I often hear the following refrain from an Internet services executive: “People are willing to share a LOT of information when they register at our site.” There are caveats of course - ease of sign-up, for instance, can accelerate a company’s growth trajectory (see Ed Sim’s thoughtful words here) - but many companies use the registration process itself to extract significant value. When I recently registered on Ringo, a photo-sharing site and a division of venture-backed success Tickle, the company employed a rather aggressive tactic that I couldn’t help but share. Expect this one to proliferate rapidly to similar services.
After offering my vitals (name, email, birthday), Ringo presented an opportunity to “get photos from my friends” - this is, after all, a photo-sharing site. I’m given the option to dig into my address book if I’m a member of MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Instant Messenger, or Gmail. Naturally, I spill my email LOGIN info (I’m a trusting guy) and Ringo pulls up all my contacts, pre-checked to “request” photos. Already registered Ringo members are noted, but everyone’s checked, so I’m assuming “invite” emails are sent to the unsuspecting non-members if I follow through with a simple click. See the following screenshot:
Admittedly, I was registering via an invite email and this was a few weeks ago. Today’s attempt at a registration via the homepage didn’t put me through the same process (though it was readily accessible in the “friends” portion of the site).
Does inviting one’s entire address book to a web service violate email ethics? Seems pretty invasive to me.
Technorati Tags: ringo, tickle, photosharing, email
The New Face of Customer Acquisition…
I often hear the following refrain from an Internet services executive: “People are willing to share a LOT of information when they register at our site.” There are caveats of course - ease of sign-up, for instance, can accelerate a compan…
[...] On Saturday I wrote about Ringo’s aggressive customer acquisition tactics. To summarize, the company is pushing users to open their email contact list kimonos in order for Ringo to gain new users. That’s a harsh way of saying the company is encouraging its users to invite friends, which is how Ringo puts it. [...]
[...] The New Face of Customer Acquisition [...]