First Contact
When does a “friend” have the right to make first contact with you online?
If I want to contact you in a social network like Pownce, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, should I be required to already know you? If I’m restricted from contacting you before you recognize me, how can I get your attention? On Twitter I can follow you like a stalker without you even acknowledging me. On Pownce anyone can contact me with an initial ping.
What Gives You the Right?
This is not a “pick on Pownce” post, I think the team has created a great system, as has team Twitter. In fact I think Pownce is a far more beautiful site than Twitter… and… there are significant differences between the two sites “first contact” user experiences. These differences spawned a question in my mind. I asked myself, “when does another person have the ‘right of first contact’ with me?”
Social Spam
Recently I received an email based ping sent through Pownce from someone on mySpace, asking me to follow their band on mySpace. I didn’t know them. I’d never heard of their band, yet there they were in my EMAIL inbox. That’s right, Pownce let’s people email me with band spam before I know who they are. But wait, Twitter allows people to contact me before I know them also, what’s the difference? On Twitter I don’t need to do anything, except delete an email from my new follower. Due to the highly specific nature of the Twitter service I know immediately what the email is for, it’s either a “new follower notification” or a direct message meant for my eyes only.
On the other hand the email from my example Pownce user was not even a request for friendship, someone simply sent me band spam under the guise of inviting me to an “event”. I then had to mentally process the email and make a decision about what to do with the request. I had to visit Pownce before I even realized that the request was truly spam and I received absolutely no personal gain from the effort. At least with unsolicited “follower” emails from Twitter I receive value because my personal brand (such as it is) may be expanded with a new follower, even if I choose not to follow the other person in return. Pownce has a similar “follower” feature, but again upon receipt of an email request I’m required to visit Pownce to see if I know the person, or care about interacting with them. For some reason I get many more “junk” requests through Pownce. For each one I need to make a choice about it. I physically need to click a button in Pownce, where in Twitter I can simply ignore the request if I choose to. Pownce requires me to mentally and physically process each new request.
But Wait, We Can Control Our Interactions, Can’t We?
Yes we can turn email notifications on and off for the various networks we participate in. But I believe part of the point of social networking should be that we can interact with one another in a low touch manner. We should be required to put as little effort into the act/methodology of interacting as possible in order to focus on the context and content of the communication. Especially since there are hundreds of social sites we can now use, with more launching every day. I’ve heard more than one person complain about tying to keep up with their current networks, so we need to work on making things easier, not more difficult. The rules of interaction and first contact should not be uniquely obtuse to each network.
On my old school business network, LinkedIn, the method for first contact has been well thought out and has served them well for many years. I must first know the email address for a person I want to contact, or I must go through a trusted third party who serves as a quality filter for my inbound contact request. Before I can bother someone with my email in their inbox I need to establish my authority, my right to make first contact. Due to the nature of the LinkedIn network, social pressures influence me to not spam people who I don’t know with unreasonable requests to connect within the network.
On Jigsaw the right of first contact has been taken to an opposite extreme. I can BUY your contact details before you know who I am. I pay for the right to gain access to your phone, email and mailing address details. Now Jigsaw isn’t a social network, but the point is that my first contact rights are being sold to people who I don’t know. This puts me at a disadvantage should the purchaser of my contact details decide to use my information in the wrong way. Yes I can request to be taken out of the Jigsaw database, but again this requires effort on my part to opt-out of the process.
Today I logged into InviteShare in order to add myself to a list and try to get an invite to dznr.org. To my surprise I actually had mail waiting for me in my account. Hmm, that’s odd…. upon reading the “mail” that term is really the wrong word to use. The better term is “invite spam”. The note reads:
Hi XXXX…I’m looking for some invites, I have…
August 21st, 2007
from sonicxboom
Hi xxxx…I have got an excellent (if not the best) under-ground site for you…
- Every & any tune from new to old…rare to popular, ( all free, of course ).
- Millions of p2p users with full D/L speeds…always!
- 10,000s of users to choose from to get your tracks / albums.
- Simple search bar user-interface to find all tunes.
- Pure p2p…No Ads…all shareware, no fees…( just donations, if any ).If you’re interested…I woule like to trade you the details of this site for any invites…like:
Supertorrents… Oink… TL… or HDBits…if you’re interested.
This site only does Music and I mostly download series, films & Pc games.
I always keep the best ratios i can 1:1 +
Please message me if you want more details…Many thanks & kindest regards,
Sonic x Boom.
Do We Need a CAN-SPAM act for Social Interaction Permissions?
in my mind the question over “rights of first contact” in social networking is exactly the same debate that we had several years ago regarding opt-in and opt-out for email lists. At that time the debate was somewhat resolved with the CAN-SPAM act.
Do we need to legislate the right of first contact or can our industry solve this burgeoning problem of social spam before it gets to the point where lawmakers take notice?
4 responses so far ↓
1 Bryce Moore // Aug 23, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Of course the best systems are the opt-in systems, like Twitter, Pownce, and even MySpace. Yes, you’re allowed to “stalk” people anonymously, but it’s a small price to pay to expand your virtual sphere. There are many people I would not have had contact with if it weren’t for plucking them off another “friend’s” list or clear out of the blue off the public stream.
The sad alternative is completely closed-in systems, which at that point the term “social network” becomes a paradox unto itself. There will be “invite spam” in almost any social network (MySpace has had it forever and is still chugging along).
The redeeming quality of these systems is that you can ignore/block people at your leisure quickly and relatively painlessly. In that respect I think the systems, or rather, the platforms themselves, have done a decent job of minimizing the amount of unwanted contact while still keeping the concept of “social network” in play.
2 jgoode // Aug 23, 2007 at 7:03 pm
fantastic! I agree, the opt-in has served us “well” for quite some time, however for social networking I believe it is the community of users in conjunction with the industry developers that will have to solve this growing issue — if there is a door to open, spammers/un-invited sales pitches will forever be present. Heck, I’m on every do not solicite list I can find yet I still get junk snail mail… the uninvited advertising will always ooze in somewhere.
I think if we take a deeper look at public communications such as blogs and forums and their tools that are used to help “moderate” interaction, we can adapt similar concepts that are quite effective for social networking.
There are pros and cons to the whole “open communication networking” concept — as Bryce said, many people we’d not otherwise run across are now mere clicks away — so if we can focus on finding effective ways to filter the spammers, I think the value of the networking far outweighs the annoyances of the virtual “door-to-door magazine sales folk”.
If only flagging systems were cheat proof we could red flag them all away in one big joint effort. – idea. have a flag system on the flaggers?
Thanks again for the great thought provoking.. um, thoughts.
3 Lorna Li // Aug 24, 2007 at 9:09 am
I think the method of first contact is really important – I mean, if I don’t know you, is there any reason why I should or would want to know you – a 2 sentence personalized message will suffice.
On one hand, I get the marketing spam perspective of accumulating a massive audience for your said product. In some cases, the miniscule conversion rate makes the time spent worthwhile.
What I find baffling is the sad, neurotic, socially dysfuntional addiction that the nonmarketing perpetrators have towards acquiring as many virtual friends possible. Just because you have a gazillion MySpace friends doesn’t actually mean you are not a loser or your death metal band rocks.
For example, I keep picking up Twitter followers and I really don’t Twitter all that much, nor am I a notable tech authority. Why are you following me? I get the chills.
I believe that stalker underside of social networks is a mere reflection of existing social angst of lonely souls seeking a doorway out of their social isolation. Social networks can be great enhancements to one’s social life and staying in touch with people you already know, or meeting new people with strong shared interests – but it shouldn’t be a replacement for getting out the door.
4 A Twitter of Fortunate Events « A Bite of Sanity // Aug 24, 2007 at 8:04 pm
[...] space of people that don’t follow you back, and sadly the spammers are still causing their fair share of genuine concerns, but there are literally thousands of connections out there to be made — the network is built [...]
Leave a Comment