Technology As Innovator

Twitter’s success has boiled to the point the even some Twitterers start to wonder how would the service monetize.

Here is the short list of a few ways I can think of for Twitter’s evolution:

1. Same as that of Facebook: display ads in left & right white spaces
2. Same as that of Google Adword: you tweet “I love cold drink”, an ad for Coca-cola is displayed
3. Same as that of faceViet: display ad between tweets
4. Same as that of vietnamworks: service providers pay Twitter to create a Twitter account specifically for brand-engagement / market research / recruitment / sales. This is politically difficult as the line between a service provider and a non-provider is vague
5. Same as that of many popular blogs providing premium subscription: celebrity Twitterer charge followers for valuable tweets, part of the charge goes to Twitter
6. Same as that of a social-C2C-commerce: Twitters become actual seller & procurers

What are your ideas?

Only after a decade, Phu My Hung in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City has transformed from a marshy outskirts area to a sharply developing center. The development process of the city requires a lot of labor to provide services (construction, sales, sanitary, maintenance) to the citizens. Not being able to afford the extremely high real estate price in the area, these people are gathering in certain less (much less) luxury vicinities somewhat away from the heart of the city.

Now, adjacent areas such as Him Lam or Trung Son are also growing with no less rapid rate. This development accidentally surrounds the mentioned living blocks of less luxury, creating so-called slums inside the developed city.

Where to plan accommodations for these labor - District 8, District 4 or Binh Chanh? If not planned right now, the slums will grow beyond an easy-to-tackle level, hurting the view of the city and even feng shui setups by many Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese and local constructors.

The Context

This is a true story of my experience of trying out testing a Vietnamese web service. There are many things to improve about its business model, PR strategy, usability, security. In the context of this entry, I only focus on Privacy and Customer Support which raised much concerns in me.

I could have named the service with all screen shots, but eventually I decided to keep it confidential to save space for them to improve on what I have to say here.

The Story

I paid to be trapped!

Company C launched a revamped version of their web service W.

Deciding to try it out, I paid the activation SMS and went to my profile only to end up in horror:

My profile was completely public:

• My email was NOT masked. Full mailto: link
• My phone number which had been used for activation was public
• Postal address was mandatory

I felt like was accurately trapped:

• There was NO option to hide profile from public view (let alone hide from other users)
• There was NO option to change email as it was login credential
• There was NO option to change phone number as it was registered as credential
• There was NO option to delete or deactivate my account
• The only thing I could do was change my postal address, which I had been carefully enough not to put my real postal address in the first place

Bare-naked, trapped, public my profile lay.

Gotta find my way out

Horrified, I looked around the site for a cure and there was 3 options to contact them: email, phone or IM

I emailed them via a form… to receive a script error. I switched from Firefox 3 to IE 7, the form hung. I tried Safari, no help either. There was no sign my email had reached them. No email was given either.

I picked up the phone and dialed their numbers one by one… no answer.

I buzzed their IM… no sign of living.

…helpless…

After two months of continually buzzing them through IM, eventually I was served.

And this is the show conversation:

Translation:

Tai Tran: hello. Ciao

Customer Support: Ciao

Tai Tran: I’m the user of W. I have a request for W to remove my account. I wonder how do I do this?

Customer Support: please provide me your username

Tai Tran: username: <censored>

Customer Support: I deleted it for you

Tai Tran: oh, please let me check it. <verified that my account was deleted from the site> Thanks a lot Have a nice day

When I saw this SQL error upon refreshing, I knew my account was deleted. An SQL command, Run. Simple. Quick. Painless.

I shifted from horrified to stunned:

• S/he should have and could have asked for credentials: email, phone number, secret question, other details. S/he did NOT.
• The Yahoo! account I used had NOTHING relating to my account at W.
• So it means ANY one can delete ANY account just by giving a username which is public.
• On the sale perspective, s/he should have and could have asked the reason why I decided to stop using their service. S/he did NOT.

Shocked. Stunned. Speechless.

Morals Well I understand

I understand that privacy feature consumes their money and time.

I understand that the number of users with very strict requirements for privacy like me isn’t that many.

I understand that the number of users willing to stop using the service after paying isn’t that many.

I understand that Customer Support / Contact Center department is always busy it’s best to solve an issue as quickly as possible.

… so it leaves room, way too much room for improvements.

With growing enthusiasm as well as concerns, it’s high time the alarm was on for media providers and media consumers.

My suggestions

I have some tips to give away on this

1. Provide privacy options. To save web service providers efforts to analyze, I give away a high-level specification on privacy for free below
2. Do NOT enforce poor privacy on users. If it’s your policy not to allow certain amendment, speak it out before registrants hit Submit on registration form.
3. Start training programs for your crew so each could do the sale.

FREE specification of Privacy Options

What do you think of this story? How do you react when realizing that your privacy was not guaranteed?