So… It’s shortly after midnight. I wanted to be going to bed right now… But I just got an email that has me livid. Again. Over the same topic as the last time… But this Time I’m posting about it.
The subject line of said email read: Invite from John Doe*… And the body contained John Doe (…@gmail.com) has invited you as a friend on Quechup… …the social networking platform sweeping the globe*
My jaw hit the floor. Not because it was yet another social networking site… Not because I got an invite to it… But because of which site it was, and who got bitten.
Quechup has been called everything from a spam network, to a menace to a trust virus. If you haven’t heard of it, let me give you the rundown. Essentially, you sign up just like any other network… You give it your name, your email and the like. It then asks for your gmail details to check to see if any of your gmail contacts are using Quechup. Fine, sure… Lots of services do that. I just did that with Twitter the other day. This is where it goes too far. Instead of simply CHECKING for friends, it takes EVERYONE you have EVER corresponded with via gmail and invites them to join you on Quechup. Yep, all of them. Pretty bad, eh?
I don’t believe they’re the first to pull of this kind of slimeball-like move, but they certainly gathered a lot of press for it. What floored me so much tonight though, like I mentioned, is not the invite itself, but who it came from. I’m not naming names, to protect the innocently duped, but they’re someone I consider to be pretty well connected. Had it been a few weeks ago, when everyone else in the new media space was being hit, I would have let it slide. But it’s just happening now. And with all of the bad publicity throughout a quick search… It surprised me.
Tommy Vallier helps groups, individuals and businesses understand how social media tools can be used to their fullest. He is also a community builder and web developer living in Kingston, Ontario.