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» How to create killerproducts from reDesign
As I was writing the posts on the product development process, I thought of a number of the questions that I ask when Im designing the actual product. The thoughts below are based on more than 12 years of product management experience at compani... [Read More]

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Is Spock Spamming My Contacts?

Spock, a people search engine, that I previously highlighted has been making some slightly questionable moves to grow its user base. Though I am a fan of Spock, I have been informed by a number of my friends and contacts that they were contacted by Spock on my behalf. An example email is below:

Hi Jane Doe,

Frank has invited you to Spock.

Create your account by clicking here

Thanks! Jay and the Spock Team

This was news to me! While the email above looks great, I never sent anyone an email introducing Spock, nor do I recall endorsing the behavior. I assume Spoke offered some way to opt in/out of this type of push technique but I must have missed it. It reminds me of the way that Plaxo used to send emails to all your contacts about birthdays and other updates.

While Spock's auto-email behavior is not spam since it was probably something that could be turned off, I am not happy it has been reaching out to my contacts. I wish Spock would have made it more clear that it would be emailing my contacts.