

Idea for Facebook App: "Lobby" - Tichy

This idea grew out of my frustration with a company who refuses to repair my mobile phone. Obviously I will end my contract with that company, and so will my girl-friend. Perhaps some of my friends will, too? What if I could post my grudges against some companies on my Facebook profiles, and contacts who trust me enough would also commit to actions (ie cancel their contracts, avoid products from that company). The application could sum the expected damages for the evil company. <p>What do you think? I fear some legal problems, and maybe it is too negative. On the other hand being powerless against the big corporations is also a very negative feeling. I admit that I am motivated by anger here...<p>Another question is how often do such frustrations occur?  Maybe I was just extremely unlucky, and in general the corporations don't abuse their power?
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jkush
To take the literal word lobby, what about an app that creates virtual lobbies
for a product or company. People who are thinking of buying a particular
product could enter into a lobby that is populated by people who both champion
and denigrate the said product.

Some lobbies that would be interesting:

Apple Lobby Lisp Lobby

I guess these are like forums, but are different in that they are built for
lovers and haters inclusively.

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pius
I've got an app with a similar feature in the pipeline. It's a great idea, if
I do say so myself! ;)

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ntoshev
I'd probably never use it, but I like it :) It is like Facebook ads in reverse
- make sure to connect via the guilty company's Facebook profile ;)

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omouse
It would be neat if it could also allow someone to lobby against shitty
Facebook ads too!

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Alex3917
I was thinking today about making a Facebook app that would let you find
people who you know by sight but but not name using a dichotomous key.

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Tichy
What is a dichotomous key? If you find a workable way to make people find
somebody they only know by sight, you will definitely score big, in my
opinion.

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joshwa
<http://getsatisfaction.com/> ?

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Tichy
Definitely similar, but I would be aiming for something more "poignant", I
guess. I don't want to supplement the customer service of companies, only
motivate them to improve it by themselves.

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alaskamiller
[http://www.google.com/search?aq=t&oq=verizon+suck&hl...](http://www.google.com/search?aq=t&oq=verizon+suck&hl=en&q=verizon+sucks&btnG=Search)
1,320,000

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sprint+sucks&bt...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sprint+sucks&btnG=Search)
234,000

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tmobile+sucks&b...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tmobile+sucks&btnG=Search)
95,500

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cingular+sucks&...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cingular+sucks&btnG=Search)
92,400

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=att+wireless+sucks&...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=att+wireless+sucks&btnG=Search)
85,500

So what you're saying is, the Internet being full of people complaining about
bad service (planetfeedback.com), somehow by magically being on Facebook
companies will care more? You know what they'll do? They'll make a call to
Palo Alto, threaten to pull their ad budget, and your app disappears the next
day.

A GetSatisfaction facebook app would be interesting though.

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Tichy
Ok, if Facebook would pull the app, I could add Facebook to my anti-lobby list
;-) The point is not being on Facebook especially, it is putting a number to
the bad publicity. Pissing one customer off is one thing, pissing off one
hundred another. It could actually be a valuable service for the targeted
companies. They already have "retention scores" for single customers, maybe
they would be happy to be able to compute retention scores for groups.

I don't care so much for random complaints voiced on the internet, because
they are not by my friends whom I trust.

I am actually a bit concerned about painting too bleak a picture about some
companies. For example, if a company shifts a huge number of products, there
are bound to be some random problems. That way it might appear as if company X
has much worse customer service than company Y, even though company X has ten
times better customer service than company Y (ie if X sells 100 times more
products than Y).

And sometimes it is really the customer who is being obnoxious. Hopefully in
that case the customer's friends would tell him to let go, or at least not
support the case.

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bkmrkr
hey, can you email me bkmrkr @ yahoo.com

