Very interesting product. I haven't yet had a chance to fully explore the site, but I will certainly be creating an account in the future.
I have two concerns:
1) What happens when two people with the same name sign up? Couldn't that lead to issues where they're both trying to promote their own stuff while burying the others?
2) Is there any way that someone could pose as someone they're not in order to sabotage that persons google results, or I could see the possibility of a friend doing that in order to pull a prank on you?
As I said I haven't fully explored to site, so if these concerns are addressed on there, apologies. Great article!
1) In terms of duplicate names, the product also helps you optimize for specific relevant terms like "Patrick Ambron, developer" or "Patrick Ambron, BrandYourself" "patrick ambron, NYC" etc. So people looking for you will be able to find you. That said, if two people are competing for the first page of Patrick Ambron using our service, the person more actively updating and creating content will edge the other out (google loves new, relevant content). But, at least they'll be a leg up on all the other Patrick Ambron's of the world
2) This is definately a possibility--in the same way, I can go and create a wordpress site using your name. It's hard to detect, but there are warning flags we look for. If you create an account for Patrick Ambron, but don't have the authentication for any of the other profiles (FB, twitter, LI) it looks suspicious and we check it out. We also have a policy where if you email us because somebody is using your information in an account, we will suspend the account for you, until the user can verify that they are who they say they are.
I ditched Facebook for about 8 months (I've been back since January) last year and it was incredibly liberating. As a result of my complete withdrawal for such a long period I don't check nearly as much as I previously did, although I must admit I have been starting to slip back into old habits. Also when I re-activated my Facebook I also joined Twitter which I now spent far too much time on. Despite some regression, I still feel that by having taken such an extended hiatus I am far less addicted to receiving the constant stream of information, as I once was.
This post has inspired me to take some steps to make sure I don't completely revert to the state I was ~1.5 years ago. I too plan to be more consciousness of my Twitter/Facebook/Reddit usage and not just spend large chunks of time mindlessly browsing them, when I could be doing some productive.
