an HP Twitter account about 3 hours after Tweeting and posting this blog post: @MarkatHP that said “Hi Joel. I will personally look into the issue you had w warranty. What’s the best way to reach you?”

I responded with some contact information and Mark responded, “thx”

On January 24th, 2011 I received a phone call which I was unable to answer because I was at work and didn’t have time to talk with a support rep for hours about my warranty being automatically reduced. In the voicemail I was provided a case # of which was a different case # than what was provided to me above in the chat with the HP representative through online chat. I now have two case #’s with HP.

I called HP back January 24th, 2011 to speak with Keith at 5:30pm CST (their support office closes at 6pm PST (1 1/12 hours later than time called). I used his extension but he was busy talking with another customer. The gentleman I was talking to informed me I couldn’t speak with anyone but Keith and that Keith would call me back. I’m still waiting for another callback but I’ll need to wait until after work today to take the call or call them back.

Latest Update:

This post has got a lot of attention & definitely deserves an update. HP did finally contact me and work with me to correct my warranty. I was given a “warranty extension” on the warranty that was listed for my computer. The extension really gave me the warranty that I deserved when I purchased the HP Desktop. All told I spent multiple times on the phone with HP Support Reps, answered several calls, answered emails, signed papers that came in the mail and really went through a lot of hassle to get something I should have had up front. Did HP finally provide me the warranty that was supposed to be provided with my computer? Yes, on paper I have a full warranty now. I shouldn’t have had to go through all that.

I can also say that I do believe I probably got more attention than normal because I do have a lot of followers on Twitter. I also have quite a bit of knowledge of SEO and have had no problems ranking for HP Warranty Scam and HP Scam. This post will now always serve as a collection of unhappy customers with HP and their warranty services. As you can see there are more and more commenters below sharing their horror stories with HP Warranty Services.

My last laptop purchase was an ASUS due to my HP Warranty experience:

Would I buy and HP again? Possibly, but it will take a long time before I do. I just recently purchased a new laptop and I ended up getting an ASUS N53SV-XV1 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop (Silver Aluminum) and I’m really happy with it. ASUS service was quick, spot on, customer service is easy to deal with and I got extended warranty’s through Square Trade.

Great analysis on this subject from a Communications Consultant:

I had a comment left by a man named Tim Dawes which linked off to his website where he did a play by play analysis on how the customer and the customer service representative ran into issues. In my opinion, Tim did a great job of breaking down the situation and finding some flags and important points where the customer service problems could have been improved or done differently.

You can read more of Tim Dawes’s post titled: Joel Mackey’s HP Warranty Scam – Customer Service Script Gone Bad

I have to admit, here in America in the land of the lazy, when people call customer service they expect a bad experience. You expect long hold times, complicated menu’s and most of all, people expect to speak to a foreigner that calls himself Bob and tries to communicate with them on a local level. The reality is, people are fed up with this crap and the companies like HP will suffer as they “save costs” and dish up shit service to everyone with made up personalities and infinite circles of imaginery problem solving.

What I have been trained to do in America when calling customer service is to press 0 as many times as it takes, talk directly to supervisors and not the front line customer service rep and to get pissed off and yell at them. Sad but true, huh? I’ve been trained to be an asshole to get stuff done. What is the result? Short wait times, resolutions and instant connection to people that can actually solve the issue. Customer service is a joke in America anymore and if you want to get what you want, be prepared to, “fight for your right, to parrrrrrty.”

Categories: Consumer Info
Tags: , , , , , ,
30 Responses
Jun
18

MP3, MPG, Horsepower

MP3, MPG, Horsepower … yes, that is the message that Chevrolet wants to be in your mind when you think about the Chevy Cobalt SS. I was watching the Kansas City Royals game and an advertisement that was essentially a web browser was the entire feature of the ad. In big clear letters the search in the search bar (which didn’t look like Chrome, IE or Firefox) was, “MP3, MPG, Horsepower.”

MP3, MPG, Horsepower

Chevrolet Cobalt Turbocharged Coupe in Victory Red

Chevrolet Cobalt Turbocharged Coupe in Victory Red - MP3, MPG, Horsepower

Being a geek, a SEO guy (search engine optimization) I was tempted enough to pull my laptop over and type in the search keyphrase. Sure enough, “MP3, MPG, Horsepower” pulls up Chevy’s page featuring the Cobalt at #1 which you can find here.

But what has my wheels turning is the safety of allowing your brand to lie in the hands of an organic search on Google. I can assure you that I will most likely now rank for this keyword. If I were Ford Motor Company I could post a webpage with the Mustang which gets 31 MPG. If I were a disgruntled Chevrolet customer who had his car completely fall apart after the warranty was up I could post a blog post and tell everyone about it. I could piggy back on the marketing budget of Chevrolet to spread a negative message about them. Lucky enough for them, I’m not.

Blackhat SEOI doubt you will see this as a long term trend in marketing. It is just too dangerous and uncontrollable. However, I think it’s creative, cool and fun. Way to go Chevrolet. By the way… would you guys like to provide me a free Chevy Cobalt SS that is Turbocharged? I’d be more than happy to provide videos and how much fun I was having with it right here. <wink wink>

Peace, Love and Chicken Grease,
- webaddict

webaddict

Categories: Marketing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1 Response
Jun
12

The bizarre surge in #WorldCup USA media coverage

Do you really care about the World Cup?

Well, do you? I mean don’t get me wrong, Soccer is fantastic and I’m sure there are TONS of people that love it. But historically I don’t remember so much discussion, chatter and news media in your face coverage about soccer or the World Cup. My analysis below is going to prove to you something is seriously abnormal about the US news coverage of the World Cup.

I did do some research and have to admit, I’m a bit shocked to see the search term “soccer” is about as popular as “baseball”, <GASP>, what has come over you America? Must still be ticked off about the baseball strike, right? Still a Google search for “America’s Past Time” and guess what you get…Uh huh, Baseball!

So really nothing looks out of the ordinary looking at the previous graph from Google Insights. However, when you dig in to the World Cup Google Trends data you will notice two things that seem to pop out at you. One, already the term “World Cup” is trending higher in searches more than it ever has except in 2006 when the Germany World Cup was REALLY interesting for some reason or another.

World Cup Trends in the media

World Cup Media Volume Trends

The big one here though is the absolutely MASSIVE media coverage being given to the World Cup. Yes, yes, I know my Photoshop skills are worse than a 1st grader but I did my best, okay? See my pretty yellow arrow? That arrow is pointing to the secondary Google Trend that shows News / Media outlets pushing out drivel on the World Cup.

Now don’t worry, we aren’t done here yet. Let’s look at another media microscope tool to see the news volume, where it is, where it’s going and what is really going on here. Now we’re going to look at the News / Media outlets actual publication in Google’s News database that include the word “World Cup” from 1930 – 2010. This one is a little more telling as it does show a progressive climb of the media distribution. Instead of the World Cup Google Trends data above which shot up in a crazy way this year, this shows an even stair step build into the progressive trend.

World Cup News Volume

World Cup News Volume

A friend of mine on Twitter had this insightful theory as to why everyone is talking about the World Cup which I have to admit, I agree with.

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/searchguru/status/15966477314"]

Okay, I promise this is the last geeky trend graph we are digging into, thanks for sticking with me. What you are looking at below is the two search trends of “World Cup” and “Oil Spill.” Notice that they both spike at the same time. Coincidence? Maybe! This one possibly shows some type of correlation with the media wanting to talk about something else than the oil spill. I know, correlation not causation but you can comment about it and rip me apart, fair enough?

World Cup and Oil Spill Gtrends

World Cup and Oil Spill Search Trends

So there you have it. The truth is, I’m still clueless why everyone seems to care about the World Cup this year and the media is talking about it so much that it doesn’t even compare to the Superbowl or World Series. Something is up and it just may be that they need a new cash cow. Talk about the World Cup enough and maybe the ratings will increase?

On a typical day on Twitter I can usually ask a question and get anywhere from 10 – 30 responses. Tonight? The crickets were chirping. But I did have some great buddies and smart people respond. Here are the responses to my original tweet which will be posted first!

Please leave me a comment here and tell me if your fascination with the World Cup has increased and why you think the media is pushing it so hard!


[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/webaddict/status/15966015904"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/ejw70/status/15966579662"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/d_Arc/status/15966667877"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/MichelleBatDell/status/15968800175"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/maximonos/status/15972679391"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/ssblackman/status/15972699284"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/Naughty_Jonny/status/15972755013"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/cindyoyo/status/15972821387"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/TrinaMb/status/15973357006"]

UPDATE: I wanted to add a quick note to let you know that all data and graphs above were obtained under United States data and analysis. Other country data was excluded except on the comparing Google Trend analysis of World Cup & Oil Spill!

Categories: Culture, Entertainment, Internet, Social Media, Sports, Twitter
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