July 17th, 2008

Tripit Employee Pretending to be Disgruntled Dopplr User?

by Joshua Porter  |   15 Comments  |  shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/792

In On the Internet, people know if you’re a dog, my friend John Eckman details an interesting situation which underscores the importance of identity and revealing who you are in appropriate places on the Internet.

John wrote a great post the other day comparing some newly released features from the travel startup Dopplr with those of another travel startup, Tripit. Both services have become very well known in the last year and are converging in the same space: they’re increasingly becoming competitors in what might be called the social travel space. I actually use both services as examples in my talks…they are both doing some very innovative design. I even put Tripit screenshots in my book on social design.

Well, someone by the name of “Thomas” left a comment on John’s post that was pretty disparaging of Dopplr. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, as every service has its detractors.

Except it appears that Thomas might actually work for Tripit. Just before he was going to publish the comment, John noticed that the machine Thomas commented from was called wall.tripitinc.com. While it is possible that this is an amazing coincidence, or that Thomas simply forgot to mention who he was, it’s unlikely. The comment is written from the voice of a customer trying out both services. (John’s post contains the full comment)

John tried to contact Thomas, but hasn’t heard back.

So, it appears that someone from Tripit is making negative comments about their competitor Dopplr without disclosing who they are. That is bad behavior, in the same way as if someone from Dopplr had come and made positive comments without disclosing who they are.

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Comments

1.  Scott Hintz 1:02pm, Thu 17th, 2008

Hi, this is Scott Hintz, one of the co-founders of TripIt. You are correct that the comment you refer to on John Eckman’s blog was left by a TripIt employee who violated TripIt’s policies regarding such posts. We extend our sincerest apologies to John, his readers, and our friends at Dopplr.

We’ve posted a more detailed response on John’s blog here: http://www.openparenthesis.org/2008/07/15/dopplr-gets-email-twitter-sms-import

2.  Josh 2:29pm, Thu 17th, 2008

Thanks for the pointer Scott. I appreciate the way you handled this…good on you.

3.  Buzzregog 3:39pm, Thu 17th, 2008

This sort of thing really is no shock, look at any site selling something that has “customer” reviews. Mighty standup of the co-founder to own up though. :)

4.  John Stack 1:53pm, Fri 18th, 2008

It takes a good company with a good ethic to make a public apololgy. Now, taking that ethic and ensuring it is alive in the culture is the next step.

Joshua, I’m afraid by allowing unmoderated comments on blogs, replies in forums, its going to be a bigger problem. For example, I know someone who showed up on a porn site forum in this manner. Unfortunately, this person from a big operating system company who is trying to buy a search company can’t do a darned thing about it.

5.  John Stack 2:10pm, Fri 18th, 2008

I should hasten to add that I didn’t find it!!! He was self-googling to figure out some SEO stuff.

6.  Ozel Dedektif 2:13am, Sat 19th, 2008

bad start but good finished, thank you

7.  Serollah 4:05pm, Sat 19th, 2008

I run a variety of local business sites which allow comments (all moderated) .. I have a hunch that many comments are actually being made by those with a competative interest in the success and/or failure of entities being commented on .. just a hunch, little hard evidence to back up my hunch .. although I do track IPs, etc ..

8.  Jonathan 9:06am, Mon 21st, 2008

“That is bad behavior, in the same way as if someone from Dopplr had come and made positive comments without disclosing who they are.”

Here in Europe, it’s more than bad behaviour – it’s a criminal offence as of this year.

9.  Ken 1:03pm, Mon 21st, 2008

Joshua, excellent post to draw attention to the sordid underbelly of review posts on the Web.

My guess is that many very positive posts and many very negative posts are posted with some hidden agenda. When I read a review, I tend to discount the extremes and look for balanced opinions in the comments.

I wonder if this is something you address in your book, which is on my to-buy-soon list. In other words, how does a social web site avoid being manipulated by folks with a hidden agenda.

10.  Bruce P. Henry 3:25am, Sat 2nd, 2008

Josh – Can you check your spam filter for a comment I made (about spam curiously enough)?

I’m pretty sure it hit about 100% on the Bayesian filter for spam. :-)

Funny how trying to describe spam makes you look like spam. Not so “funny haha” as “funny, I want to hit my head with a hammer.”

11.  Mike Farley | Web Designer 6:47pm, Thu 21st, 2008

There seems to be a lot of this going. A client of mine had some SCATHING reviews put up on various local entities such as merchantcircle, yahoo local, etc. Turns out they were all from a disgruntled employee. It’s becoming more and more important to setup alerts for your company and your name and pay attention to what’s being said. Google Alerts are not just for vanity anymore!

12.  Tom 6:04am, Thu 11th, 2008

I am happy that TripIt has acknowledge that it was false, whereas Kevin Rose’s “Pownce” still has not acknowledged that the Ariel Waldman controversy (where an account anyone could post to tweeted the female “C” word in relation to her name, once, all the other threats she made were proven to be false). First, there is no proof Ariel Waldman did not anonymously call herself the c word, and secondly, she was the community leader for Pownce, a twitter competitor, when starting all this.

Google [Ariel Waldman Twitter Pownce] and you’ll find information on this.

13.  oyun indir 12:25pm, Tue 30th, 2008

Thanks for the pointer Scott. I appreciate the way you handled this…good on you.