thechannelc

This is a social media aggregator disguised as an elite social media hall of fame. Vocanic Ltd, a company based in Singapore started a social media campaign in search of Malaysia’s top 500 social mediaphiles to take part in a secret project that was revealed yesterday in a “briefing”. I had the invite but I had better things to do on a Sunday afternoon.

With an eye on twitter I watched the briefing unfold. It became clear that this was a cheap stunt to collect data from unsuspecting social media users.  The company had little clue how to develop a service and now they need the 500 people to give it some direction. Or maybe this was another disguise because what they were really after was user information. There must have been more than 500 people who have given their information in the 6-page registration process.

I’m especially disappointed at being misled into a beta testing program and having to fill 6 pages with personal information that the developer couldn’t even use to create a service that’s half decent and launch-worthy. Then again, the 6 pages of questions were so badly structured, flawed and irrelevant, I’d be amazed that any meaningful data can be extracted to help an application developer. Just take a look at the pages I’ve screen capped.

I am ever happy to beta test new apps and volunteer feedback if a developer makes it clear that this is an invitation to a beta test. And if it’s a beta test, don’t collect personal information that has little relevance to product development.

So would I be willing to participate in this further? No. This is now Project DELETE.