Is "Tagged" a spam site, or what?

Alright, I took eight days off to cruise the Mexican Riviera with my family, no cell phone, no email, nada, and when I get back, both my regular email account and my Gmail account have invitations from unknown people to connect with them through a new service called "Tagged". The messages said "You've been Tagged by XX" and look like this:

I don't know any 17 year old guys named Gareth, however, so what the heck?

Logically, I click on the "No" button, since I am well aware that there are more social networks than even I can keep track of at this point, and...

On Censorship, the MPAA and the Movies...

I received an interesting question from someone and thought I'd noodle about it here on my blog rather than just in an email message. The question is from a student named Jason Miller and, as he explains, he's writing an essay on censorship of movies for his English class. After reading my article about AMC vs TCM he asks three questions:

1. Start with the basics, Do you believe that censorship is a good or bad thing and why?
2. Do you believe that the current rating system is effective in controlling what people see?
3. Should older movies be remade, edited for content or should they be left in their original form?

Inside Scoop: University of Phoenix reacts to critical NYT article

As an occasional instructor for the University of Phoenix Online and as the somewhat inadvertent host of two very busy blog entries about the experiences of being a student with UOP (see University of Phoenix Reinvents the Week. Again. on this blog and the related article on my IT Toolbox blog -- the hundreds of comments are what's different, obviously) I'm always interested in how the for-profit educational company is doing.

A few days ago the old gray lady herself, the New York Times (NYSE:NYT), published an article very critical of the University's program entitled Troubles Grow for a University Built on Profits [sub required], in which it has lots of quotable passages, including:

...many students say they have had infuriating experiences at the university before dropping out, contributing to the poor [only 16%] graduation rate.

Through a circuitous path, I have received from a Phoenix employee a copy of an internal memo from Terri Bishop, Senior VP of Public Affairs & CCO, Apollo Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: APOL) and reproduce it here. It's a telling and insightful glimpse into how the company works...

Learn Internet Marketing in Chicago at The System

Spent an hour this morning on the phone with my friend Ken McCarthy, talking about his popular Internet Marketing event The System Seminar. This year it'll be in April, in Chicago, and I'm really looking forward to speaking and hanging out with a few hundred sharp entrepreneurs.

I'm slated to talk twice at the event, once on what I call Strategic Blogging, and once on a topic that might even be more near and dear to my heart, Finding Work / Life Balance. Indeed, that's much of what we talked about on our call this morning, while my 10yo daughter lay sick on the couch just a few feet away from me. If you have a life outside of your work, you know what I'm talking about...

The good news? You can register for Ken's free interview call series and get lots of great info from an extraordinary lineup of faculty by listening to all of the calls: The System Teleseminar Series.

Keep reading, though, please, as I have more reasons why you might just want to join us in Chicago for this event...

EU makes fake blogs and comments illegal: are all bloggers liable?

In what must be one of the weirdest laws to affect the blogosphere, Slashdot is reporting that the European Union is sponsoring a new "directive" (their fancy name for a law, as far as I can tell) that will make it illegal for companies to knowingly try to deceive customers about the origin of a weblog or other advertisement.

The original article is from the UK-based Times Online and it reports:

"Hotels, restaurants and online shops that post glowing reviews about themselves under false identities could face criminal prosecution under new rules that come into force next year. Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from 'falsely representing oneself as a consumer'."

It's not the first time I have come to recognize that the EU is more forward-thinking in terms of protecting consumers than we are here in the United States, but I have to ask, is this law really necessary? What are the implications for bloggers who allow comments to be added to their blogs too?

Are you engaged in risky business behaviors?

If you've ever been in the restaurant business, you know all too well that there's no profit in food. The profit comes from the drinks, the $9 alcoholic beverage that costs them $0.80 in ingredients. Drink a few of those and not only do you significantly increase your value to the restaurant, but because your bill goes up your tip goes up commensurately and the serving staff earns more too.

Which is why you just know that the staff at a restaurant just hates to hang this sort of sign up:

How does this happen? Every time I have talked to restaurant employees about this sort of problem, it's always "because someone underage was served". And the people at the restaurant are pretty darn upset about their significant loss in income.

My question to you, dear reader, is what are you doing that threatens the long-term health of your business?

A few examples come to mind...