On Skype and such

I’m on Skype now, as “benjamin.crowder”. I tried it a couple years ago but didn’t know a single person using it (I admittedly didn’t look very hard :)), so I ditched it. But I realized yesterday that I can import my contacts from Gmail — although I’m on a Mac so I have to export to vCard, import into Address Book, and then import into Skype, which unfortunately takes around twenty hours for 2,000 contacts (why does it take so long to search the Skype directory?). I started the process last night, it finished this morning, and after whittling down the list I hit Next. Then I decided I wanted to go back and change the list. Well, turns out that that cancels the whole thing, so in another twenty hours I’ll have that contact list imported. La-dee-da. ~sigh~

(In spite of this setback, can I just say that being able to import contacts from Gmail et al. is a brilliant feature for any social networking app. It really makes a huge difference — an easy way to find people you know — and I love it. Now if only Facebook would open their data so I could pull from there as well…)

I think you’ve overstated the benefits of this sort of thing–particularly calling it an italicized brilliant. This is the source of tons of acquaintance-spam (acquam, if you will–okay, that probably won’t catch on).

If we could trust social networks to only use this data as we directed, that would be one thing. But some networks have been known to take your whole list and spam them on a regular schedule, without your permission, using your name, and without your even knowing it. Tim Spalding has written very critically of Shelfari on the LibraryThing blog for doing just this. How would you like it if all 2000 people on your contact list, including professional contacts, professors, your stake president, and every other person you know, started getting spam in your name to join half a million social networks every day or week for the foreseeable future? This is exactly what happened to Shelfari users (and Shelfari eventually admitted it had been too “aggressive” in recruiting new members, if I recall).

These sites usually “ask” your permission by pre-checking a box hidden at the bottom of the page, with a huge button right in your face, so you don’t really notice what you’re agreeing for them to do. I have several dozen contacts who I’ve never given my Gmail address too for this very reason. My mostly defunct Hotmail account stilll gets regular social network spam from them.

And I don’t think you want to be the guy who other people are doing that to.

I have loved Skype for phoning home while in Europe. At 2 cents a minute, I can’t complain. Have to admit though, that’s the only reason I’ve ever used it. But it’s reliable and I haven’t dealt with any spam. Granted… I’ve only ever used it to repeatedly call 3 or 4 American land lines and cell numbers. But so far so good.

No, it won’t catch on. :P I agree completely that this “acquam” is garbage and is a very bad thing. The brilliant was of course referring to the feature when used correctly and courteously. :)

Hilary: I need to travel to Europe, then. :P (Or find people in other countries to talk to.)