Failure of Twitter Symmetry

The dark side of Twitter

There are at least 3 types of Twitter users: 1) Those who follow accounts that share some specific tweets (the followers), 2) Those who connect with people to interact as in any other social media (the friends), and 3) Those who are or want to be the news streams (the leaders). There are also Twitter parasites, an ever-growing population, who does a mass-following and every day perform a mass-unfollowing. In this procedure, they would have accumulated a million followers while just following a few thousand. These Twitter parasites feed on the human psychology - when a "star user" follows you, you tend to follow them back. They play a numbers game to trick people to follow-back, and to unfollow just after someone followed them back. I have been followed by many such verified Twitter star users to unfollow me only after a few weeks since I followed them back. 

I use Twitter for friendship. To share and interact with interesting people. I am not on Twitter to follow visionaries. There are also another set of Twitter users who start like me (under the category 2 above), and then during some specific time decide to be like the category 1 or 3. They then perform a mass-unfollow. Now you end up following their random musings - one way.

I suggest Twitter have an automated workflow - when someone who followed you first decides to unfollow you, automatically unfollow them back. This will stop the Twitter parasites and those who suddenly waken up just before the new year to follow only the "worthy accounts". My suggestion for the Twitter parasites - there is no real reward to unfollow those who fell into your trap and followed back. Isn't it more important to keep the communication than just having a large number of passive followers?

Scammers and Robbers in Brussels Nord Train Station: Do you speak English?

Robbers in Brussels Nord train station is not new. They target the tourists who arrive from the Brussels Zavantem Airport as Brussels Nord serves as the main train station that connects the airport to the city center. I encountered them before this year during my early days in Belgium. That was of 3 women, presumably from an East European country such as Bulgaria, judging from the looks.

After that I used Brussels Nord train station several times for my daily commutes. But now I do not have big suitcases with me, unlike when I fly. I was wondering whether the situation has got better or is it just me being lucky. But yesterday, it happened to me again, as I was returning with my big suitcase, a large laptop bag, and a camera bag, ready to fly to Portugal.

As I was rushing between the platforms at the Brussels Nord station, a somewhat pretty girl in her early twenties stoppped me, "Hi, do you speak English?". She probably is of Romanian or Bulgarian origins, though I am not really an expert in identifying their nationality. It is not important either. She looked in distress. I assumed she wanted some directions with trains, metro, or whatever.

I replied, "Yes, I speak English". She quickly uttered, "Oh, thank God", and continue to say something along the lines like I saved her since no one apparently speaks English here. This immediately gave me a big warning - Brussels is a multi-lingual city. Actually it is very easy to find someone who speaks English. I never had trouble asking random strangers questions and receiving helpful suggestions in English - not even once. Despite Brussels being a mostly French/Dutch speaking city, its prominence as the European capital and tourist destination has made it truly international. For a newly arriving tourist, of course it may sound plausible that she had a hard time locating someone who can understand her.

She continues, "I lost my wallet/card/money *" (did not really catch what she lost, as we were in the middle of a noisy busy path where passengers were quickly moving around - it was 5:30 PM Friday, full of work crowd). "Could you please buy me a train ticket?" One thing apparent was her careful choice of the person to seek help - a young man possibly from India who is also apparently a tourist, potentially just arriving at Brussels. In such situation, one would easily sympathize: what if I was in her situation as a tourist with no money to train ticket in a place where no one speaks English! (oh yes, I believe that Brussels is a village in deep China or French-speaking Africa, where no one understands your English). Also who does not like to help a girl who spotted you as someone who can help among the millions of others passing by?

Now I confirmed that my warning signs were right. In these situations in the past, I always have helped people; happened mostly in Sri Lanka. I am not really sure how many of these were genuine need and how many were just regular beggars. I did not care much as they were mostly in a much small scale (< 0.50 Euro) as public transport in Colombo is much cheaper than in Brussels.

It did not take me even a few seconds to come to the conclusion: this young lady with a beautiful smile was either planning to make me pay for her "long train ride to Amsterdam" or in the worst case make me take my wallet in the middle of the crowded path where her partner can quickly snatch and move on with my wallet. In either case, I quickly replied with an empathetic smile, "Oh, I am sorry. I do not have Euros. I am going back". I watched her smile fade away as she rushes leaving me without any reply.

Arrival at KAUST

The picturesque grand mosque

I am visiting King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or commonly known as KAUST for two months. It was kind of them to receive the students and visitors (not just the professors and leaders) at the airport. I had someone from KAUST waiting for me to direct me towards the immigration (not that I am new to immigration, and honestly I would have done that myself without help. But the kind gesture matters). Then he also leads me towards the taxi driver, who was holding my name "Welcome Mr. Pradeeban Kathiravelu" in a big piece of paper.

The taxi driver, authorized by KAUST (only authorized taxies can enter the KAUST compound), was from Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. He asked me "Hindi Malum?" (Do you speak Hindi?). I said, "No, in Sri Lanka, only Sinhala and Tamil." He is a Muslim. Very pleasant guy. He also had a Sri Lankan friend (a Muslim from Colombo), who is also a driver. He called him on his mobile, and we talked in Tamil!

Finally, arrived in KAUST, got the temporary visitor ID at the visitor office, and then we entered the compound. The taxi took me to the SGA office where I signed the accommodation contract and got the key to my apartment. It was a huge apartment - all for me. A large living room with a TV, big kitchen with stove, oven, microwave, and fridge, a small storeroom, a little enclosed space for washing machine and dryer, a WC - all on the ground floor, together with a large balcony that connects to the street. In the first floor, I have the master bedroom with a balcony, a study room, and a WC+bathroom. My bedroom has two beds, though the apartment is just for me.

Sorry female persons!

KAUST town has many apartments split into three basically. Male only apartments for single males and males who cannot or did not bring their wife/family, female only apartments for the females in the same situation, family apartments for those who came with their spouse or family. It was interesting. KAUST has a cinema (which shows movies for 5 SAR, which is around 1.13 Euro), some mosques (one is the biggest mosque), and one big supermarket (Tamimi) and another Tamimi close to the campus. There are a few restaurants. The campus canteen food is pretty nice, and I like it. The budget option is 15 SAR. It is pretty decent (the main dish, salad, soup, dessert, and a drink). The meal is available for lunch and dinner, all seven days a week. We work from the lab all seven days. The weekend here is Friday and Saturday. However, since we collaborate with EU mostly, we have to work on Fridays for the meetings. That leaves us with Saturdays as the only free day. However, since nothing much to do for me (not to mistake - there are many activities - just I am not so into them as I am busy with my research), I like working from the lab every day. Even my lab friends do the same! 

In average I spend 32.5 SAR per day. That is 7.34 Euro. 15 SAR goes for lunch (fixed expense as I have my lunch in the canteen every day), and the remaining for dinner, breakfast, and other variable costs (such as fruits, tooth paste, etc). Apartment and transportation are free! Right now, the weather here right now is enjoyable. Just like in Colombo or Maldives.  I heard that I am just lucky that I arrived when the weather is not too hot. We also went for bird watching, which was quite fun (I have seen all those birds in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. but the experience of bird watching by the mangroves of the Red Sea was quite fun).

Coming from Europe, there was of course a significant cultural shock. If I came from Sri Lanka directly, probably the cultural shock would be smaller. I could also write a weekly blog post on my stay here as each week I was experiencing something new. I had the same feeling when I came to Portugal in 2012, and I had a habit of weekly blog post. Afterwards, I moved to many countries - Sweden, Croatia, USA, and Belgium. However, there was not much difference. Coming back to Asia had a drastic change. I am actually missing the west (Europe and the USA). 11 days out of my 58 days-long stay have already passed! Time is passing quick. Though I can write more about my experiences, time is quite limited. I might recall and blog more on my experience in December once I have returned to the EU.

Where the "textbook-marketers" went wrong

Repeating identical emails and mail even after unsubscribe

All over LinkedIn and Twitter, I hear how you should never give up as a sales/marketing person. Didn't you hear back from the first email? Do not give up. Send a follow-up email. Better, send a Twitter message. Send one more reminder next day. Keep posting. Someone was bragging in LinkedIn how their 11th email got a positive response. What is the morale of the story? Never give up. Wrong.

You guys spam everyone. Our attention span is limited, and mailboxes are flooded with messages. But when you decide to spam my university email with useless advertisements on a daily basis, that is not right. That just makes me lose trust (if I had any, previously) on you.

One example was a predatory book publishing company. They had the liberty to subscribe me to their mailing list around one month ago. After receiving 9 emails in ~30 days (they were the most frequent mail sender to my university email address last month), I finally unsubscribed yesterday from their mailing list that I never subscribed myself in the first place. I got the email "You are unsubscribed." Everything is fine now; right? No. I got another email (a regular daily one) from them reminding me that they are waiting for my response for one of their offer?!. So that is the 11th email. It seems I have no way out. Today morning I sent them a personalized email asking them to unsubscribe me. Also left them a twitter message. Let's see how long this spam game goes. (Update: They sent me a well-written email apologizing for this. I hope this is resolved. Let's see. :))

In short, if you are an entrepreneur and have an excellent idea, and decided to send me a message, that is fine. Don't send me 11 messages just because I may reply positively to your 12th message. Remember, we are spammed by millions of such offers every day. If I am interested in your offer, I would have replied to your first email itself. Also, given that my unsubscribe request and my personalized email to unsubscribe me from their list were ignored, I am not even sure whether they will take me seriously even if I send an email mentioning "I am interested." Maybe they will. They are programmed to read only positive emails, probably. Never mind. Now, let's get back to real work.

How to end up in everyone's spam folder

Many companies are apparently under the belief that they may purchase email addresses in bulk from those who cultivate a lot of addresses to resell (this may include your electricity company or insurance company). This is how I am signed up into weird mailing list without my consent. I have to each time manually sign out of each of these weird marketing lists. Every time I unsubscribe from these spam, I make sure to report it as Spam in Gmail filters. The Gmail God will eventually make sure to send email from these senders directly to spam folder, if everyone follows what I do. Please, if I want, I will subscribe myself to your email list. It was never helpful that you do this on behalf of me, without even asking me. 

Worse, many of these spammers do not even have an easy option to unsubscribe. The ideal example is Roomster. A scam room-sharing company which creates fake profiles with beautiful profile pictures, and then send you an email asking to share the room with you. The girl who wants to share her room with you may not even live in your continent. To reply (and in some cases, even to view) these messages, you need to pay some money (as high as 3 - 5$) or go for an even higher monthly subscription. Funny part is, if you want to unsubscribe from the mailing list of this scam company Roomster, first you need to log in to your Facebook and open your Roomster account (it will auto-create if it does not exist yet), to unsubscribe from the emails or to delete your account. It was so complex that I did not unsubscribe for a few months despite loothing this scam/spam web site. 

Remember kids, there are many reports that once they get hold of your credit card, they will charge you for 3 months or so, without you even asking. Stay away from Roomster. Thank me later.