http://www.articlesbase.com/social-marketing-articles/craigslist-phone-verify-or-not-644221.html
Here is a link to an article about Craigslist and spamming I would like to discuss in class. This was interesting to me as I use Criagslist to both buy and sell quite frequently. A few things to discuss:
1) Does the idea of having to verify your post with phone verification turn you off to Craigslist?
2) Do you see any way that they can stop the spamming and make this a site that is still effective and spam free? Or can it be safe when you are posting personal information?
3) Should Craiglist start using more paid advertising? Would this cause spammers to advertise more and spam less?
For irrational reasons it seems too intimate to me.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I just signed up with Pintrest (or is really the case, I indicated I was interested and a few days later they sent me an invitation). Pintrest required I initially login using either Twitter or Facebook. It says it requires this because it's becoming a growing technique to reduce spam...e.g. Pintrest uses your FB or Twitter credentials to validate your 'realness.' This technique *does* require that you grant access to Pintrest to either your Twitter or FB accounts (which you can later, manually, revoke).
I hardly use Twitter so I choose that one.
But overall this technique while much more invasive, would probably irrationally feel less intrusive to some people?
so:
1) yes, but that's just me. I imagine they only allow one login authorization per phone number. I'm sure it cuts down on the amount of robot accounts.
2) I guess captchas don't prevent people from creating many many many accounts for spam. (Isn't Craig's List free for sellers and buyers?) I suppose adding or increasing the price to post might harm too many of their customers?
3) I doubt it because they are still not disincentiveized from spamming.
Probably no great solutions here but maybe they need to have a few more staff dedicated to intercepting new postings that also quickly pounce on postings flagged as inappropriate. But considering Craig's List probably doesn't have a whole of money, this could be a big problem...it seems to get back to raising or adding a cost to post...the cost should reduce so spam and the cost could allow more human screeners. ?