Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

In case you don't want to take the time to figure out he site, basically it shares login information for free web sites that you need to register to use. So one person registers, and then makes the registration info available to others to login with.

Definitely interesting. It will make it more difficult for marketers. But, truthfully, these people are not causing the problem, but are a sign of other problems. There is so much of entering false data in on these registration forms that I am not sure it makes much difference.

I think this has been caused by web site managers being untrustworthy with the data, plus the overall spam problem overloading people (whether their entering the data in the web site was the cause or not).

One way around this is to provide a better reason for providing valid data. For example, if you have a white paper that you are giving for free, send the link of the white paper to the person by email after they provide information - this way they have to provide a valid email.

As stated, this is, when all is said and done, nothing more than a login/password-sharing site that allows people to access otherwise protected information without actually having to register.

Fair enough.

Can this help make us better marketers? I don't think so. There's just a segment of the population that is very sensitive about anything that smacks of a privacy violation. They don't like the idea that they have to provide any information on the Web, and they hate the idea that anyone might be tracking their activity on the Web. Personally, I'm not quite as avid a conspiracy theorist as some of these people, but everyone has the right to live as they choose. (Of course, I'll wager that most of these people leave so much *real* important information in their daily garbage that they'd be shocked how easy it would be to do some damage if someone were inclined.)

So, given that such a segment of the population exists, I don't think there's anything that can be done to "elevate" our work as marketers. We're nothing more than prying scum to most of these people. Again, that's their right to think that. No matter to me.

Does it give us a bad rap? Again, I think to the privacy-focused crowd--the kind of people for whom bugmenot.com is a Godsend--we're just always going to get a "bad rap." Only if we simply gave everything away (ya know, in the "spirit of the Internet," the spirit in which greedy capitalist pigs change their ways and simply spend millions of their dollars solely for the greater public good with no regard for investors or the cost of capital) would the rap be anything but "bad."

Remember, there are people who think that "information wants to be free" and that anything having to do with the Internet shouldn't cost a cent.

Having said all of that, if I were the LA or NY Times or any other site that required registration, I'd rather have one login shared by 1,000 people than 1,000 bogus "accounts" that aren't doing me any good, anyway.

My $0.02. YMMV.

Paul