Comments on: Quechup. Or why I spammed 1758 people this weekend.

By: Dave Kootman

Dave Kootman — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:37:16 +0000

Same here. I did the same thing you did and ended up sending apologies to my contacts as well. Doh!!! I do kinda wonder if Quechup has ill intent or is just stupid though. Either way, it’s not cool.

By: Rich Platts

Rich Platts — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:12:40 +0000

hi steve, it took me only a couple of my precious, weekend hours to undo my own quechup mess after responding to your invite. my first truly horrifying, internet adventure, and you were right there with me. you probably heard me cursing all the way from 60035. Of course all is forgiven now that i see you’re a big-shot, featured speaker at FETC. the big question is, will I still be one of your 1758 friends now that you’ve hit the big time?
“…
Cheryl Lemke, Metiri Group
Jenelle Leonard, U.S. Department of Education
Alan November, November Learning
Gary Becker, Copyright Law Consultant
Steve Dembo, Discovery Education …”

By: Rich Platts

Rich Platts — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:59:10 +0000

Well Steve, I should thank you for the invite — it was nice to reconnect with old friends. Still, I would have preferred not to spam the president of Carnegie Mellon University & most of my professors and one of my school board members. Who knew that Gmail hoarded so much of my incoming contact information!

Anyway, I caught it in time to avert most of the damage thanks to your responsible follow up email. Thanks!

And no hard feelings.

By: Jeff Branzburg

Jeff Branzburg — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:58:08 +0000

Hi Steve - after getting your invitation I joined, let them access my gmail, and same thing happened. I use an online fax service, and so they also sent these invitations to email “addresses” that were actually fax machines. So now Allstate thinks I want them to join Quechup, because they got a fax saying so! To add insult to injury, I pay for each fax sent …

All in all, a very humbling experience. I think many people immersed in the tech world (or at least more immersed than the general population) may at times develop a degree of hubris regarding technological prowess. Experiences like this, as distasteful as they may be, are grounding.

By: Marsha Cruce

Marsha Cruce — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:53:13 +0000

thanks for the heads up - think I will avoid that one!

By: harry confort

harry confort — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:53:48 +0000

Even if you cancel your Quechup account, and change your gmail password, Quechup will still send invitations out to all the contacts it has grabbed from your address book.

By: Casey Hales

Casey Hales — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:32:03 +0000

Well, I thought I was so special getting an invitation from you, now I found out I’m just one of 1757 other special friends.
I, too, have some folks that would like to tan my hide! I’d like to know how you got to cancel your Quechup account. They don’t seem to make that too easy, either.

By: chris hunewell

chris hunewell — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:17:28 +0000

Don’t be so hard on yourself, Steve. When I got the invitation from you, I thought it really odd that there was no mention of Quechup on either Teach 42 or your Digital Passports site. So I figured something was amiss. I bet other readers did too. Thanks for sharing your story!