the value of “building a community”

I’ve studied online communities, I’ve joined them, created one and I often think that most companies just want to jump on the social media bandwagon without really questioning its meaning or the actual value that it has for the members.   (Ew…”value” – what an arbitrary term….I shall post my views on that term soon too)

I love the ideologies behind mass collaboration (re: wikinomics) so here’s one example of a community that I thought had those principles. Mind you, the group is a little too techie for me – I think it hits the ‘value’ point.

“Intel has quietly launched a new online community that it plans to use to take feedback and suggestions from OEMs and end users for new features in its vPro chips and management software. Intel envisions that the community will grow to allow users to get answers from other community members faster than Intel’s support group can answer questions.”

You want a better product? Open up the design for discussion and collaboration from its users. That’s smart marketing.

Stupid me…but lesson learned

Oh my. Just checked my visa (scary enough) but one charge there freaked me right out.

Live and learn : NEVER EVER use one of those international call pay phones in an airport. (Most of you probably know this already. I know it too, but for some reason at 4am after a restless 7hr plane ride my mind was somewhere else)

One quick call to my boyfriend while I was in Munich and I’m now $50 none the richer.  Shouldn’t have done it but I had no idea a 5 min phone call would be so atrociously expensive.

So caller beware: International Credit Card Telephone Communications – they charge $14.99 for the connection fee and $3.12/min

When you’re free falling (no income) for two years –these are the kinds of surprises you don’t want to see.

Follow up: Rapleaf, Finland and reflectors

Ok, so a few hours after my last two posts I have follow ups:

1. First and foremost- go to Matt Roberts‘ blog to read about his email correspondence adventures with Rapleaf when he tried to opt-out.

2.My good Finnish friend read my email and called right away to straighten me out on a couple things. Aside from laughing and being somewhat annoyed that I published her washroom on the internet, here were some of her comments:

-the allowance hasn’t moved for 14 years, so based on what the gov’t money is supposed to cover (i.e. living expenses while studying), it doesn’t anymore. I get it – we just have totally different government social systems (not to mention values towards youth and education)

-students don’t usually recycle – not too convenient (I beg to differ…) but families always do

Oh and one more thing that I forgot to mention:

It’s illegal to walk in the dark (majority of the day, if not the entire day in the winter) without reflectors on. It has to be out of your pocket, on your bag or something.

C’est tout.

Quick updates from Finland

Ok, just a quick one. (Gotta catch up!)

Here are some interesting things from my new home in Finland that I thought I could share:

• looks like Thunder Bay – forest, lakes etc.
• 
• every single person in Jyvaskyla owns a bike and rides it everywhere – the bike trails are amazing! (I myself will be included as one of those people shortly)
• some pretty small bathrooms…

• surprisingly, they don’t recycle plastic – unless you drop it off at certain super markets – but when you do recycle it, you get something like 15 cents for it
• more surprisingly, all of the finnish people that I know don’t recycle at all it seems (or very little)
• education is free + Finnish students get 400 euros each month for living expenses allowance each month is still small
• Students will be students….the Finnish students protested last year that the student allowance of 400 euros should be raised, so parliament raised it. (I was shocked… but their philosophy on education is completely different, and not necessarily in a bad way)
• I can take as many classes as I want in whatever field and I don’t have to pay a cent

I’m sure there is so much more to say but that’s it for now.

Oh, but I wanted to share something else. You know how most orientation programs get a rock band or something? Guess what we got? A male choir. But… it was the best damn male choir I’ve ever seen. Hilarious (but would have been better had I understood the language!)

Take a look.

Social networks? Meh, privacy shmivacy

Finally got internet in my little flat yesterday… so hopefully after this week of orientation, more posts will be flowing.

Getting back to my feeds though (thank god for internet – I can’t read Finnish so there’s not a lot of choice in terms of printed news). Started reading the wikinomics blog and came across some scary stuff in one post about a new company called Rapleaf.

There’s a great article in the NY Times today (which I think is originally from C-Net) about the rise of a little company called Rapleaf. With Facebook backer and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel behind them, Rapleaf has search technology that enables them, given only a mere email address, to scour social networking and other sites to create a composite of the person which could include everything from physical address to political affiliation to what applications the person has downloaded.

Thankfully, or so it seems, they don’t share the email addresses they have with anyone, or any companies. But what they do do is sell this information to anyone/ any company that comes to them with an email address.

In other words, if you sign up for an email newsletter the company that runs the site can quickly, and easily, learn almost everything about you that is available on the web… which in the age of social networking is quite a bit. It’s hard to see this not morphing into a scandal and/or mess someday…

Here’s a little bit from the Times article:

The privately held start-up, whose investors include Facebook-backer and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, runs two consumer Web sites: Rapleaf.com, a people search engine that lets you retrieve the name, age and social-network affiliations of anyone, as long as you have his or her e-mail address… By collecting these e-mail addresses, Rapleaf has already amassed a database of 50 million profiles, which might include a person’s age, birth date, physical address, alma mater, friends, favorite books and music, political affiliations, as well as how long that person has been online, which social networks he frequents, and what applications he’s downloaded.

Scary no? I know that’s what marketers are supposed to do (I’ve even been on that side!) but at the same time, as a user, don’t you want to think that they at least have to try really hard to dig that deep? ZoomInfo is one company doing that (compiling your internet presence) but it only scours the net on more reputable business sites. Rapleaf on the other hand, is searching the private, more personal social networks – a little bit different I’d say. One site is made to help business people do background checks or help sales people define the org charts (perhaps that’s painting too rosy of a picture) while the other one finds a lot more private information (i.e. meant for friends) of a person and sells it to anyone. Does this mean that even though you have limited settings on your facebook, Rapleaf can find you?

Another thing, who exactly are they selling this information to? We’re in a whole different ballgame when we take info from networks that consist of many young grade schoolers. Creepy.

The guys at Rapleaf claim that they’re “the only email-based reputation system”. In some respect I see where they’re coming from…but spammers etc. aren’t necessarily going to put those addresses on social networks.

However, just tried my “me@janeporter.ca”. Nothing on me pops up – but there’s this message :Hey, we haven’t seen this email before. We’ll have more information for you very soon. Either come back in an hour or click email and we’ll email you when the results are ready.

Still think it’s creepy and made for creepy marketers.