7.14.2011

No Banjo, you can't choose my friends.

A contact introduced me to Banjo the other day and I downloaded the app ASAP.  The UI and features look great and I'm already over the stalker/sketchiness factor of being able to see everyone checked-in around me whether they are using Foursquare, Quipster (My new favorite Twitter friend...even if they don't have a Droid app), Gowalla, Loopt, Google Latitude, Facebook Places, etc.  What I can't get over is the permissions I have to grant Banjo in order to link my Twitter account and fully utilize the app:
  1. read tweets from your timeline...Standard
  2. see who you follow, and follow new people...ok
  3. update your profile...WTF?
  4. post tweets for you...Standard
I don't always read the permissions when I download a new app but 2 and 3 stuck out as unusual compared to my other apps.  Why does Banjo need to follow new people but even stranger update my profile?  If the reason is to allow user edits through their interface than it should be explained in some form of privacy document or warning.  Am I paranoid in assuming that Banjo could start manipulating my account or is this a poor example of user education/outreach?  My guess is most people don't read the permissions and hopefully we can trust developers to enhance our social lives rather than hijack our social graphs.


New record for posts in a week and its only Thursday.  As my favorite sign at Two Brother's Tavern in Middlebury says, "Beers are free, Tomorrow" aka Beers are on me!

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