by Kristen Nicole on January 29, 2010
It’s not uncommon for people that get caught red-handed to point the finger too, when they get the opportunity. At least that’s what seems to be the case with Tagged.com. In this case, the tattling did work in favor of Tagged, winning $200k in its lawsuit against Erik Vogeler. Having sued Vogeler for spamming users of the second-tier social network, Tagged came out on top this time.
Vogeler was found guilty of sending 6,079 members of Tagged unsolicited messages including links to an adult dating website. The U.S. District Court Judge in the northern district of California ruled in favor of Tagged, awarding the network $25 per violation. That totaled to just under $152k, with the additional ruling for Vogeler to pay Tagged $50k in attorneys’ fees rounding out the sum owed to Tagged.
So what have we learned? It doesn’t pay to spam a spammer. While Tagged has faced lawsuits of its own for sending out questionable bulk mail since launching a few years back, it looks as though Tagged has learned a few things. Co-founded by Greg Tseng, who was also the co-founder and CEO of Internet startup incubator Jumpstart Technologies, has already been involved with multiple lawsuits pertaining to spam behavior.
Jumpstart Technologies was fined nearly $1 million in 2006 for alleged violations of the CAN-SPAM Act, which was the largest penalty for illegal spam at the time of ruling, reports TechCrunch. and just last autumn, Tagged settled another court case with Texas and the New York Attorney General for spamming its own users.
In many ways, it seems as though Tagged is getting a pretty bad rap. It’s easy to find spammy behavior on most social networks out there, big and small. Sometimes the spam comes from the networks themselves, other times it comes from sneaky users trying to get over on us. Either way, it’s an expected part of navigating the world of online social networking.
Yet the level of inappropriate activity taking place through Tagged was enough to catch the attention of many privacy and anti-spam advocates, calling Tagged out on multiple occasions for its questionable practices. For every major social network that has been blessed with a large number of users, they’ve also been cursed with spammers. MySpace, Facebook and others have taken it upon themselves to make examples out of these spamming users, and it looks as though Tagged is taking this same approach.
Often used as a warning to others thinking of spamming users on their sites, these “example” lawsuits are also meant to discourage spammers all together. Whether or not it will work for Tagged remains to be seen, but Tagged may be looking for additional validation of its social network by punishing spammers that use its site. nevertheless, Tagged will likely need to do a little more than that to change its image.
by Brian Remmel on January 29, 2010
Born in 2006, Weekend Sherpa has been quietly providing amazing recommendations for free and cheap outdoor activities throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Each Thursday, Weekend Sherpa sends out their newsletter, recommending a handfull of things to do around the area.
The free service uses an expert team to suggest hidden hiking trails, bike rides, festivals and events, weekend getaways and more.
I’ve always loved getting outdoors and exploring. There wasn’t really a good source of finding quick and reliable information on where to get outdoors for the weekend. So Weekend Sherpa was born: Give people good ideas, tried and true information, and (hopefully) inspiration for getting outdoors on their weekend.
-Brad Day, Founder and Managing Editor of Weekend Sherpa
In addition to the newsletter, Weekend Sherpa has all of their past recommendations archived on WeekendSherpa.com. The archives are navigated by a simple search function, or you to browse activities by kind of activity (Hike, Bike, Water, Relax Overnight, Winter or Other) or region (SF, East Bay, North Bay, Peninsula & South Bay, or Points Beyond).
While the concept of an email newsletter seems a little archaic, the real value of the site is in the amazing content from legitimate outdoors experts. The editorial team is made up of current and former editors and writers for publications like National Geographic Explorer, The San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, San Francisco Magazine and Lonely Planet.
In a perfect world, here are some features I’d love to see incorporated into the site:
- Personalized recommendations – The service should make suggestions based on my feedback – a la Netflix.
- Social features – Let me share which activities I’ve done with my friends, and post excursions of my own – like diddit.
- Invite my friends – Let me indicate which activities I’m planning to do, and let my friends RSVP – partner with Plancast?
- A mobile application, for easy browsing on the go.
Be sure to sign up for their newsletter, and I’ll see you out on the trails!
Know of other great services like Weekend Sherpa? Leave a comment below, or give me a shout-out on Twitter.
by Stephanie Schlegel on January 29, 2010
As part of my job, I spend a lot of time researching blogs and bloggers that would be interested in a variety of topics including everything from politics to magic. There are an amazing amount of blogs out there and every now and again, I stumble across a blog that is a true gem.
Radicalparenting.com is site that approached parenting from a different perspective, the teenagers. A blog only makes up a portion of the site with those posts covering everything from teen trends to building confidence in teens. In addition to the blog portion of the site there are videos and other resources so parents and teens can get a little closer to being on the same page. Finding a way to bridge the communication gap between parents and teens is a challenge, with RadicalParenting making that gap a little smaller.
Vanessa Van Petten, author and founder of RadicalParenting.com, was kind enough to answer a few questions for the Bub.blicio.us audience. A teen herself when she began to explore the teen mentality, is 24 years old and provides a unique perspective on parenting by providing an opportunity for teens and their parents to connect through the social web.
What inspired you to create Radicalparenting.com?
I wanted to hear the teen voice in all of the parenting blogs out there. What did teens think about their behavior and what parents should do.
Who is the primary audience of your blog?
Parents of tweens and teens.
What type of feedback have you received from teens and their parents?
We have had an amazing response with over 200,000 reading the blog and we get applications for inters every week!
Where do you see Radicalparenting.com going in the next few years?
We plan to have even more teen writers to give them a voice and hopefully a few partnerships to expand our webinar and ebook offers.
As someone who is neither a teen or a parent, it’s interesting to read through issues and topics that are important to teens and how much that demographic has evolved since I was a teen and will continue to evolve. During my teen years, I would have loved having a resource like this so I wouldn’t have to explain to my parents what a Facebook wall is or what LOL means, I would just direct them to this site and roll my eyes (yep, I was an eye roller as a teen). There are also great opportunities for teens to participate in the site as a contributer and intern.
Have any Friday Find recommendations? Email me at stephanie@future-works.com
by Kristen Nicole on January 27, 2010
Yes, companies are still working on finding the best way to push location-based mobile advertising. AT&T is getting ready to launch buzz.com, which will be a location-aware mobile search tool. Complete with recommendations from friends and the service, along with polling options and access to reviews, Buzz.com is something of a Yelp competitor. As location-aware apps and options on mobile phones increase in popularity and feature sets, AT&T is hoping to get in on the good fortune.
Location-aware mobile advertising has been on the horizon for years now, with companies aiming to integrate several phone options into the mobile ad structure. Getting businesses to participate by offering mobile coupons or other rlevant discounts has been a huge part of the struggle, leaving companies such as AT&T with few incentives to offer mobile users.
The rapid growth of mobile app markets and the increased adoption rate of smart phones has made all of the above far easier, especially as consumers are now turning directly to their phones in order to find information and directions to nearby venues.
The idea of tapping into one’s social graph to receive the best information is also a tactic that has already been employed by other services, but for AT&T, Buzz.com is aiming to be a step above the rest. While Buzz.com won’t be creating its own social network, it will turn to existing connections through email and social networks, most likely Facebook and Twitter.
The ability to do so has also helped companies like AT&T fulfill their desire to create a useful application based on a mobile user’s location. As AT&T already has YellowPages.com, it’s also likely that the phone service provider will also tie in some of its data to the new Buzz.com project. Building on existing databases in this way also makes i easier for AT&T to implement Buzz.com.
As I mentioned yesterday, several companies are building businesses and mobile apps around a user’s location. Mapping tools, search layers and filters, and other location-aware features have made GPS into a power-feature, bearing several methods for helping consumers navigate their surroundings. It seems as though most mobile apps can be wrapped in a location-aware setting, giving rise to a more tangible connection between mobile users and their device.
For advertising purposes, the encouragement around location-aware mobile apps means big money. Having the ability to better target consumers means getting even more information on things like their location and purchasing activity. What some of these mobile apps are doing is creating a rather exact profile of individual users, making it far easier to dig into demographic data and create marketing opportunities that are highly personal.
by Kristen Nicole on January 26, 2010
Popular mobile app Aloqa has a presence across all of the major smart phone platforms, from iPhone to Android, BlackBerry and Nokia. A recent update to the location-based mobile app has added some useful layers to its GPS maps. From real estate to local hot spots, Aloqa is building out its service by adding more filters to appeal to the needs of more users.
One of the new layers includes a real esate search, which displays nearby homes and apartments for sale or for rent. Seeing as this is a relatively popular task utilized by mobile users, it makes sense that Aloqa would want to combine it with its existing features. Other real estate-specific services offer the same option, but they are not always combined with a full-fledged location-aware service for things outside of real estate.
Another new layer shows local restaurants that have an option for take-out, which can really streamline the foodie hunt process. Many location-based restaurant finders don’t have many such filters, or focus on things like making a reservation or reviewing the ambiance. The third new layer offers a list of hot spots that other Aloqa users frequent when they’re in a particular part of town, giving a crowd-sourced approach to location-based recommendations.
Adding such filtered layers to location-based mobile apps is a growing trend, with the bigger providers getting in on the fun. Google and Microsoft have both focused resources on the growth of their map layer catalogs, creating a new market for niche apps. In some ways, this is creating a market for app-specific apps, giving a sub-categorization of a rapidly growing industry.
We saw similar sub-categorization with web-based apps, particularly those found on Facebook. Some took a platform approach, enabling cross-platform interaction for a single app. Others took an advertising approach to this strategy, creating options for the monetization of such apps.
As mobile GPS-based apps are growing quickly in major mobile app marketplaces, it is clear that focused efforts to support this will be in the best interest of device manufacturers and developers alike. Though one issue to address for added app layers is the ability to successfully drill down into a person’s needs, the current approach to all-inclusive apps is still relatively new.
Eventually we may see the parsing out of mobile, location-aware apps. Those with stringent selections over what type of locations it will help you find will have their own level of success, likely creating an additional app or layer to work with the all-inclusive apps. This will become a more clearly defined space as those ouside of phone manufacturers begin to offer their own mobile devices that are centered around location-awareness, such as Garmin has begun to offer.
