As far as I can tell this is the "trick" that is the basis for Flowtown's business.
The current iteration of Flowtown is nowhere close to our final vision: helping businesses scale caring.
We launched with an MVP that had even less features than today's iteration (product is just 9 weeks old).
Is that fair? Or are you doing something other than, say, scraping http://www.facebook.com/search/?ref=ffs&q=farmerje@uchic... when I type in my email address? (At least WRT Facebook; other networks would naturally have different tactics.)
You don't need to be defensive. Every network is bootstrapped off another network. If you can get away with it, get away with it for as long as possible, but make sure you have an escape plan.
I assume that's what you're doing. Am I wrong?
That's not meant as a challenge, BTW. If I misunderstand your current product then the record should be corrected.
I knew, e.g., Facebook lets you search by email address to find a friend if you know their email. Since the data on Flowtown more-or-less matched that data I had assumed that was the source of the data.
You'd do the same for the other social networks, plus perhaps get data from Rapleaf and other social profile companies.
If you're saying that's not the case, I can't argue with that and apologize for implying otherwise.
As to whether it's a trick or not, what difference does it make? You can call it a tactic if you'd like.
On an totally unrelated note Cassie says "Hi" - I was at her place for one of her roommates bday's and I was on his computer responding to this thread and she's like OMG jfarmer is that who you're talking with... such a small world.