Rapleaf hosted the first Bay Area Meetup for the DataPortability Workgroup at our offices yesterday. As the kickoff meeting, representatives of companies and organizations involved in the DataPortability movement not only laid the foundation and framework for future discussions, but they also were able to discuss technical, policy, evangelistic, and implementation efforts and implications of dataportability. Full detail eddescription and feedback on the event will be provided by our very own Manish Shah. Pictures of the event below.

We were glad to host such an exciting and fruitful event and we look forward to hosting future Dataportability discussions. And special thanks to Manish for representing Rapleaf, the ever-entertaining Marc Canter for scribing, J. Trent Adams for taking meticulous notes, and to Daniela Barbosa and Chris Saad for streaming and setting up the event!

We recently gathered data and released stats on users of MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Plaxo, and Hi5 – five social networks on the OpenSocial platform. We also gathered data on Facebook users. For instance, did you know:

- The greatest overlap between OpenSocial container sites exists between MySpace and Hi5, in which 43% of Hi5 users also use MySpace.
- Facebook users are 63% female and 36% male whereas the sites integrated with the OpenSocial platform are 61% female and 38% male
- 52% of Facebook users are 18-25, whereas 40% of the users are 18-25 for the five container sites on the OpenSocial platform
- Facebook users tend to use 2.9 major social networking sites on average whereas users of OpenSocial container sites tend to use 2.7 major social networking sites

Full in-depth data below:

Facebook Users
- 2.6 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 17% <18 yrs, 52% 18-25 yrs, 21% 26-35 yrs, 5% 36-45 yrs, 5% >45 yrs
- 2.9 major social networking sites used on average
- 62% are on MySpace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 10% are on Plaxo, 22% are on Hi5

MySpace Users
- 11.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 20% <18 yrs, 40% 18-25 yrs, 27% 26-35 yrs, 7% 36-45 yrs, 6% >45 yrs
- 2.4 major social networking sites used on average
- 15% are on Facebook, 2% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 6% are on Plaxo, 17% are on Hi5

LinkedIn Users
- 0.8 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 38% female, 61% male
- 2% <18 yrs, 9% 18-25 yrs, 49% 26-35 yrs, 24% 36-45 yrs, 16% >45 yrs
- 3.2 major social networking sites used on average
- 16% are on Facebook, 25% are on MySpace, 12% are on Friendster, 16% are on Plaxo, 8% are on Hi5

Friendster Users
- 2.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 58% female, 41% male
- 12% <18 yrs, 39% 18-25 yrs, 36% 26-35 yrs, 7% 36-45 yrs, 5% >45 yrs
- 3.0 major social networking sites used on average
- 10% are on Facebook, 44% are on MySpace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 5% are on Plaxo, 26% are on Hi5

Plaxo Users
- 1.3 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 62% female, 37% male
- 16% <18 yrs, 39% 18-25 yrs, 24% 26-35 yrs, 10% 36-45 yrs, 11% >45 yrs
- 3.6 major social networking sites used on average
- 20% are on Facebook, 53% are on MySpace, 11% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 15% are on Hi5

Hi5 Users
- 4.5 million users identified in Rapleaf
- 60% female, 39% male
- 21% <18 yrs, 44% 18-25 yrs, 23% 26-35 yrs, 6% 36-45 yrs, 6% >45 yrs
- 2.8 major social networking sites used on average
- 13% are on Facebook, 43% are on MySpace, 2% are on LinkedIn, 13% are on Friendster, 2% are on Plaxo

We currently have 60 million people in our databases and we searched those people across publicly accessible social networks, in which much of the data was obtained.

If there or any further inquiries on this data or other data we may have, please contact press@rapleaf.com

Also, developers may check out Rapleaf’s API v2 (for integrating people data into your site): http://www.rapleaf.com/developer

Rapleaf has a bunch of groups, organizations, causes, and candidates that are using our data to better democracy. But we still find that most actors in the political process really underestimate social networks.

So we put together a “social networks for dummies” PDF with some up-to-date stats on who is on these social networks and why someone involved in affecting change should care:

social networks and politics

The Wall Street Journal ran an article a few days ago about firms that manage online reputations and the emerging importance of building, harvesting, and monitoring your name on the web. As more user generated content floods the web, its becomes crucial to watch your own name and reputation in search results, social news sites, and blogs.

Of course, what would an article about reputation be without a Rapleaf mention? Check out towards the end of the story, Rapleaf gets the nod for being a great way to build an online reputation through commerce.

If you haven’t already started to grow your reputation with Rapleaf and want to start, an easy way to begin is by rating your friends. Sign up here.

And you can read the full Wall Street Journal Article here

We just created a Rapleaf group on Facebook that you can join to meet other Rapleaf users! It’s just one more step to making the world a bit more ethical.
Click here to join!

We’re looking for another amazing software engineer. Right now we’re a team of seven…that would make him/her employee #8. And that equates to high cash compensation, high equity, and mucho responsibilities. Testimonials from some of our other engineers:

“I love Rapleaf” - Manish
“Working at Rapleaf changed my life” - Dayo
“My quality of life has increased 1000%” - Jeremy

Enough said…check out the job spec:

Rapleaf recently raised a $1 MM angel round from the top angels in Silicon Valley led by Peter Thiel (former founder and CEO of PayPal), Eric Di Benedetto, Jeff Clavier, Aydin Senkut, and Ron Conway. We’ll be raising a venture round this spring … so this is an opportunity to join pre-VC. You will be one of the key hires.

The goal: To make it more profitable to be ethical

The criteria:
- You’re a kick-butt coder. You take no prisoners. You’re a master of all things Internet. You’re one of the best coders you know.
- You can learn new languages fast (we use Ruby on Rails but if you don’t know this, you can learn it fast)
- You should have a strong desire to build a more ethical society
- You want to be an early employee and want to be a real owner in Rapleaf’s future
- Intensely driven and proactive person
- Extremely hard working. This is a start-up. We work 70-80 hour weeks you should too.
- Quick learner and real doer (and you err on execution over strategy)
- You thrive on working with A-players and you’re too good to spend 70+ hrs/wk with B-players
- People like you and like working with you
- You thrive on chaos, risk, and uncertainty
- Should be easy to get along with, nice, fun, smart, ethical, and low-maintenance
- All levels of experiences should apply (0-25+ years experience)

The role:
- Building out Rapleaf’s next set of ground-breaking features
- Building algorithms to detect and attack fraud
- Changing the world and making it more profitable to be ethical

The location:
- Downtown San Francisco, at New Montgomery and Mission (near BART, MUNI, every conceivable restaurant, etc.)
- You should want to live in or near San Francisco (we’ll move you if you’re not already here)

The compensation:
- High cash comp | high equity — we are willing to pay for the best talent.
- We’re happy to pay you significantly more than your current job. Our philosophy: A players rock. So have fewer people and pay them more.

The additional perks:
- Your own MacBook Pro or Windows based machine.
- Kitchen stocked with food
We’re only looking for people that really want to change the world.

Interested? Please email your resume to jobs@rapleaf.com
(and be sure to sign up for Rapleaf if you are not already a member)

p.s. - If you are not interested, we pay $10,007 referral bonus if you refer us to the person we hire. We’re happy to pay you directly or to send the money to your favorite approved charity (NOTE: Human Fund does not count).

We recently came across a service that would be valuable for anyone selling online or through craigslist. This service is called PrivatePhone and its actually really cool. Essentially you can get a free, anonymous phone number, which would go well with transacting online or via auction/classified sites (especially if you’re worried about giving out your personal number). I even went ahead, signed up, and created an anonymous phone number - you can go ahead and give me a call at 949-468-5624 (it’ll go straight to a voicemail, so leave a message).

As a result, we went ahead and set up a partnership with PrivatePhone. Once our phone number search is active again, the PrivatePhone number could be used to search for a corresponding Rapleaf profile (where you would then, rate that person on that transaction). Check out PrivatePhone!

You may notice some changes we’ve made to the site. We’ve upgraded the aesthetics a bit and made a few things more simple. For one, we’ve made the search much less complicated. Enter an email address and press Lookup, that’s it.

All changes were made with you in mind. Check it out, we hope you find it to your liking. Please leave comments or email us to say what you like, don’t like, anything…we want to hear it all!

You may have noticed, when using Rapleaf, you can now see someone’s domain verity. When you search for domain, we now tell you how hard it is to get an email at that domain. We also show you how easily an email may be traced back to the individual. For instance, a “ge.com” email address is really hard to get. You basically have to work at GE to get it and the email is usually revoked immediately upon leaving the company. A “comcast.com” is easier to get because anyone that has Comcast as their ISP can get one. But a “hotmail.com” email is even easier to get and you can sign up for a thousand hotmail addresses tomorrow with the right hack.

We categorized over almost a hundred thousand domain names and our goal is to hit over a million. So try searching for an email addresses in Rapleaf and see what type of domain related information you get.

I’ve always thought eBay’s marketplace did not have any flaws. Its system is designed to help facilitate commerce transactions and in return they are able to monitor the transactions and effectively control the feedback system…further encouraging more transactions.

And it’s pretty apparent that having a high eBay reputation can illicit a higher premium on products. And not only that, you gain more trust in the buyer/seller.

Now what if I told you there was a way to raise your eBay ratings 10+ points within a matter of 200 seconds? What about 150 seconds? What about 100 seconds? And for only $0.10…would you be up for it?

I would hope you would say “no”! This system called “feedback farming” or “ballot stuffing” (depending on how you look at it) is highly unethical and not at all accurate of one’s reputation in buying or selling. By allowing sellers to sell eBooks for less than nothing, eBay has opened up a way for fraudsters to cheat the system.

I, by all means, do not encourage this behavior (that’s the risk you take in exposing issues like this - people are now aware and they commit the same acts). I am however encouraging you to carefully examine the buyers and sellers on eBay and fully look into their ratings, comments, and feedback. Do not accept their ratings at face value.

When it comes down to it, what does it mean for you? As I mentioned before, sellers with higher ratings garner more trust as well as more business. If these “feedback farmers” raised their reputation value unethically you could get screwed by:

1.) being frauded

2.) paying more for someone with a “higher” reputation

3.) having your trust taken advantage of

Fully utilize a rating system (especially ours) and be on the look out for this type of activity!

What’s the mantra of any startup?

Work hard. Have fun. Make an impact and change the world.

Work hard.

Have fun.

Change the world??? Come again?

The first two are really easy. It’s the “changing the world” that boggles the mind. Compared to other companies, we have it easy since it’s inherent in what we’re trying to do. Our team envisions a society where your reputation is completely ubiquitous…where you can ping someone’s Rapleaf score, while away from the computer, and consider if you should buy or sell to the individual. That’s just an example but that’s very plausible, no?

To answer my own question, it is possible of course, but the process of getting to that point personally frustrates me. I, the author, can’t speak for the entire team when I say this but, it really infuriates me when I hear about these new cases of people getting ripped off, scammed, etc.

Phony Katrina story scam

Auren blogged about a previous Katrina scam. This one occurred recently. Basically a women scammed a church, nonprofits, and others into giving her alot of money by making up a story about her children dying during Hurricane Katrina.

Check from a scammer bounces victim in Jail

This guy was the victim of a Nigerian 419 scam that occurred while trying to sell his bike through craigslist. The result? He was apprehended by the police while trying to cash the check at BofA. He was then thrown in jail, had to pay bail, all while going through hell (obviously trying to rhyme).

Arrrrgh!!! Seriously, who are these people that commit these acts? Just adds fuel to the fire for sure. It makes me think if only this victim knew about Rapleaf, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Who knows.

Sorry I had to unleash the beast. And thanks for listening to me vent. Now I need to get back to changing the world with my team members (just gotta keep on trucking…).

After speaking to a former senior executive at eBay, I found that eBay merchants are getting more and more saavy. They’re no longer focusing their energies on selling through eBay and are actually leaving eBay in some cases. But where are they going? What marketplace is compelling enough to escape the totalitarian leash that’s been in place since ‘95?

How about somewhere without the oppressive walls in place? How about no fees, no restrictions, and the ability to use a portable reputation system? How about some place “worth” more than eBay? How about craigslist?

Yeah, eBay is scared…and they should be. Have you heard of The Unofficial Craigslist Book? Yeah neither did I, until today. But I’m thinking about purchasing a copy. In fact I probably will. For only the price of eight Subway $2.49 specials, honestly, that’s not a bad deal (In case you couldn’t tell, we pretty much eat Subway for lunch everyday).

Just checking out the author’s blog, I found extremeley useful advice such as:

“Upon the first exchange of e-mails never use your real name. There have been instances in which a person’s identity was assumed once they got detailed info about the seller.“

Oops. Good thing I know that now. Is this book going to single-handedly take down Meg Whitman’s empire? Probably not. But this book does look interesting and I’m guaranteeing that it can save you not only a ton of money, but save you alot of grief as well.

Now for all you eBay-turned-craigslist merchants (and everyone else out there), couple these craigslist tactics with online flyers from vFlyer and your Rapleaf reputation and you’re ready to rock ‘n’ rock. In a few years, you’ll forget what it was like to be harnessed to the ground with exorbitant listing fees.

Anyways, buy this book and let us know of any success stories. And be sure to rate your successes with a positive Rapleaf rating

Some guy is accused of defrauding victims of Katrina to the tune of $500,000

See: Contractor charged with fraud

A local contractor remained jailed Monday after deputies chased him down, tackled him, then charged him with bilking Baldwin County residents out of about $500,000 in a series of construction-related scams targeting the elderly, Hurricane Katrina victims and others.

“He would come in and get some money up front to do some things. Then, when it came time to do it, he would never complete the job or do what he was supposed to do,” Murphy said. “He was very smooth. He was very convincing. He pretty much knew what to say. He would say things like, ‘We’ve got to act fast. I won’t be able to get materials at the prices for much longer.’”

This article was sent to us by Rapleaf member Ben Smith. Ben mentions that while most contractors are very ethical, there are a few bad birds in the pile. To separate the good from the crooks, Ben checks the Rapleaf scores of anyone proposing to do work on his house. Ben has a great Alabama summer vacation home that he rents out and often uses local contractors. Thanks Ben!!

There was a very interesting story in today’s Mercury news about feedback and a lawsuit against eBay.

eBay seems to be in the right legally on this. and eBay eventually won the case. but eBay once again demonstrates poor customer service and it pushed away another seller who will be selling through other channels.

overall, this is less a cautionary tale about feedback and much more a tale about having good and responsive customer service.

You received an email indicating that you were rated on RapLeaf. You open the email. You go over the positive comment left for you. You think to yourself “Aww, that’s nice of [insert name].” You’re also thinking “Okay, now what?”

So what is the point of RapLeaf? Why did we start this company and why are we working so hard to provide this service for our users?

RapLeaf is a portable ratings system for commerce. Buyers and sellers can rate each other. If you’re a reputable seller, you’ll be able to generate more business for yourself. More business = more money in your pocket. Just ask this merchant to see if RapLeaf helped out his business.

If you’re a buyer and you’re competing against other buyers to purchase something on Craigslist for example, displaying your RapLeaf badge will give you a competitive edge. If your profile is full of positive comments, that seller will see that you’re a genuinely nice person, you’re not a flake, and you won’t screw them over - you’ll then get that rare Tickle Me Elmo doll. Simple.

So what if you don’t engage in online or offline commerce? Are you looking for a new job? You can post your RapLeaf badge on your résumé. Comments and feedback left for you will vouch that you’re a good person. It’s an easier way to get the job without having to wear a monkey suit. No Myers-Briggs test needed.

As you can see, there’s a whole slew of ways you can use