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Spokeo is a social-network-based people search engine. Unlike other people search engines that search for one person at a time, Spokeo imports an user's entire webmail address book and makes all contacts' online footprints instantly available. Spokeo retrieves content ranging from MySpace profiles to Pandora playlists to LinkedIn job descriptions. Spokeo believes that user-generated content on social networks is a more valuable source of personal background information that traditional public records.

Spokeo also promotes an HR version of its product for $15 per month. This service is targeted at recruiters wishing to do background searches. The responsibility of informing the employee about the background check is left with the recruiter.

Technology

Spokeo's main technology is a social-network-based deep Web search engine that can locate social data that is not indexed by standard search engines, such as Google.. Spokeo finds people's social network accounts by performing deep Web searches across over 40 such networks, including but not limited to Bebo, Blogger, DailyMotion, DeviantArt, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Fotolog, Friendster, HI5, ImageStation, Imeem, Last.fm, LiveJournal, MySpace, Netlog, Photobucket, Vox, Webshots, Windows Live Spaces, Wretch, Xanga, Yahoo Video, and YouTube.. Spokeo is strictly a search engine, not a social network. Although Spokeo syndicates only publicly available information, many people may not realize that the information it aggregates is public.

Spokeo is implemented in Ruby on Rails. Launched in 2006, it is one of the early Ruby on Rails showcases.

History

Spokeo was founded in 2006 by four Stanford students. Spokeo 1.0 pioneered and introduced the concept of social network aggregation to the world on CNet, GigaOm, and TechCrunch on November 2006. The concept quickly caught on among early adopters. The most popular social network aggregator today is FriendFeed.

Spokeo 2.0 launched on TechCrunch a year later, in December 2007. Initially, Spokeo 2.0 introduced its people search technology to help users automatically aggregate their social network accounts. However, users increasingly discussed its people search capabilities more than its aggregator roots. Spokeo rebranded itself as a people search engine later that year.

Up until March, 2008, Spokeo encouraged users to introduce their friends to the social search service, much like many social networks still do. Spokeo stopped this practice after receiving several complaints.

Content privacy

Spokeo aggregates only publicly available information; however, the information that it aggregates is often obscure and hard to find on the Web. To better educate users about its online privacy, Spokeo has developed an automatic "content privacy mirroring" technology. When someone find that their content is public via Spokeo and then make it private, Spokeo automatically detects and reflects these privacy changes in a couple of days. However, many are still worried about the online content that is exposed by social search technologies.

See also

• List of social networking websites

References

1. Spokeo People Search - Traffic Details from Alexa, April 8, 2009.
2. Spokeo People Search - The Mega Search of Social Networks, April 8, 2009
3. Spokeo will aggregate your friends & spy on you
4. Spokeo HR - explore beyond the resume
5. Spokeo People Search Engines: They Know Your Dark Secrets ... And Tell Anyone, March 10, 2009
6. Friends Under The Microscope, January 28, 2008
7. New site feeds off of other Web sites, January 31, 2008
8. Growing Number of Supported Networks by Spokeo People Search, April 8, 2009
9. The RSS Blog on Spokeo People Search, November 30, 2006
10. New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends, May 13, 2008
11. Spokeo People Search: Meta Social Networking, December 8, 2006
12. Your Next Social Network: All of Them?, December 5, 2006
13. The Content Aggregators and the Fat Belly, November 28, 2006
14. Spokeo People Search Aggregates Social Networks And Blogs, November 29, 2006
15. Spokeo People Search 2.0: A Feed Reader For Your Friends, December 10, 2007
16. Reality Check: Spokeo People Search, December 21, 2007
17. Spokeo - leaders in Spam
18. spokeo spam
19. Spokeo: One Step Over the Line
20. Spokeo People Search Privacy Explained, March 1, 2009
21. Social media search: A stalker's paradise?, January 26, 2009

External links

• Official site

• Misplaced Pages articles with possible conflicts of interest from April 2009
• Social search
• Web syndication
• RSS
• Atom
• Web 2.0
• Internet properties established in 2006