Lose access to your MySpace profile email address? Send a "salute".

Uh…a salute?

No, not that kind. I recently let a domain expire that I wasn’t using and like a boob, I didn’t update my MySpace email address before it expired. Woops! No big deal, right? I’ll just send in a support request and get the email updated. Not so fast. Apparently, if you don’t have access to your old email address you have to send a support request with a “salute”.

What is a salute? According to MySpace:

To create and send a salute here’s what to do:

• Create a handwritten sign with the word MySpace.com and Include your MySpace Friend/Profile ID number. (Your friend ID is the number  after “&friendID=” in your profile’s web address/URL. If you can’t login, you can get this info by clicking on your profile)

• Get a picture taken of you holding the handwritten sign. Be sure the photo is clear and the handwriting is easy to read. If we can’t read the information and see your face clearly, then we will ask for another salute. (If you do not have access to a digital camera, please consider the accessibility of disposable cameras and digital film processing available at most drug stores)

• After you take the pic, send us an email to help@support.myspace.com with the salute attached.

That’s not a bad idea if you don’t have access to your old email address *and* you don’t remember your password. But it makes no sense if you’re logged in. Just because you don’t have access to your old email address doesn’t necessarily follow that you forgot how to login to MySpace.

MySpace, you should let people submit support requests for email address changes while they’re logged-in so they don’t have to create a salute. As “stylish” as the salutes are, requiring them in every case, is completely unnecessary. Seriously, imagine me posing for a salute pic. Ew.

MySpace’s support nomenclature, FTL!

Is anyone even using Myspace anymore other than bands, filmmakers, emo kids, or Lori Drew?

Brooks Bayne – Still Missing In The Twitter Public Timeline

Either @brooksbayne has set twitter to private mode (hiding all messages from public view), or the messages between these users were so far apart in time that we couldn’t connect them.

…or he has NOT set twitter to private mode and he’s still missing from the public timeline.

What if a liberal who worked at Twitter got offended over something you posted and decided to censor you?

What if?

I’m gonna let some of you in on a little secret. I’m a conservative, recovering Libertarian, and self-described Independent. I don’t live in a bunker in some far away “Hickville”. I live in Los Angeles. I’m sure some of the liberals reading this know that L.A. is in California, but, if at the time you’re reading this, you’re too stoned to know, let me assure you that it is.

During the 2008 election cycle, I (@brooksbayne) made some new friends via Twitter – I also made some new “not friends”. Since the election’s been over, I’ve unwittingly become the resident and leading conservative in the L.A. tech scene (does that come with a door prize?). I’m not dogmatic about my views when I discuss issues with the other side. However, I’ve been told that I can be snarky.

One fine morning, about a month ago, a liberal mommy blogger got pissed off at some harmless Motrin ad posted sympathizing with babywearers about potential neck and back pain that wearing babies can cause. This liberal blogger posted some emotional nonsense on Twitter which was subsequently picked up by Jessica Gottlieb (@JessicaGottlieb) and the #MotrinMoms hashtag was created. Feeling quite pleased with herself after her initial #motrinmoms post, Jessica posted this:

Aw, cute, I just wanna pinch her little cheeks. I wonder if she talks to her kids this way while she’s wearing them.

FYI, I really don’t have anything against Jessica, or the aforementioned blogger, but I do think they were overreacting. Apparently, corporations can’t say *anything* about fads without getting unduly slammed for it. That’s right. I said fad. Although there are a few younger conservative women who may have been offended it seems a majority of the uproar was from the liberal corner. I asked my 5000 followers on Twitter, many of whom are conservative, if any were offended by the motrin ad. The only responses I got from my conservative mom followers were “No”. I do know of one young conservative mom who was offended, but she only repeated the #motrinmoms talking points.

You see, babywearing has been around in the conservative circles for many years, and in some cultures it’s been around as long as people can remember. Take a look at the photo below, dated 7/8/1996. Here’s a American conservative wearing a baby over 12 years ago…and it’s a man. Some of you might be thinking, “Damn, Brooks, you must’ve spent a long time trying to find this photo of a male babywearer predating the current babywearing fad on the Interwebz.” Well, actually, for those of you who know me can tell, that’s me in the photo along with my son right after he was born. Yeah, I know a thing or two about babywearing. Back then, the liberals I knew thought we were crazy for babywearing. My, how things have changed. As a babywearer, if ever there were an issue that could be described as a tempest in a teapot, it would be the motrin babywearing ad.

“But Brooks, you can’t say this is some new fad.”

Yes we can!

Let’s take a look at the evidence of how babywearing has trended.  We can examine the 3 top resulting websites on Google for the term “babywearing” and the history of their content.

1. By Google search rank:
   babywearingconference.com – registered 05-jan-2007 – content shortly after.
2. thebabywearer.com – registered 23-jul-2003 but no babywearing information until September of that year per the Internet Wayback Machine.
3. babywearing.com – registered in 30-jul-2001 *but this domain originally pointed to another domain that had *nothing* to do with babywearing when it was registered. In fact, there’s no babywearing information for this domain until late 2004 per the Internet Wayback Machine.

Next, we can look at Google’s blog indexes to gauge the propagation of the term “babywearing” in the blogosphere.

Google blog search has a whopping 5 blog posts indexed between January 2000 and the December 2003. However, from the January 2004 thru December 2007 over 12,000 blog posts were indexed. In 2008 alone, there have been over 35,000 blog posts indexed.

So, based on the above information, we can see the babywearing trend didn’t really get under way until 2004. Where we see a huge upswing in the stats for the term babywearing is in 2008. I wouldn’t say babywearing has “crossed the chasm” just yet.

I know, I know, you’re wondering what this all has to do with the title of this blog post.

Well, the last tweet of mine that was available in the public timeline and in http://search.twitter.com was my snarky tweet in response to the whole overblown Motrin ad debacle. See for yourself: http://search.twitter.com/search?from=brooksbayne

Obviously, as a man who’s been a babywearer for longer than most of these newer upstart women babywearers, I think I would have a valid opinion about the hype over this. However, since posting that tweet, my newer tweets have not been posting to the public timeline and my posts are missing from search too. My Twitter account isn’t hidden/protected by me because you have to select the “protect my updates” checkbox to hide your profile. Mine’s not checked.

I first noticed something was up because I used Qwitter, now defunct, to let me know when people stopped following me. Days went by and all my Qwitter emails referred to that older #motrinmoms tweet of mine. Qwitter would list the last tweet you posted when someone quit following you. Since this was the last tweet of mine that was posted “publicly”, all my Quitter emails referred to it until the time Qwitter had it’s plug pulled by its devs, Contrast. I contacted the guys at Contrast. Here’s that exchange.

I’ve submitted 3 support requests to the folks at Twitter, but they haven’t responded. Twitter did respond to another unrelated support request within a couple days and resolved that issue. Interesting to note is the support request I submitted for this issue. Look at the the line marked (by me) with the red arrow in the pic below where it says “USER IS hidden on public timeline”. My account is obviously not hidden by me. A normal hidden account looks like this secondary account I created: http://twitter.com/bbayne. My primary account isn’t hidden by me. So, how did my account become “hidden” in the public timeline?

I’m one of the the Top Conservatives on Twitter and I can’t post tweets with that group’s hashtag: #tcot. I mean, I can add the hashtag to my tweets, but if any people want to follow that hashtag using tools like Tweetdeck, they won’t see my tweets, because Tweetdeck searches hashtags in the public timeline.

It’s purely coincidental that my last post in the public timeline was regarding #motrinmoms, right? Although, theoretically, it wouldn’t be difficult for the devs to create another Bit column in Twitter’s database and keep people’s posts from hitting the public timeline and search by marking them hidden behind the scenes, but that would be censorship. Is @brooksbayne being censored by a liberal at Twitter who is sympathetic to the #motrinmoms? I have a feeling we’re about to find out.