

Dear Tiny Post, please stop the shady practices - dave1619
http://heydave.org/post//dear-tiny-post-please-stop-the-shady-practices

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ingridlunden
Hi. I'm at TechCrunch and this is an FYI. I saw this and reached out to Tiny
Post and got a response. Short version: it was a test they were running and is
now being taken down. Slightly longer story here
<http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/20/tiny-post-bot/>

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dave1619
Awesome, thanks for investigating and writing the story!

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DanBlake
Before you jump to conclusions, please be aware its definitely possible that
TP isnt doing this directly but that it is a bot doing this to get these users
more followers or something.

Keep in mind most networks have this problem ( twitter, fb, etc.. ) where
users will follow anyone/anything to get themself more followers or traffic.

~~~
dave1619
Valid point. I'll update my blog post. But it's difficult to believe that 3rd
parties would be that interested in Tiny Post. I can understand 3rd parties
interested in gaining followers on Twitter, Pinterest, etc. But Tiny Post? I
would imagine they're facing more a traction problem (trying to get users
using their app) vs 3rd parties trying to gain more followers.

~~~
michaelkscott
If you were a 3rd party spammer/marketer company, and you thought Tiny Post
was gonna be huge, you'd probably jump on it fast and spam the *$^% out of it.

So it's very possible it could be a spammer getting on board early.

~~~
dave1619
True, but as a 3rd party spammer/marketer company why would you think Tiny
Post is going to be huge?

Usually you'll need some indication that this is the next big thing, or at
least that this app is taking off. I just don't see Tiny Post hyped in the
press at all.

Also, looking at all the people these fake users are following, most of them
aren't active and haven't posted much. Doesn't seem like a flourishing
ecosystem where 3rd party marketers would be attracted to.

But then again, I could be wrong. I've added this point to my post and also
I've tweeted the Tiny Post founders as well, hoping to hear a reply.

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nostromo
The too-hip photos give them away as fakes. Looks like they are all from
models and fashion blogs:

<http://seedofstyle.com/manila-streets/>

<http://www.iamgalla.com/2012/07/70s-groove.html>

<http://kolonelmustard.tumblr.com/image/28952930859>

I'm not saying you should do this kind of astroturfing (please don't)... but
if you wanted to, a more realistic feeling way would be to use the FB Graph
API and randomly select names and photos from there. Example:
[https://graph.facebook.com/4?fields=picture,id,name,first_na...](https://graph.facebook.com/4?fields=picture,id,name,first_name,last_name,username,gender,locale)

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gojomo
The backlash from using real private-individual photos on a service without
their permission would be large than using model shots (for which there's a
chance TinyPOst has the rights).

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Cogito
Maybe I missed it, but I couldn't see how it was 'obvious [that] Tiny Post is
running these fake accounts as bots in order to fool their users.'

The argument seems to be 'Accounts which look like bots are posting on my
otherwise dormant account, therefore the service provider is using shady
practices to try and re-engage me.'

It is not a stretch to believe that this is the case, however it is equally
plausible (to me) that the alleged bot accounts are run by a third party. I
might have missed some aspect of the argument, however.

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flipstewart
I signed up for but never used Tiny Post, and I'm still getting emails about
people following me. People with very similar accounts to the ones Dave
mentioned.

For example, check out this profile: <http://tinypost.co/users/jonig/#tab1>

If you go through the list of people that "Joni" follows, you'll see that most
of them don't seem to have posted anything either.

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processing
this doesn't look good.

Reverse image on that profile pic and it comes up with a person not called
Joni Gilbert.

<http://lookbook.nu/look/3792401-Sport-chic>

~~~
flipstewart
I was about to post the same thing. Both the posts and the profile pictures
seem to come from Pinterest.

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petercooper
This is why I think CAN-SPAM shouldn't exempt "transactional or relationship
messages" (and I send over 75,000 e-mails a week..!) Every
automated/transactional mail, commercial or otherwise, should have an
unsubscribe link or mechanism these days due to the noise.

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intellegacy
Can someone explain the USP of tiny post? It looks like it's a pinterest
clone.

