Mike Vallez

App Marketing

Market Your App or Fail…Not Necessarily

by Mike Vallez on May 7, 2012

A recent article by Sean Ludwig at Venture Beat, based on a survey by App Promo laments that 59% of iOS (Apple Platform) developers don’t generate enough revenue from their app efforts to break even. Unfortunately, Mr. Ludwig did not correctly analyze App Promo’s survey results since the 59% of developers includes Android developers as well. Further more, after investigating the App Promo’s survey I found that only 102 developers were queried for their stunning results, again a mix of iPhone, iPad, and Android developers. The questions that made up the survey apparently were multiple choice and were based on general, revenue/download, and marketing areas. While the survey is at best sketchy, App Promo is an app marketing company, which unfortunately appears to have an ulterior motive — marketing apps for iOS developers and Android developers. The below infograhic is a quick look of the App Promo survey (via App Promo).

App Marketing

While there is no doubt that the iTunes App Store of 2012 is nothing like it was back on July 10, 2008, indie developers should not be frightened off by Mr. Ludwig’s incorrect assesment or App Promo’s developer survey. For starters, there is always going to be a viral app success in the iTunes App Store whether it’s due to sheer luck, great app concept, or other intricacies that don’t include marketing budgets made up of thousands of dollars. Besides the viral effect, there are several questions raised by this scary survey. Most developers only need a Mac ($1200) and to be registered as an Apple developer ($99) to create and publish apps in the iTunes App Store. Was this survey a determination of one’s value for their time or investment dollars (you know real cash) used to create an app for the cost metric? I tried to access App Promo’s survey to see the questions, however, the survey is now closed and all 102 results (both iOS and Android) are confidential. While I am not refuting what App Promo states, and actually agree that marketing is necessary for developers, I have seen some very big success from indie developers’ efforts with very little investment other than their time, such as Chad Towns and his iPhone app Doodle Army

Chad published Doodle Army in 01/2010 and since doing so has had approximately 2,000,000+ downloads. Funny thing is that Mr. Towns to date has spent approximately $200 total in marketing this app and that was after the app had been live in the iTunes App Store for one year. Sure he has poured many hours of  his own time into this app and much of that only after the app realized success. Nonetheless, if Doodle Army had failed he would have been out only the cost of his time and a few hundred bucks. Another early iTunes App Store success is Steve Demeter and his app Trism netting him $250,000 in 2 months time. It is said that Demeter worked on the his app part-time after work, again costing him his time and $99, as I am guessing he already had a Mac. While these success stories are not the norm, there are plenty of developers who have and are making money from their app development. However, app marketing is going to continue to be a huge problem as well as a threat to the indie developer.

The iTunes App Store top 200 paid and free is filling up with large corporations apps who have huge calculated app marketing budgets to keep their apps in the top spots for both the free and paid apps using mobile advertising, banner ads, and their own large app communities. This will continue to increase as the money continues to be spent by app customers, which is not expected to peak anytime soon especially as mobile evolution continues. It does not take a rocket scientist to determine that if the top companies can pay their way to the top 200 paid and free spots, this limits the opportunity for an indie to get their app in a visual location to chart better. While the indie developer is not going to be a thing of the past, they will face increased and potential unstoppable competition.

For indie developers, there are several things that they can do on the front end of their app development to increase their chances of success. First, create a unique value proposition for your app that is timed right, well developed and not an after thought app being pushed to the market too early or incomplete simply to try to hit the lottery. Second, there is always the publishing option. If your app is a cut above the rest, you can potentially work a deal with the ever increasing app publishing houses that are popping up like pimples on a teenager. Although, you can expect to give up another 1/3 of your revenue, but 1/3 overall is better than no thirds. Third, seriously consider a marketing budget and strategy for your developed app using any and all free and low cost Guerrilla marketing tactics to gain awareness (social media, app community, forums, etc). Lastly, and very grass roots, indies need to start working together and quit thinking that their app idea is top secret or could not be better without collaboration. Try pooling your time and talents with others, graphically, creatively, etc. where each gets a percentage of the app revenue. This is a great model to realize reduced cost/loss and increased probability of success/revenue.

The iTunes App Store is turning corporate and has been from the beginning, which is only going to make it harder for the indie (little guy) to scrape out a big win, but don’t believe everything you read, even if it is from Venture Beat. If you’re looking for an indie friendly iPhone, iPad, Android, or Mac advertising option, be sure to check out CrazyMikesapps’ App Advertising for a quality custom app demo, social media marketing, and traditional web marketing — all for one low price. Also, tell us about your iOS app success story or fail — we would love to hear it. Is Venture Beat 100%  on this one?  Do you feel App Promo’s survey is legit? Tell us!

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Describe Your App..Before Others Do!

by Mike Vallez on March 27, 2011

app marketing

The number one location developers have access to to sell their applications is their app’s description in iTunes, the Android Market or another app market. Since iTunes is the largest we will focus on how iPhone and iPad developers can successfully use their app description to convince users to buy their app. Here are four tips on how to better compose your app description to increase your app sales.

1) Don’t be shy: This is where you the developer pull out all the stops and describe every feature of your app. Now, this does not mean be over technical and provide a description that only developers would understand, but think in terms of features. Explain what your app does and how it is going to make the users life either easier or more enjoyable (if a game). Be sure to boast about your app and don’t be shy to talk it up about your app. One key point, don’t make claims about your application that are beyond what your app is capable of doing. You will be called out faster than you can imagine in the user reviews if you make this mistake.

2) Honesty: Transitioning from the last point mentioned above, be brutally honest with your customers about your app whether good or bad news. For example if you become aware of an issue with your application and it is something that will take an update to correct then a good practice is to place a statement top of line in your description notifying customers you are aware of the situation and working to correct it. This does a couple things immediately. First it builds trust with your customer base and second this helps you to manage your customer service efforts better. The first place customers will go when their is a problem with their app is to the description to look for the support or customer service link. While working their way through the description they can see that you are aware of their issue and rest assured your are working to fix it. Here is an example of how to write an issue into your app’s description: “We are aware that the application crashes when trying to use the online co-operative game play mode. We have fixed this problem and have submitted an update to Apple. This issue should be resolved in 4 to 7 days.” This keeps users informed and reduces the number of nasty emails in your customer service inbox. You should also be honest about good news about your application, such as being featured in Apples New & Noteworthy or What’s Hot areas as this mentally helps users to make a purchase of your application because if Apple says your app is good then it must be worth purchasing.

3) Use your description space: All too often I will see an application description that is maybe a hundred words and usually bulleted. These app descriptions are usually confusing to me and I consider myself to be somewhat app savvy. Imagine how a casual app user feels when they go to purchase an application and there are 2 sentences in the description and 5 bulleted features with little clarification as to why users should purchase X app. This is a classic failure to communicate to potential customers what your application is all about. If your app has no features and only can muster 2 sentences worth of description than fine. For most apps this is not the case. Don’t be lazy with your application’s description and be sure to take your time to write a thought out description with the following parts: 1) Intro/teaser- critical information about the application that can stand alone if necessary 2) Body- bulk of description with features, reviews, in depth app history, developer history or any other information that is interesting about your app or that could help sell your app. 3) Links/Customer Service- Be sure to provide links to reviews that have been completed on your application. Include YouTube videos and if you do not have a video of your app in action consider having one made by CrazyMikesapps or another reviewer. Although, links are not hyperlinked in the description they are still relevant and can be cut and pasted from the web browser version of your applications iTunes description. Finally be sure to provide app support and or customer service website links for all of your applications. There is nothing that will hurt an application more than if there is a negative issue with an app and there is no way to inform the developer.

4) Ask for feedback: One of the very best places to get honest information about your application is from your customers. Think of this as your best focus group possible. Why? Because your users have either downloaded your free app or purchased your paid app for whatever reason, most likely because your app either solves a problem or provides enjoyment. Ask your users for tips on how you can make the app better. You will typically get solid feedback, which can help you make future versions of your application better. Additionally, ask users what other features/game play they would like in your application. Sometimes they may provide you with development ideas you may have never considered. Be sure to give your customers credit if they give you a development idea that you use and it makes your app better. Put a shout out in your “Description” and you will win over a customer and show other customers that you listen to customer feedback, which builds trust.

The app description is the #1 place to convince and convert app browsers to become customers. You can do this by providing a thorough explanation of your apps features, game play, provide industry review teasers, customer service promises, links to videos and anything else you can think of that helps to describe your application and what your app does. If your app description is lacking change it today and see if you can convert more app browsers into app purchasers. MV

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mobile video

Is your organization ready for the mobile video explosion?

by Mike Vallez on November 13, 2010

A recent article by GoMo News, “Mobile video use explodes for YouTube” is very telling about the increase of mobile video consumption. Even more telling is a recent article by YouTube’s own blog, “Great Scott! Over 35 Hours of Video Uploaded Every Minute to YouTube.” It is rather apparent that we are in the midst of a video content creation explosion the likes that this world has never seen. This may sound dramatic, but lets look at some of the stats these two articles present.

-75% of YouTube users say mobile is their primary way to access YouTube
-35 hours of video uploaded a minute, equates to 2,100 hours of uploaded video in an hour
-50,400 hours of video uploaded daily to YouTube
-70% use YouTube’s mobile site a least once a day

The increased mobile use and the increase in upload of video content goes hand in hand and you can see that YouTube, the worlds largest video social networking site and second largest search engine continues to grow. Some reasons for the increased upload of videos are the increase in length of uploaded videos by YouTube, the continued technological advances in mobile handsets (iPhone, Droid X, etc) and portable video devices (Flip, Kodak, etc.) as well as the increased use of YouTube’s api allowing for upload of videos from other social networking sites, video games, and other online communities. But what does this mean for corporations, law enforcement, and people in general?

One of the biggest issues that corporations, law enforcement agencies, and people are going to have to come to grips with is that video will soon be on the web as fast as Tweets. Now this is already happening to a certain extent with more tech savvy social networkers, but prepare yourself for the masses to become instant reporters of police brutality, poor product performance, failed product performance, poor service and the list goes on. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube continue to change the way people consume information, but if you notice YouTube videos are shared on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, email, blogs, etc, which allows for continued growth of mobile video consumption and content creation.

Is your organization prepared to deal with the ramifications of the video world? I would like to hear from you if you are experiencing challenges from the new video age we are living in. mike@michaelvallez.com.

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mobile media

Android Bar Codes Make App Downloads/Purchases Seamless, Why Isn’t Apple Doing This?

by Mike Vallez on October 11, 2010

Being a “Fan Boy” of gadgets, mobile devices, and technology overall I was extremely impressed when I scanned an application into my Android “Droid X” smartphone the other day. This was by far one of the coolest things I have experienced since becoming a “technology geek.” The technology is a 2D bar code similar to the bar codes on most products we purchase at stores, but there is a twist. This bar codes is made for cell phones/smartphone cameras. There are several of these types of bar code formats as follows: 1) Semacode, QR Codes and Data Matrix (Wikipedia) which are optimized for cell phones. Here is how it works. I downloaded the CNET Scan and Shop onto my Droid X. Then I went to appbrain.com and selected an application, any one will do. You then take your scanner app open it up to the scan functionality and hold it up to your computer screen. The CNET app makes the sound like you hear at the supermarket during checkout and you are asked if you want to download the application. If it is a paid application you will have to go through the purchase process, but if not you tap install and the app is downloaded onto your device.

mobile media

This technology has been around for awhile and In fact I even saw this at Best Buy yesterday while walking down the main isle in the store. Best Buy was using the these bar codes for information on DVD’s and CD’s. In the not to distant future you will be using this at Walmart, Cosco, or any other store to scan your own retail items to determine the cost of those items. More than likely you will be purchasing products at your favorite stores and checking out on your smartphone before you know it. Use your imagination and you can quickly see how powerful smartphones will be as their cameras and overall functionality increase. MV

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social media and law enforcement

Bill Bratton Delivers At 2010 Wired Business Conference

by Mike Vallez on June 22, 2010

I had the opportunity to attend the WIRED Business Conference, Disruptive by Design, on Monday 06/14/10 as a guest of Altegrity Risk International (ARI) Chairman Bill Bratton. He was one of the featured speakers at this conference. WIRED magazine is one of the most respected technological magazines of all time, and is touted as the first truly on-line international publication. Naturally, they are a good fit to oversee a conference focusing on the disruption of current and trending technologies.

Bill Bratton did a live interview during the conference… live in the fact that it was posted and sent out to all of WIRED’s subscriber and partner networks. As one of the nation’s most renowned law enforcement leaders, due to his success in both NYC and LA where he served as police commissioner and chief of police respectively, Bill Bratton was a natural choice for a conference of this kind. The main reason? A great deal of his success was due to crime busting system he pioneered called CompStat. CompStat is an analytical solution that provides real-time intelligence to law enforcement personnel in the field, and in the patrol car, so they can attack hot spots of criminal activity. As Chief Bratton explained how he used “push-pins” and “transparent charts” in CompStat’s early days a hush fell over the tech savvy crowd. Bratton then detailed how in the early 90’s he began to use a top-of-the-line computer for the day, which he purchased from Radio Shack. It was a Commodore 640. This drew applause from the audience and marked Bill as “one of those pioneers of the good old days.”

The method of attacking little crimes in neighborhoods is one of the CompStat systems key components and a big reason for the success of this law enforcement, crime busting ideals. During the interview with Chief Bratton, WIRED contributing editor Noah Shachtman, who also works at the Brookings Institution, kept prodding Bill with questions about the authenticity of the data surrounding CompStat. Shachtman directly asked the Chief how he could be certain the data was not being manipulated. Bratton, hesitated for just a second then replied that they “killed anyone who manipulated the data.” The auditorium erupted in applause and laughter, an outburst from the audience that had not been seen or heard at the conference.

Bill Bratton did an excellent job of demonstrating how “old school” police work with an analytical and accountable system better known as CompStat has effectively reduced crime. One of the best compliments Chief Bratton received was from WIRED Senior Editor Jason Tanz, who sat next to me during Bratton’s interview. Tanz at one point mentioned to me “this guy is great.”

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US Gov’t Pro Social Media, Law Enforcement Asleep At The Wheel!

by Mike Vallez on March 29, 2010

The US Department of State has jumped into Facebook amid a growing number of federal agencies that are doing the same. Other federal agencies involved in social media are the National Security Agency, US Army, US Navy, US Coast Guard, The White House, and many others. The federal government is clearly becoming a leader in communicating their message through “social networking” sites. But is the federal government setting the standard on how to be involved in “social media?” How about from a national security perspective? There are not a lot of private national security companies for obvious reasons. However, law enforcement is in the business of national security particularly post 09/11. So why is law enforcement so slow to respond to the obvious?

The obvious is that social networking sites offer law enforcement a new way to communicate to their consumers, constituents, and others. The “others” category is a group of people who transcend the the geographical area of a law enforcement agency and consist of web users, the world wide web. Typically law enforcement only communicated to their local citizens by television, news paper, or radio, which was geographically limiting. The web allows for a much broader audience even an international audience. Additionally, it must be assumed that a certain percentage of a law enforcement agencies local constituents are also involved in social networking sites. But, why would a law enforcement agency care to broadcast information to anyone other than their local citizens?

Because prior to the “blow up” of social networking sites in the last few years the web was primarily a reference tool to gather information and was not used as much for “social” online communication. The change in culture that has occurred is epic and is not a fade. People are consuming news from Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and other websites that were not typical news outlets, but are now. We all can agree that how people are accessing information has changed. A quick stat that supports this, “more than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week” on Facebook (Facebook Statistics). It is no wonder the federal government is getting on board with social media. By setting up communication channels on social networking sites they are to reaching out to a growing number of people who are gathering information from places like Facebook and Twitter and not from newspapers or television.

Hopefully law enforcement will see the value in getting their message out through social networking sites. Be it a press release, wanted person information, missing person information, crime prevention information and so on. The US government has invested in communication through social networking sites, specifically from a national security perspective maybe law enforcement will take this cue and get involved as well. Just to be fair, not each and every law enforcement agency is oblivious to using social networking sites. There are some using social networking sites to further their communication, however, in general law enforcement has not overwhelmingly jumped into the conversation just yet. Mike Vallez

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Department of Defense social media policy change on social media Five-O

DoD Takes On Social Media | Gets All Branches Under One Policy

by Mike Vallez on March 5, 2010

The Department of Defense has implemented an encompassing “Responsible and Effective Use
of Internet-based Capabilities Policy” last week to get everyone under their large umbrella on the same “social networking” use page (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/Pentagon-Loosens-Reins-Over-Use-of-Facebook-Twitter-Web-20-Apps-448094/). As one could imagine the DoD was going to have to do something sooner than later to get the different organizations under their jurisdiction under the same policy.

The trouble began last year when the US Army banned the use of several “social networking” sites for their organization. The US Marines followed up with a much harsher version as I wrote about in August of last year “Marines Ban Social Media, But Can They.” The Marines banned the use of all “social networking” sites from all US Marine network computers.

The DoD is the protector of the United States of America and the job involves at most times a high level of secrecy and security around operations, procedures, and intelligence. Naturally, the banning of “social media” by the various organizations in the DoD was as a precautionary measure to protect national security, i.e. the United States. But, apparently after some study and consideration the DoD feels comfortable enough to allow use of “social networking” sites by their massive employee base.

Could the DoD successfully, have banned social media? Perhaps, but policing this would be a very difficult process, one that might take up an inordinate amount of time and take away from the more important mission of protecting the this country. The policy allows for use of “social networking” sites, wiki’s, etc, but there is some wording that allows the DoD to put the “kabash” on” social networking” if necessary. The cause for revoking “social networking” access is mostly common sense based on abuse or “bandwidth” issues.

I applaud the DoD for stepping up and taking the “social media” bull by the horns. An organization this large, especially one that deals in national security may have just set the standard for “social networking” use for the rest of the government and private sector. It ought to be interesting to see how other agencies, corporations, and other government entities deal with the same issue, people using “social networking sites” at work. MFV

http://michaelvallez.com

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Post image for pleaserobme.com | Post Status Updates to Twitter at Your Own Risk #safety #crime

pleaserobme.com | Post Status Updates to Twitter at Your Own Risk #safety #crime

by Mike Vallez on February 26, 2010

Neither Mashable nor pleaserobme.com are fresh on the scene with the common sense notion that criminals are just now getting active in social networking. Criminals have been using social networking sites as a form of communication in their criminal enterprises as well as a place to cultivate job leads (crime leads for those who did not understand that statement).

We are all adults here and common sense should, should tell you that there are a lot of “creepy” people on the world wide web (even if you can’t see them). Have you ever bothered to turn on the “who’s near me” or “location” function on any social networking app for your iPhone or on the computer? You will be surprised how many people pop up near you when you are online. I have done this in Tampa and thousands of people were near me and online at the same time. I guess because all of these people are on Twitter and Facebook that they are like me (law abiding citizens) and okay, WRONG!

So what, who cares who is near me! Okay, lets do some deductive reasoning. How many burglars work 9 to 5 jobs? answer 0 (valid). How many sex predators have been cured? answer 0 (valid). How many of the people viewing my location preferences could be criminals or seeking to be involved in criminal activity? answer everyone who can view your location or status update (valid). Don’t be lulled into thinking that because you cannot see a criminal that they don’t exist. You can say to yourself that “that will never happen to me,” but ladies don’t put a status update at 2:00am while at a bar and think you are safe. Being a former policeman I can tell you a rapist is looking for a “crime of opportunity” and hanging out in an entertainment district for intoxicated females is a no brainer, let alone “here I am over here” status updates.

The real bother about the pleaserobme.com website is the so called “public service” value this website is lending to the web community. They tout that what they are really doing is a public service, but from a law enforcement perspective their website offers “zero public service” usefulness. Yes, the user updates are on available on Twitter, but to RSS feed catch them into a website and head the feed category “new opportunities” and “recent empty houses” is pretty disgusting. Mashable bought into this websites intent and lauded them, or at least appeared neutral to the websites purpose. Their purpose “The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information.” If everybody can get it, then why provide it to the criminal and make their criminal activities easier to research? Why name your website pleaserobme.com, which shows as #2 for “Rob Me” search parameters in Google? I can’t seem to connect the dots on this one.

Eventually a crime is going to occur and the criminal will confess that he used pleaserobme.com to commit a burglary, worse a rape, and worse yet a child’s murder. I guess pleaserobme.com will use a public relations campaign as follows: “this information already exists on the web and we in no way encourage criminal activities by posting peoples status updates on the web. The fact that a criminal used our website to cultivate a victim for a heinous crime is unfortunate.” (lawsuit) As new media unfolds opportunities to exploit others information go unchecked because there is no law designed to deal with these new issues. Personally, I feel the owners of pleaserobme.com are just trying to make a buck and they really don’t care if anyone gets hurt in the process. CM

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Facebook Fan Page Basics-101!

by Mike Vallez on December 2, 2009

Facebook is the largest social media community in the world! In fact, I am sure most of you have heard that Facebook would be the third most populated country, if it were a country. So if you are a business, law enforcement agency, or anyone selling anything you should have a Faceboo Fan Page. Just to give you one more statistic if you’re not yet buying in. Facebook had just under 130,000,000 million unique visits for October 2009 and 2.5 billion visits overall. That last stat was “billions.” One last reason to set up your Facebook Fan Page is it is FREE, yep other than the time it takes to set it up initially and provide status updates, there is no cost.

First thing you will need to do is set up a Facebook personal profile account. Unfortunately Facebook at this time requires all Fan Pages to be attached to a personal profile. I suggest if you set up an empty or fake profile to attach your Fan Page to. A fake or empty profile is not one anyone will be using other than for your Fan Page. Remember to make the name for the personal account real enough and you will need a valid email address.

Now that you have your Facebook personal profile set up you click on help and search “how to create a Fan Page.”
Screen shot 2009-12-02 at 9.15.01 PM
You will have to go through and make some choices that best fit your company, business, brand, cause, etc. Setting up your Fan Page as a website is one of the easiest ways to create a Fan Page especially if you have a website (guessing most do). But there are plenty of other choices to choose to craft your Fan Page. Be sure to put in as much relevant information in all the areas you can to adequately explain “what” your page is about “what” you offer for services and or “what” your product is about. If you are promoting a cause then be clear with purpose, how people can get involved, and contact information. Be sure to add your website address, pictures of your business, events, activities (off line), and what ever else you want to jazz up your Fan Page. If you want to take your Fan Page to the next level you can also have a customized side bar made by twitterimage.com.

Spread the word! If you have or know anyone with a large Facebook following I suggest you as them to join your Fan Page and have them use their account to send messages to their followers to join your Fan Page. You may also want to consider advertising on Facebook. The advertising on Facebook is very targeted, I mean very targeted. You can target age, male/female, occupation, location, and more. A little inspiration. I have about 2400 friends on my Facebook profile and I have used this following to jump start a Fan Page I manage (Tampa Bay Crusader). By me suggesting followers from my personal account I have grown the Tampa Bay Crusader Facebook Fan Page to 389 followers in just 4 weeks. Not bad and results may vary, but with the information in this article you should be able to get your Facebook Fan Page up and running.

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Phishing, Don’t Become A Victim!

by Mike Vallez on November 24, 2009

About two months ago I was minding my own business blogging when I received an email from PayPal, or at least I thought it was from PayPal. The email looked completely authentic down to the crappy little copyright information at the bottom of the email. The email was what appeared to be an official communication from PayPal that my account had been charged over $400.00. My heart was racing because I did not pay anyone $400. I immediately called PayPal, to plead my case and they told me nothing was wrong, no charges had been made to my account and not to worry about this. They told me to email this to my internet hosting company. Kind of silly since the email looked official and from PayPal. Someone attempted to get information from me by “Phishing” or “spoofing.”

But what in the world do these terms mean, they sound more like words from a children’s book or game. Phishing is when someone tries to get critical information from you through a bogus pop-up or fraudulent email. They will indicate in either form of communication that you need to provide your account information, pin code, etc or some dire consequences will occur. Spoofing, similarly is when someone sets up a false website to mimic an official website or a false email with the same intent. Again, in spoofing the goal is to get the victim to provide critical account information or personal information to be used to commit financial crimes against the victim.

I am on Twitter everyday, throughout the day and I am sad to say, but I do not usually use my “Direct Message” function anymore due to the incessant phishing attempts. Typically, there is a very short teaser “Direct Message” that will try to lure you into their trap. I just don’t even respond to DM’s anymore because of this. Just today I saw a message from a woman who had her Twitter account hacked through a successful “Phishing” attempt through her DM. In this case the scumbags only hacked into her account and caused an inconvenience for the victim. But, mark my words the people trying to get your information through “Phishing” and “Spoofing” are trying to get data for identity theft, credit card fraud, etc. They are relentless and they will not give up, so if you feel the hair on your neck go up when you are about to click a link in an email, then don’t delete the email. If the email is that important you will get a phone call from your bank, credit card company, etc to get the correct information.

Here are some tips to avoid becoming a victim of “Phishing” and “Spoofing”, take caution and be careful. Over the next few years there will most likely be a huge spike in traditional known fraud such as these methods as well as new out of the box fraud ideas. Why? Because there are more and more people joining social networks and providing email addresses and personal information. Unfortunately criminals are opportunistic and this gives them information to work with in their criminal endeavors.

By the way, I have since received about 6 false PayPal emails each instructs me to do the same thing, provide them with key account information. The most important thing to remember about this article is no bank, credit card company, etc will ask you to provide critical information such as passwords or pin numbers, bottom line. Be vigilant, be careful.

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