When the going gets tough, the tough starts thinking!

Social media websites! Ah the great pyramids of the new web 2.0 age. Developing a membership site is 100 times easier than actually getting the members to one. And getting the members are 100 times easier than actually coming up with a innovative theme to convince people to join it.

So here’s the thing. I was doing a random search for my name on Google and guess what I got..!

So, that was my photo, my identity in a social site – Delver – that I never signed up for. And as you can see from the screenshot, to get in I just have to ‘claim’ my profile – as easy as that sounds.

From the looks of it, i can be pretty sure that they scraped off my identity from my public profile at Digg. You know – because there’s a direct link to my Digg profile there.

Anyway, just think for a second. A person Googling his/her name randomly has a pretty good chance of checking the search result out and then ‘claiming’ their profiles on this social site. Wouldn’t you? This might not be the only place this tactic had been used to get more user signups, but it’s surely done in a massive scale. And as a result, thousands of people who wouldn’t have joined otherwise have found their place in this site.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that in an over-exhausted niche like this, a simple idea that had been a product of ‘thinking outside the box’ had put Delver on a very visible spot in the large web 2.0 map. I’ll have to give it up for them.., for that.

6 Responses to “When the going gets tough, the tough starts thinking!”

1. Michael Aulia says:

   February 2, 2009 at 5:02 am

   ….and that scares me a lot. So many privacy has been lost because of these social sites.. oh well
2. Nadeesha Cabral says:

   February 3, 2009 at 8:16 pm

   Yeap! Privacy and these sites don’t go hand in hand I guess…
3. DT john says:

   February 6, 2009 at 4:59 pm

   I think social sites should really try hard to protect their data and information of members. Like you said they got your information from DIGG and I think DIGG should take this very seriously and look to tighten up their security levels. Otherwise they will lose members.
4. Karthik says:

   February 9, 2009 at 3:20 pm

   I am shocked that no one there complained.

   And btw,how can it make sure that its really you(who verified) and not someone else?

   That’s simply ridiculous!
5. Amsterdam Hotels says:

   February 12, 2009 at 11:28 pm

   Yes it is. Its a scary thought knowing your privacy is t risk
6. Allan Cockerill says:

   June 16, 2009 at 5:35 pm

   Scary, but you need to check http://www.wink.com as well! It pays to do a search for your name and/or usernames on sites like these!

   Doing so will show just how much of your information may be already out there.

   Another site to check out is Bigsight.com – if you have a Facebook profile, chances are you have one on Bigsight too.

   This site has the stated aim of becoming the white pages of the internet.

   I wrote about both these sites some time back, and it looks like their numbers are growing!

   Thanks for a great post,

   Allan (@Ozegold on Twitter)