RebelMouse Review: What is RebelMouse, Anyway? Is RebelMouse Worth My Time - or Yours?

A notice hit my Gmail inbox today: BisnarChase, a California personal injury law firm, has joined RebelMouse.

Now, I recall joining RebelMouse, too, several months ago. And I’ve never gone back to the RebelMouse since then.

RebelMouse is a Social Media Aggregator.

 However, this notice made me think I might want to give RebelMouse another looksie, so today I went over to RebelMouse and looked at my RebelMouse page.

This afternoon, I added my Pinterest feed to RebelMouse as well as my LinkedIn feed. (I had originally added only Google+ and Twitter). I added my blog feeds, too.

What does this mean? RebelMouse Collects Your Social Media Stuff

It means that when you go to my page on RebelMouse, you will see a nice display of all the things that I’ve added recently on all these sites: my pins, my tweets, my G+ posts, my LinkedIn updates.

Which seems like a nice thing to have all in one place, I suppose. I get why it's being described as a "social aggregator."

Yes, I can go to other RebelMouse pages and see what someone else (or something else - like HuffPo) is posting on these various social media pages - but will I?

Posting on RebelMouse - It's a blog, too?

RebelMouse also offers the opportunity to post on RebelMouse. So I did. And I shared that RebelMouse post on Google+ using the RebelMouse share feature.

However, I’m not sure what I’m suppose to get from RebelMouse. It’s easier for me to post on Google+ and have that post automatically appear on RebelMouse than vice versa (I had to enter new text for the shared post to G+ from RebelMouse).

Also, there’s not an option to share to LinkedIn from RebelMouse, a decided disadvantage but understandable given LinkedIn’s reclusiveness, social-media wise.

Will I return to RebelMouse?  That’s a big question.  I'm not tempted to do this; there is no siren's song akin to Pinterest.

I’m going to play around with RebelMouse for a couple of days or so. However, I’m not breathless with anticipation of a Great New Find here.

Maybe I’ll learn more this week to change my mind. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s what RebelMouse explains about itself:

RebelMouse organizes your social presence into a beautiful, dynamic and social site -- in seconds. It's based on the idea that people are proud of what they share on social networks, but are starting to feel embarrassed about their websites. RebelMouse is your social front page and automatically updates as you post on social networks as well as when you blog directly on your site.

New York Attorney General Investigation Into Fake Online Reviews (Like Yelp): "Operation Clean Turf" Clamps Down on 19 Companies For Fake Online Reviews

Back in September 2013, the New York Attorney General announced the results of a year-long investigation into fake online reviews, resulting in 19 different companies being nabbed by the New York prosecutor and fined over $300,000.00.

False advertising online via fake reviews?  It's called "astroturfing."

According to the New York AG, false advertising where an SEO company or other business pays someone money for preparing or disseminating a false or deceptive review that may be reasonably assumed to be a neutral, third-party review is a form of "astroturfing."

New York State Attorney General
Eric T. Schneiderman

From the press release:

• Besides using their own employees to write and post the reviews, the companies hired freelance writers from as far away as the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe for $1 to $10 per review.  One SEO company required that freelancers have an established Yelp account, more than 3 months old, with more than 15 reviews (at least half unfiltered), and 10 Yelp "friends," as an attempt to avoid Yelp's advanced review filter. ,,, 
• Attorney General Schneiderman's office also discovered solicitations on sites such as Craigslist.com, Freelancer.com and oDesk.com to hire people to write fake reviews.  ....
• The OAG has entered into Assurances of Discontinuance with 19 companies, with penalties ranging from $2500 to just under $100,000.  The practice of preparing or disseminating a false or deceptive review that a reasonable consumer would believe to be a neutral, third-party review is a form of false advertising known as "astroturfing."  Astroturfing is false and deceptive, and it violates, inter alia, New York Executive Law § 63(12), and New York General Business Law §§ 349 and 350.

What does Yelp have to say about it?

"More than 100 million visitors come to Yelp each month, making it critical that Yelp protect the integrity of its content," said Aaron Schur, Yelp's Senior Litigation Counsel. "We take many steps to do this, including the use of automated filtering software, leveraging our vast user community for tips about suspicious content, undercover sting operations, legal action, and cooperation with law enforcement. We applaud NY Attorney General Schneiderman for his willingness to tackle the issue of illegal fake reviews head on, and for his success in shutting down these operators. We look forward to continuing to cooperate with the New York Attorney General's office and any other interested law enforcement office or regulator to protect consumers and business owners from efforts to mislead."

Who got caught for "astroturfing" by the New York Attorney General in September?

Here is the list of 19 companies identified in the news release describing "Operation Clean Turf":

1. A&E Wig Fashions, Inc. d/b/a A&E and NYS Surgery Center 
2. A.H. Dental P.C. d/b/a Platinum Dental 
3. Body Laser Spa Inc. 
4. The Block Group, LLC, d/b/a Laser Cosmetica and LC MedSpa, LLC 
5. Bread and Butter NY, LLC d/b/a La Pomme Nightclub and Events Space 
6. Envision MT Corp. 
7. iSEOiSEO 
8. Medical Message Clinic and HerballYours.com 
9. Metamorphosis Day Spa, Inc. 
10. Outer Beauty, P.C., Lite Touch Plastic Surgery, P.C., Staten Island Special Surgery, P.C., Sans Pareil Surgical, PLLC
11. Stillwater Media Group 
12. Swan Media Group, Inc. and Scores Media Group, LLC 
13. US Coachways Limousine, Inc. and US Coachways, Inc. 
14. Utilities International, Inc. d/b/a Main Street Host 
15. The Web Empire, LLC 
16. Webtools, LLC and Webtools Internet Solutions Ltd. 
17. West Village Teeth Whitening Service, LLC; Magic Smile, Inc., aka Magic Smile 
18. XVIO, Inc. 
19. Zamdel, Inc. d/b/a eBoxed  

How Does Your Blog Look on a Tablet or Smartphone? Look Here (and Here's Why It's Important).

Traditional blog platforms (think WordPress, Blogger) were designed for desktops and laptops -- not for smartphones and tablets.  Which means that your blog may look strange and hard to read on your IPhone or IPad (or other phone or tablet device) unless you've taken steps to accommodate these new smaller-screen devices.

How can you find out how your blog appears to readers using a smartphone or tablet?  

The easiest way to check is to grab a smartphone or tablet and go to your blog's home page.  Is it hard to read -- are you seeing more of the left sidebar than the posts themselves?

Other ways to check:  go to websites like TestiPhone.com or iPhone tester to see how things look on a smartphone's small screen.

If the blog looks wonky, call your webmaster and get this fixed.

For most blogging platforms, it's an easy fix.  Wordpress has a plugin that solves the problem; Blogger does it automatically.  (Blogger also provides its own preview for how Blogger blogs look on these smaller screen devices.)

Why should you care what device is used to read your blog?

Don't get overwhelmed.  The biggest hurdle here is taking the time to check the blog's appearance on various tablets and smartphones; changing things to accommodate the smaller screen is simple to do.  

It's an important task to undertake as soon as you can, though:  it's estimated that more readers are going to be reading blog posts on smartphones and tablets than desktops and laptops very soon (think weeks or months), so getting your blog adapted for those smaller screens is a priority.

BOTTOM LINE?  A hard to read blog post on a smartphone may remain an unread blog post -- and your time and effort in creating those blog posts deserves better, so make it easy for the smartphone reader to pull up and read what you've written.

For more, check out Forbes' article, " Smartphones, Tablets, Tab-Phones Edging PCs Off The Shelf?" and Econsultancy's take on things in "Smartphones and tablets: five key differences."

Even more? Read this piece written back in 2011 on Wikipedia, where Wikipedians are pondering where most of their readers are reading Wikipedia articles then (2011) and where those readers are going to be reading Wikipedia articles in the future.