Quetcup, and the evils thereof
A friend of mine pointed me towards a social networking service called Quechup.com (you know, like Ketchup? Which, in turn, is apparently like Catch Up? "And the daddy tomato got REALLY ANGRY..."). Looked pretty cool, and it had an option to search my gmail address book to see if anyone I knew was already on! This, I figured, was neat, and so I gave it my addressbook to look through.
Turns out it just wanted my addressbook to spam everyone.
Mr. Finch,
I trust that you are well aware of the reputation your site, quechup.com, has garnered for itself in the online community. In case you are unaware, when you provide your address book to check to see whether any of your contacts have also joined quechup.com, your site sends an e-mail to every single person in your address book. In the case of gmail users, this could be hundreds, sometimes thousands of contacts, many of which are defunct. I personally have received over 100 messages indicating a failure to delivery, which I have had to process and archive (and some amusing "resume accepted" letters back from e-mail addresses set up to autorespond for resume invitations).
I would still be a member of your site, had it not spammed my entire address book. Livejournal, Youtube, Facebook, Myspace? None of these sites employed the questionable tactics which your site has used to propagate, and all are shining examples of revenue models that truly take advantage of the Web 2.0 revolution.
Had your site not spammed my entire addressbook with invitations, I would not have promptly e-mailed 700 people advising them away from your website. I would have not posted this situation on my Livejournal, and I would have not spread by word-of-mouth my distaste for your site. I am one person, and in less than two hours, I have reached out and touched nearly a thousand people with this information regarding your service. The gentleman from whom I received an invitation did the same; he happens to be the editor of our local newspaper, and his voice will echo louder than mine. He reaches more than a hundred and eighty thousand people on a daily basis.
The only way to build a successful social networking site is to establish a baseline of credibility. Your site, quechup.com, fails to do that.
I am sending you this e-mail, and posting it online. However, this is doubtless a drop in the Atlantic compared to the loss of faith that will inevitably come from rest of the Web 2.0 community.
Quite sincerely,
Sean Flynn
Turns out it just wanted my addressbook to spam everyone.
Mr. Finch,
I trust that you are well aware of the reputation your site, quechup.com, has garnered for itself in the online community. In case you are unaware, when you provide your address book to check to see whether any of your contacts have also joined quechup.com, your site sends an e-mail to every single person in your address book. In the case of gmail users, this could be hundreds, sometimes thousands of contacts, many of which are defunct. I personally have received over 100 messages indicating a failure to delivery, which I have had to process and archive (and some amusing "resume accepted" letters back from e-mail addresses set up to autorespond for resume invitations).
I would still be a member of your site, had it not spammed my entire address book. Livejournal, Youtube, Facebook, Myspace? None of these sites employed the questionable tactics which your site has used to propagate, and all are shining examples of revenue models that truly take advantage of the Web 2.0 revolution.
Had your site not spammed my entire addressbook with invitations, I would not have promptly e-mailed 700 people advising them away from your website. I would have not posted this situation on my Livejournal, and I would have not spread by word-of-mouth my distaste for your site. I am one person, and in less than two hours, I have reached out and touched nearly a thousand people with this information regarding your service. The gentleman from whom I received an invitation did the same; he happens to be the editor of our local newspaper, and his voice will echo louder than mine. He reaches more than a hundred and eighty thousand people on a daily basis.
The only way to build a successful social networking site is to establish a baseline of credibility. Your site, quechup.com, fails to do that.
I am sending you this e-mail, and posting it online. However, this is doubtless a drop in the Atlantic compared to the loss of faith that will inevitably come from rest of the Web 2.0 community.
Quite sincerely,
Sean Flynn