Stay away from Fanbox

I am normally a proponent, and sometimes early adopter, of new technologies including Web Sites and Web Services. I'm also a believer in the value of personal networking. I have accounts all over the web including Face book, LinkedIn, and Plaxo Pulse. I've even signed up for some of the losers such as Friendster, Naymz, and Spaces. I never had a bad experience until I came across Fanbox (notice that I refuse to link to it).

It started with an innocent looking message from a colleague; Dawn has a question for you. When I clicked on the link, I was directed to Fanbox and presented a somewhat racy question that was apparently directed at someone with a much different demographic than me. Ironically I had been introduced to Fanbox a few days early by Sterling Brown and given Sterling's reputation I was intrigued. So I clicked on an answer to the question.

Here's a clue, if you get a message about a question, don't click on it! Answering the question kicked off a wizard inviting my contacts to Fanbox. Fanbox apparently scanned my Outlook Contact list, even though I never click a link for that purpose. It then asked if I me to send a question so I immediately clicked cancel. Later I discovered that Fanbox forwarded the question to my contacts and causing me much embarrassment.

It's really a shame because the fundamental technology of Fanbox is pretty cool. They have reproduced a workstation desktop and point-and-click user interface deployed over the web. The desktop comes with storage, email, and that mimic Microsoft Windows pretty closely. Apparently a Web-based Windows environment is a solution looking for a problem, because Fanbox has jumped on the social networking bandwagon. Outside of social networking, I did not see any real value to the site. There certainly is nothing that would persuade users of Facebook or Google Docs to jump to Fanbox.

So Fanbox has resorted to tricks to obtain members. Grabbing my contact list was akin to spyware or worm tactics. Maybe someday a company with vision will snatch up the Fanbox technology and deploy it provide some real benefit. Until then, avoid Fanbox like the plague.