Ottawa based Cluztr is social bookmarking meets Big Brother. It’s the Del.icio.us Homer Simpson would use.
A few years ago clickstreams and attention data was all the rage. In 2005 Michael Arrington covered Attention Trust and a Firefox plugin that tracked every site you visited, the data being stored for private use or opt-in sharing. But not a lot has happened since. The hype never caught up with reality.
Fast forward two years. Ubiquitous broadband and the age of voyeuristic self expression have arrived. The clunky web cams of Web 1.0 have given way to uStream and Justin.tv.
Cluztr tracks your clickstream and shares it with the world. Every site you visit is recorded and posted live to the Cluztr site in a social bookmarking style format, but without the need for active involvement; a Firefox plugin does it automatically.
The wealth of data has benefits outside of letting people watch. Content matching links users with similar clickstreams and creates site recommendations based on user history.
Cluztr is also a chat platform. Cluztr users visiting a particular page are automatically displayed in the sidebar allowing discussions on the topic at hand.
A privacy option is available. Clickstreams can be set to private or public. Cluztr also adheres to the principles and guidelines outlined by AttentionTrust.org. Users maintain full control over data collected.
The service shouldn’t appeal to me. I should be horrified by a service that tracks and publicly exposes every site you visit, and yet for some reason this one stands out. Perhaps like much of society as a whole I’ve become engulfed by a wave of voyeurism, and Cluztr wets my appetite.
it sounds a good service.it looks like a website collection.i want to try it.
@itechcrunch:
We are beta testing cluztr on tangler (http://www.tangler.com/group/6830). If you want to beta test that’s where you need to go
Ouch. Sounds scary! I’ll be curious to see whether people will adopt this service.
There is a nice Firefox extension that does something similar, but keeps the data private(better?), in your browser. Starting with the next version, Smarky [1] will keep track of your site/bookmark usage *plus* make use of the same data that comes from Simpy [2], and as the result, you will always have your frequently used sites handy in the FF sidebar. In other words, if you still keep bookmarks in your browser, you won’t have to have a special folder for your frequently used sites, and you won’t have to have folders that contain those frequently used site always expanded for faster access.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4702
[2] http://www.simpy.com/
It “whets” your appetitie, it doesn’t “wet” it.
Oh, man… appetitie? Forget what I wrote.
I don’t know if this sounds worth my time. but just wanted to chime in and say I’ve been subscribing for a couple weeks and I really appreciate it when you review new stuff! Thanks!
I never ceased to be amazed by the relevant sites I find with StumbleUpon. This looks like it could be even better. Thanks
Thanks Michael! Cluztr sounds to be a very interesting service. I’m definitely going to give it a try
I actually wrote a review of cluztr a few weeks ago, pointing out some things to work on which they are actually addressing - their service is getting better all the time.
http://techfold.com/tag/cluztr
it is nice to combine ideas and i am sure the web is about to emerge into something big at the moment. however, services like cluztr worry me. like google’s attempts to learn everything about your usage and paths, they make money with exactly that by sharing what you are doing. now, i am a blogger myself and not afraid of appearing on the net. but to show everybody and especially marketers the things i am doing freaks me out. i like targetet marketing. but that is losing control of what i want to publizise. it is a matter of privacy concerns.
Clicked the link on the page which took me to the page,
http://www.cluztr.com/clickstreams/
And got 404 - Page not found.. thats why they call it closed beta yet !!
Privacy concerns of marketers having access to “the things i am doing” … is certainly a valid point. However, anonymity on the web is a myth, it never really existed.
Whenever you’re on google, yahoo, ebay, amazon … they are all collecting information about where you go/what you search and are creating a profile of you, whether you realize it or not. Many online advertising also tracks you in this fashion.
So this data, is already being collected … but what if you could use this data for your own purposes? I mean it’s data about you, shouldn’t you control and own it? And even sell it if you wanted to.
As Duncan explained, Cluztr allows you full control over your clickstream and we are completely transparent in how your data is handled.
i see. that is what u will have to struggle with though. u might have probs to hammer that point home.
I like the idea behind cluztr but i would never use it?
I should be able to release that information that Cluztr obtains but for a fee, they should offer their data at a fee to marketing organizations and pass that back to users…
Speaking of Voyeurism, ….a Skype plugin that allows anyone to listen to your conversations…. so long as you know who it is and you can listen to them at some point?
so you install that skype plug in ann then allow others to sneak in?
You’re absolutely correct and to further the point, this type of service … in fact any type of social service is not necessarily for everyone. And thats OK.
My friend Mark Krynsky, from lifestreamblog.com speaks a lot about such privacy issues. In a recent article, he put it like this: clickstream data are … “harmless interesting data nuggets compared to the amount of private data about us that we can’t control sitting on corporate computers and hard drives all over the world.”
This reminds of me.dium.com
but they don’t have a page that lists all the info for public or private usage, just for their usage (IIRC). It will be interesting to see if/ how they respond.
yes sebastian, there should be a few option, ‘total sneak’ allows you to hear 10 secs on conversation and if you decide to start listening the people speaking can see who is listening (and even invite them in).
The other option is to have unidentified spies, whereby someone can listen but the speakers remain anonymous to the spy..
one day people will be put on video goggles with microphones and people will be able to live the lives of others… what do you think?
adrian, i would not say that really, but the relation of nanotechnology, 3d, geotagging etc. will certainly bring us a lifestyle we can only dream of now.
There are several other services, but they all provide significantly different user experiences that simply cater the user in question. I mean how many social bookmarking sites or social networks are there?
The point with any application is that it cannot be everything to everyone… the internet is a big place.
Jon - rod here from techfold. I got your comment about the Contact Us form not working and have posted my email address in the same spot. Drop me a line when you get a moment…
Whatever it is, lose the name…
That space is about to explode; clutzer, swarmski, mybloglog. I wonder if there is space for so many.
@Adrian (14)
Why not let advertisers bid directly on each user’s profile, with Clutzr, in some sense, stepping out of the role of middleman and instead taking only a cut? Each user could opt in to, or out of, only advertisements for certain kinds of products, services, etc. This kind of self-selected targeted advertising would be powerful–and decidedly non-zero-sum. The potentially huge value added by self-selected targeting would ensure that publishers wouldn’t be hurt (and probably helped).
lol Ryan.
I visited Google HQ the other week. At their reception area, they have a projector displaying streaming search terms. Basically, a scrolling list of what people are searching for. They have excellent auto filtering for adult content and human viewers who add even more layers of filtering. However, in 5 minutes of watching the scroll I saw multiple results that I probably shouldn’t. People entering in personal information and searching on it, adult terms and so on.
This site reminds me of that. No matter how much control they give us, we’re bound to let something slip that we really don’t want to. So no thank you, I’ll stick to social bookmarking sites that don’t monitor my every move.
GJ
http://www.60in3.com
What a terrible name and domain name!
thank god their “store” link was on the main navigation I am much more interested in buying one of their shirts then utilizing their site.
Crappy service. I tried it and would never use it again. Be VERY careful with private/dev/banking sites!!! I will show them. Spammer/crook can then easily target you.
If you want to be conned or have your identity stolen, keep on using this crap.
A concept like this is very scary. From a security perspective. What are they going to do about all financial sites etc?
Secure/encrypted sites (financial, email) like those that begin with https:// get automatically ignored. Though even if they weren’t they still we be inaccessible since you need a valid username/password to access them…
As Duncan explained, Cluztr adheres to the principles and guidelines outlined by the non-profit organization AttentionTrust.org. Users maintain full control over data collected and we are completly transparent to how that data is used. In fact, users have to opt-in to allow Cluztr to make use of the anonymous data to better our service, as opposed to Google, Yahoo, online advertising etc. that track you without your knowledge or consent.
It’s no different then if you bookmarked your gmail page with del.icio.us or StumbleUpon… knowing the URL is irrelevant without the proper credentials (username/password) to access the page.
For example, http://www.twitter.com/home/ may be in a clickstream, which is someone’s personal Twitter homepage, if I click the link all I get is redirected to a login page.
Spurl.net the social bookmarking site earns income through selling its data, so why can’t Clutzr do the same and pass it back to its users? And especially if I don’t have to look at extra or additional ads, then it’s money for nothing. Who says I need to put in my real name anyhow if I am concerned, so long as the data for Cluztr is legitimately generated.
I personally find it very scary that people have no problem with being watched….. there was a time when we would be up in arms if someone mentioned ” big brother is watching”…..?????
Whoa, can you say big brother is watching ie “1984″? I was wondering how long before socialization of the web went too far - this is over my comfort limit.
I don’t believe that it’s a fact of people “having no problem with being watched” … but that you are already being watched. Ebay, Google, Amazon, Yahoo - you’re already being tracked by “big brother” as you move about on the net.
Why? Because your clickstream (what you are paying attention to) is of value, it has tangible worth.
But this data is about you, shouldn’t you own it, control it, sell it and get value from it?
> But this data is about you, shouldn’t you own it, control it, sell it and get value from it?
So why not use an OFFLINE app? Why give data to you so you can monetize it?!
This is just too weird for me. Can’t say I wish you the success. Privacy implications are just too great.
Actually, I believe it “whets” your appetite.
Either way, it should mostly just scare the shit out of you.