No way!
Flickr photo: Whiskeygonebad
So ‘twitterank’ could be a scam. Twitterank seemed to be another twitter ranking or evaluating site, similar to twitter grader or twinfluence, that measured a twitter user’s worth in the twitterverse, but according to a ZDNet blog post, they picked up on the possible security threat after seeing a tweet that read, “@t RT @brianoberkirch Twitterank is a vast conspiracy I created to steal all of ur passwords + shame Twitter into OAuthing. + make u look vain.”
Assuming that the tweet is genuine and that twitterank is in fact a scam, I think the author of the above tweet has it all wrong, as far as the site users go. If you’re committed to social media, whether through your work or perhaps as a volunteer or maybe just as a devout user, then wanting to measure how you’re doing with the tools you use doesn’t make you vain. Nor does sharing the results of such measurements. Transparency is a far cry from vanity.
Granted, there may be a few out there who tweet their grade/rank/influence just to show how important they are, but I think the vast majority are just doing what we all do with social media most of the time anyway- share new, cool stuff.
What do you think? Are you so vain? Do you think this post is about you?
November 13, 2008 at 8:55 am
Great post Erin. My question would be…. why would someone want to steal a Twitter Password?
Also, a lot of social media is centered around vanity. There is an egotistical side to the entire concept of sm communities.
November 13, 2008 at 9:04 am
I’m confused. What’s wrong with being vain?
If anything these make you less vain, in any event.
Vanity, according to wikipedia is “In conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one’s own abilities or attractiveness to others.”
If your grade/rank/influence turns out to be high, then it is not considered excessive!
November 13, 2008 at 10:11 am
@Kyle Who knows why you’d steal a twitter password- just for the ‘joy’ of messing up someone else’s account??? Good question.
I guess you could call sm vain in that perhaps some overestimate their interestingness to others in sm communities… but I think those folks are the exception not the rule.
@Ezra- great point! lol
November 24, 2008 at 8:57 am
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