September 22, 2010
What does Rapportive know about you? Turns out that it knows a lot about you, mostly culled from the Internet, especially social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more). Chances are that you’ve made this information available, but may not have expected someone to collect it all in one place like this. What is Rapportive? Rapportive is a pretty cool thing. It’s a browser plugin/extension/whatever that works with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari (and Mailplane which is where I learned of it). It replaces the ads in Gmail with contact information about the sender of the email, linking to their accounts on a wide variety of social media sites. If you can think of one, Rapportive probably supports it. They support a bunch of sites that I’ve never heard of before I saw them listed there. What’s great about it? What I love about Rapportive is that it takes wasted space in Gmail and puts something useful in there. To be honest I haven’t really noticed an ad in Gmail in years. It’s not that I’m bothered by them, I’m just blind to them. Rapportive makes it easy to, say, find someone’s Flickr page from their email address, or their Twitter page. What’s not so great about it? First of all I suspect that some people will be immediately creeped out by the idea. I suspect largely this will be an overreaction most of the time. (Unless you still have that MySpace page linked to your email address!) The biggest problem with Rapportive is that the information seems to be inaccurate. It will list job titles that it associates with your name, but these may be outdated, or, perhaps, something you simply don’t want to broadcast to everyone you email. If you’ve ever searched for yourself in one of the public “Find People Online!” search engines, you’ve probably seen that there is wrong/outdated information about you connected with your name. What you should do about Rapportive If you have a Gmail address, it’s very easy to edit your own Rapportive information. Just hover over it, click, edit, and it will instantly be changed across the system. If you do not have a Gmail address, well, then you have to contact the developers of Rapportive to get them to correct the information for you. (That’s going to be a problem for them as more people learn about the service.) Obviously you need a Gmail (or Google Apps) address to use this, I suspect most people already have one. but even if you don’t ever plan to use Google, I suggest that you make one, ***right now***. Why? Because you can’t see or edit your Rapportive profile without a Gmail account, and Rapportive has already collated information on you. Chances are there’s some information in there which is incorrect or out of date. Once you sign in to Gmail, go to and install the plugin (this will work in Safari, Mailplane, Firefox, Chrome, Rockmelt, and Flock). Next you’ll need an email in Gmail which has any email address that you want to check. This doesn’t have to be an email *from* that person, it just needs to *mention* them, so if I sent you an email which mentioned *president@whitehouse.gov* you could hover it with your mouse and see Rapportive information on that address. So just send an email to your Gmail address with all of the email addresses that you want to check. Hover each one and see what it says. Surprised by what you see? The good news is that you can make changes pretty easily. Editing information about your Gmail account is done simply by hovering over the information it shows and clicking Edit or Delete. But the good news is that Rapportive now will let you claim other (non-Gmail/Google Apps) email addresses. Simply go to and claim all of your email addresses. Rapportive will send a confirmation email to each one (so you don’t try to claim other people’s email information). If you want to keep information out of Rapportive… Use a different email address for these services. If you own a domain, you can easily set it up so that you can use different email addresses for different services and have them all forward to one central mailbox. You can also remove connections that you don’t want to appear. If you want to put more information into Rapportive… If you want to “manage your online profile” Rapportive is a great way to do that, and to encourage people to find you on different sites. It’s a great way to network. Hints, tips, suggestions… If you are looking for work, make sure that your current job information is correct in Rapportive, as well as your past work history. Also, if it shows your Twitter, etc information, make sure those are things that you want potential employers to see if you are communicating with them via this email address. If you decide to add social media links to your Rapportive information, keep in mind that there is no editing or reorganizing of the order later. That is, if you put in your Twitter information before your LinkedIn information, Twitter appears closer to the top, and the only way to move that around is to delete it and then re-add it. So add the most important ones correctly. The sky is not falling, but remember that the Internet is about connections My intention is not to scare people with this information, but simply to let you know that it’s out there so you can make sure that you are presenting accurate information. If you are going job-hunting and want to make sure that your email address doesn’t connect with anything, ahem, unexpected, your best bet is to use a new email address that you don’t use for anything else. If you are trying to manage and expand your “online presence” then Rapportive is another tool that you should harness.

What does Rapportive know about you?

Turns out that it knows a lot about you, mostly culled from the Internet, especially social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more). Chances are that you’ve made this information available, but may not have expected someone to collect it all in one place like this.

What is Rapportive?

Rapportive is a pretty cool thing. It’s a browser plugin/extension/whatever that works with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari (and Mailplane which is where I learned of it).

It replaces the ads in Gmail with contact information about the sender of the email, linking to their accounts on a wide variety of social media sites. If you can think of one, Rapportive probably supports it. They support a bunch of sites that I’ve never heard of before I saw them listed there.

What’s great about it?

What I love about Rapportive is that it takes wasted space in Gmail and puts something useful in there. To be honest I haven’t really noticed an ad in Gmail in years. It’s not that I’m bothered by them, I’m just blind to them.

Rapportive makes it easy to, say, find someone’s Flickr page from their email address, or their Twitter page.

What’s not so great about it?

First of all I suspect that some people will be immediately creeped out by the idea. I suspect largely this will be an overreaction most of the time. (Unless you still have that MySpace page linked to your email address!)

The biggest problem with Rapportive is that the information seems to be inaccurate. It will list job titles that it associates with your name, but these may be outdated, or, perhaps, something you simply don’t want to broadcast to everyone you email. If you’ve ever searched for yourself in one of the public “Find People Online!” search engines, you’ve probably seen that there is wrong/outdated information about you connected with your name.

What you should do about Rapportive

If you have a Gmail address, it’s very easy to edit your own Rapportive information. Just hover over it, click, edit, and it will instantly be changed across the system.

If you do not have a Gmail address, well, then you have to contact the developers of Rapportive to get them to correct the information for you. (That’s going to be a problem for them as more people learn about the service.)

Obviously you need a Gmail (or Google Apps) address to use this, I suspect most people already have one. but even if you don’t ever plan to use Google, I suggest that you make one, ***right now***.

Why? Because you can’t see or edit your Rapportive profile without a Gmail account, and Rapportive has already collated information on you. Chances are there’s some information in there which is incorrect or out of date.

Once you sign in to Gmail, go to <> and install the plugin (this will work in Safari, Mailplane, Firefox, Chrome, Rockmelt, and Flock).

Next you’ll need an email in Gmail which has any email address that you want to check. This doesn’t have to be an email *from* that person, it just needs to *mention* them, so if I sent you an email which mentioned *president@whitehouse.gov* you could hover it with your mouse and see Rapportive information on that address. So just send an email to your Gmail address with all of the email addresses that you want to check. Hover each one and see what it says.

Surprised by what you see?

The good news is that you can make changes pretty easily. Editing information about your Gmail account is done simply by hovering over the information it shows and clicking Edit or Delete. But the good news is that Rapportive now will let you claim other (non-Gmail/Google Apps) email addresses. Simply go to <> and claim all of your email addresses. Rapportive will send a confirmation email to each one (so you don’t try to claim other people’s email information).

If you want to keep information out of Rapportive…

Use a different email address for these services. If you own a domain, you can easily set it up so that you can use different email addresses for different services and have them all forward to one central mailbox.

You can also remove connections that you don’t want to appear.

If you want to put more information into Rapportive…

If you want to “manage your online profile” Rapportive is a great way to do that, and to encourage people to find you on different sites. It’s a great way to network.

Hints, tips, suggestions…

If you are looking for work, make sure that your current job information is correct in Rapportive, as well as your past work history.

Also, if it shows your Twitter, etc information, make sure those are things that you want potential employers to see if you are communicating with them via this email address.

If you decide to add social media links to your Rapportive information, keep in mind that there is no editing or reorganizing of the order later. That is, if you put in your Twitter information before your LinkedIn information, Twitter appears closer to the top, and the only way to move that around is to delete it and then re-add it. So add the most important ones correctly.

The sky is not falling, but remember that the Internet is about connections

My intention is not to scare people with this information, but simply to let you know that it’s out there so you can make sure that you are presenting accurate information.

If you are going job-hunting and want to make sure that your email address doesn’t connect with anything, ahem, unexpected, your best bet is to use a new email address that you don’t use for anything else.

If you are trying to manage and expand your “online presence” then Rapportive is another tool that you should harness.

(Source: luo.ma)

11:57pm  |   URL: http://quotes.luo.ma/post/1171170896/rapportive
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  1. tj reblogged this from luoma and added:
    connects email addresses...always accurate,...realize. I...
  2. luoma posted this
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