Anyone with any sort of message that they want to communicate to a large audience is, at some point – faced with the age-old challenge of how to gain a following to spread the word.
In the current Information Age, this challenge has been met with numerous solutions. Since a growing number of people in all age groups, socio-economic backgrounds, geographic locations, varied sizes, shapes and colors are becoming plugged in to the web, reaching any number of us has become less and less of a challenge.
Social Networking, advertising, marketing, email, file “sharing”, eSurveys and the like are all just variations on the same theme – acquire your personal data, analyze it, organize it and exploit it. If you find yourself in the position of needing to spread a message and want more of an audience (to acquire more Twitter followers or increasing the amount of Facebook “friends” you have) then you may want to take a look at an Australian-based service called uSocial (uSocial.net).
Created by a 24 year old named Leon Hill, uSocial.net is a service that bills themselves as a social bookmarking service, among other things. Here’s a screen grab from their FAQ page wherein they briefly describe their services.
Usocial was just launched but has already caused a stir. Facebook is claiming that uSocial violates its Terms of Service which prohibit users from sharing their passwords with a third party. What does this mean? A user can have their account taken down if an allegation such as this is proven. Mr. Hill has stated publicly that not only is this unlikely, but that
“Unless they actually say anything, unless they make it known to Facebook or Twitter that they’ve actually bought my services, there’s absolutely nothing they (Facebook or Twitter) can do.”…In the end the thing is that I’m not actually ever doing anything against the terms of service — it’s the actual users who purchases my services (who is),” he said.
That means that from their standpoint – uSocial is not the culprit – we are! How much does this service cost? For $177 you can gain 1000 Facebook Fans and for $1177 that number goes up to 10,000. On Facebook, the maximum number of friends one can have is 5000, which is why the Fan Pages are so great – no limits there. But you can buy your friends, too. For $727 you can take your friend count to it’s limit. Too rich for your blood? $200 will get you 1000 friends.
The way uSocial works entails logging into a client’s profile and seeking out people who would be a good fit, sends them a friend request and never mentions that the third party is pulling the strings. In essence, the friend request comes through transparently and uSocial can avoid accountability.
Remember – agreeing to any sites Terms of Service is giving your word that you will adhere to their guidelines.
Not many people actually read the Terms of Service, but if considering a service like uSocial, it is advisable.
According to the Associated Press, Facebook is currently “investigating” uSocial’s practices.
What do you think? Would you use this service? Is it appealing?
No comment yet, add your voice below!