SecretTweet - Post your secrets to Twitter anonymously.

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   The people from eBay/PayPal teamed up with Miller/Coors (yeah, the beer people) to donate $0.01 for every tweet, facebook update, and blogpost with the hashtag #beatcancer. The only catch is that it had to be made within a 24 hour period starting Friday, October 16th at 9 am (PDT) and lasting until Saturday, October 17th at 9am (PDT). You can read more on the campaign at http://beatcancereverywhere.com.

         Once I heard about this idea, I immediately thought that one penny wasn’t enough. So I said I would personally double that amount if the tweet contained both “@SecretTweet” and “#beatcancer”. After a few hours and a couple thousand tweets with “@SecretTweet #beatcancer”, I received a direct message from an anonymous user telling me he/she would also match that amount. Once I let everyone know that the amount was now tripled, the tweets literally came pouring in. Thousands upon thousands of tweets started flooding the timeline. Although hard on my wallet, this was a great sight to see!

         So just how many tweets did @SecretTweet users generate by themselves? A little over 7,250. I’m going to go ahead and round my donation up to an even $100. Add to that the anonymous donor’s match of $72.50 and ebay/miller’s donation of $72.50, that’s $245 towards beating cancer. My donation will go to Stand Up To Cancer and will be made as soon as I connect with the anonymous donor again.

   If you’re thinking that $245 isn’t that much, consider that this amount was raised from what started as a single tweet from a single twitter account. Out of the millions of twitter users, you guys, the @SecretTweet followers, counted for 3.5% of the 208,000 #beatcancer tweets. That’s quite an accomplishment and you guys should be proud!

If you would like to donate to Stand Up to Cancer, click here.

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Just a heads up to those who keep up with the blog: there’s a scheduled community chat this Thursday at 10pm eastern. The URL will be http://SecretTweet.com/chat.php. Join everyone for some casual conversation.

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**note: You might have noticed a large delay between the time a tweet is submitted to SecretTweet.com and the time it is published to @SecretTweet or @SecretTweet3. I’ve had some personal problems (link) this month that have taken a large portion of my time and desire to work. The site should pickup in the coming weeks and resume to its previous status (meaning new features, faster approval time, etc — just like before). Thanks for understanding.
**

Hi guys :)
If you haven’t noticed the pattern, I usually push out major updates on a monthly basis. So, since June is right up on us, it’s time to start working on new stuff. If that’s not awesome enough, you guys get to choose what it is. The highly requested mobile posting has been ready for nearly six months, I just haven’t had the time to turn it on. That will be done very soon. Here are some other ideas I’ve been tossing around:
– Receive comments/replies to a specific tweet via email.
– An ad free option (this used to exist but was later removed. I’m probably going to bring it back).
– Profiles for submitters (age and gender, perhaps location).
– Your idea, suggestion, comment here! Tell me what you want to see changed, added, removed, done, or tried.

Comment on this post or send a direct message to @secrettweet (if you send an @reply, I probably will not see it, there are just too many to read them all — direct messages, please :)).

Hope you guys are enjoying the start of the summer! Personally, I can’t wait for vacation time!

Regards,
– Kevin (@mozunk)
The SecretTweet Guy ;)

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A new look/design will be coming soon. A few new features will appear, too. Expect things to change in about a week and a half (maybe two).
As far as what new features are coming: all pages are being rewritten to update them and to streamline the content, you’ll be able to search through all the tweets, the tagging system has been rewritten, and a few other minor things that will make the experience on the site overall easier to navigate.

Here’s a very rough preview of what the new design might look like:
http://hellokevin.com/st-design.jpg – Click!

Leave your feedback in the comments or on the new forum (http://secrettweet.com/forum)!

A new look has already popped up on @SecretTweet. Changes are coming!

Regards,
@mozunk
ST Admin Guy

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I accidentally overlooked my calendar marking that read “ST 1 YR” — oops.

So what has happened in the first year? A lot.
– Within the first week, submissions went from 1 per day to one per hour (now we average 11 submissions per hour — *THIS* is why all tweets are not published to @secrettweet and are sometimes published to @secrettweet3 instead).
– We (are about to) reach 20,000 followers (that’s averaging 55 STAYING, new followers per day!)
– 34, 087 people have released their secrets for us to read. Thank you.
– 17,142 replies have been made (within the past six or so months — replies are a fairly new, and controversial, addition to the site).
– I launched a blog to help explain what is going on behind the scenes and to encourage more interaction with you guys (http://secrettweet.com/updates)
– We received mentions by LA Times, NY Times, El Pias, Fox News, hundreds of other new outlets, and thousands of other websites and blogs (thanks!)
– I opened up the moderation process to the public. Over 670 moderators have registered, about half of them are active on a weekly basis. Without you guys, I couldn’t keep up with the content and the site would ultimately fail.
– And, finally, a forum was launched on April 1 (One day before the one year anniversary). Since the launch three days ago, the forum has averaged: 14 new users per day, 85 new posts per day, 9 new topics per day, and 12,658 page views. I encourage you to join and take part in the on-going conversations or start your own! Register here http://secrettweet.com/forum/index.php?action=register

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has felt comfortable enough to share their secret with everyone else. Thank you for tweeting, blogging, writing, and talking about SecretTweet. Thanks for replying with supportive and encouraging comments (and thank you for flagging those that aren’t). Thanks for reading this, for being as enthusiastic about your experience on the website as I am. Hopefully I will be writing another post like this on April 2, 2010, and many years after that.

Best Regards,
Kevin Smith
@mozunk
@SecretTweet Guy

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I try very hard to refrain from becoming involved with the content on SecretTweet. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t even comment on any of the submissions on the site or mention them on my own Twitter stream. I want to remain in the background as much as possible. There are times when a submission comes in that I feel, as a human being, I have to do something, say something, or act somehow…but I can’t. I don’t know who is behind the submission.

There are thousands of different categories of tweets that have poured into the Direct Message box of @SecretTweet (to those of you who send them, yes, I do read them) and to SecretTweet.com itself. From the humorous, to those relating to relationships, to those relating to personal vices, to those relating to personal struggle and suicide.

I created SecretTweet on April 2, 2008, as a way to share some of my own secrets. Less than a year later, I would have never thought that so many people (approximately 35 thousand daily) and over 5,000 followers on Twitter would come to do the same and offer guidance and support through comments. Since I launched SecretTweet, 24,385 individuals have taken their own lives. One every 17 minutes. Suicide related submissions come in to SecretTweet several times per day and I wish I were able to be beside every individual…but I can’t be. I can, however, point you in the right direction and give you the promise of hope. Everyone, including myself, experiences hard times in life. There are times when there seems no hope, no other option except to take your life. If you’re in this situation, get in touch with Hopeline.com (1-800-Suicide). They are not government affiliated so your privacy is a guarantee. If you don’t want to call Hopeline, call a friend or family member. If you don’t want to do either of those and you trust in me, email me (mozunk@gmail.com). I will listen.

With warmth,
Kevin Smith
@mozunk
SecretTweet.com Owner
–

Remind those in need that help is available. Add this banner to your blog or website:
<a href="http://hopeline.com"><img src="http://secrettweet.com/counter/" /></a>

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After some recent heat (that I feel was unnecessary), some new guidelines are being enforced and I’m temporarily suspending all moderators other than myself (@mozunk, Kevin Smith). This WILL, if you haven’t already noticed, create a MAJOR lag in the time between the submission of the tweet to the time it is approved. Currently, there are a little over 1,000 submissions/secrets/tweets in the queue for me to go through. I don’t want to be the only one reading these and approving them but, thanks to the political correctness that some aim for in every aspect of life, this is the way it has to be.

Terms
By using the SecretTweet.com web site, you are agreeing to be bound by the following terms and conditions (“Terms of Use”).
– You must be 18 years or older to use this site.
– You are responsible for any activity to occurs under your assigned key. An assigned key is a replacement to your IP address (because IP addresses are not logged). An example key: a2932edcbef8e91933344d098ac6e330. Your IP address can be retrieved if necessary using your assigned key IF (and only IF) you visit SecretTweet.com again. Assigned keys are permanently stored.
– You must not submit content that is abusive, harassing, threatening, impersonating, or intimidating to any Twitter.com user, individual, group, organization, animal, living plant, fungi, or bacteria.
– SecretTweet.com staff and moderators reserve the right to modify and/or publish any submission to SecretTweet.com.

While SecretTweet.com prohibits such conduct and content on its site, you understand and agree that MozunkHost cannot be responsible for the Content posted on any of its web sites, including SecretTweet.com, and you nonetheless may be exposed to such materials and that you use the SecretTweet.com service at your own risk.

General Conditions
– We reserve the right to modify or terminate the Twitter.com (@secrettweet account and SecretTweet.com) service for any reason, without notice at any time.
– We reserve the right to alter these Terms of Use at any time.
– We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.
– We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Use.
——————
Hopefully (but probably not) that’ll cover my ass a little bit if ever anyone were to get pissy and wants to start trouble heh Nonetheless, I’ll sleep a bit better.

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I sent out a tweet a couple of days ago asking for help moderating the submissions to SecretTweet. I received several (over 50) emails by the end of the day offering help. I randomly chose five of the volunteers and created a moderation area for them to use.

WHY? I’m a pretty busy person and SecretTweet isn’t the only online project I have going. I receive tons of email every day and having to moderate the SecretTweet submissions via email by myself was causing a clog/back up in the approval of tweets. I figure with five people helping me out, a submitted secret/tweet shouldn’t sit in queue for more than an hour or two before someone is able to tend to it and push it out.

I’m not going to publish the twitter names of the volunteers unless they give me permission.

Just keeping you informed as to what’s going on with the site ;)

Have a good weekend,
Kevin Smith
@mozunk — SecretTweet Admin

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I am very happy that Sarah Lane decided SecretTweet.com was interesting enough to be featured on Revision3.com’s popSiren (http://revision3.com/popsiren). However, she made a mistake in here video…IP addresses ARE recorded and I’ve never tried to hide that fact. She states several times that I say I do not record IP’s when it is even shown in the screencast in the video (skip to 14:55 to see what I’m talking about.

On ALL pages where the textbox to enter your secrettweet is present, it is stated directly below that box “Only your ip address (for spam protection) and tweet will be collected.”

Yes, IPs ARE recorded. However, I do not do anything with them. I don’t look at them, they’re not shown to anyone else (the site is run by me alone), they’re never going to be made public. In fact, I have even considered “dumping” the IP column in the database once a week but in the end, it wouldn’t really make much of a difference.

For the record, yes, I DO use secrettweet for myself sometimes. What you’re reading could easily have been posted by me. I use the same form everyone else does. My IP is recorded just like everyone elses. I don’t want to know who posts on SecretTweet. I have tried to make secrettweet as transparent as possible via this blog.
Look at it this way: well over 2,000 people have used it since I opened the site a few months ago and nearly 1,000 individual tweets are viewed daily (that’s not actual site views — that’s viewing tweets in this fashion: http://secrettweet.com/secret.php?id=2665) and nothing has been leaked yet.

For everyone’s peace of mind, I will be working on dropping the collection of IPs and developing a new way to prevent spam as soon as I get a break from classes :) Until then, happy tweeting!

PS: Sorry for the randomness/jumpiness of this update…It’s hard to follow but it wasn’t planned and I don’t have the time or will to write something more elaborate right now haha. Have a happy and safe holiday weekend, everyone!!

Best Regards,
Kevin (@mozunk) — The secrettweet guy :)

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So, to my surprise, someone asked for a SecretTweet RSS feed (of the secrets, not the blog)…it kinda blew my mind.

Anyway, here’s a listing of the SecretTweet RSS feeds:
English SecretTweet Twitter: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14280026.rss
Spanish SecretTweet Twitter: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14468086.rss

SecretTweet blog feeds:
Posts: http://secrettweet.com/updates/feed/

(And if you still don’t understand why it blew my mind, twitter supplies an rss feed for every twitter account at the bottom of the page. Surprise!)

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