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myurlcheck.com was a website and app that rated its users’ social media influence using digital analytics. Using the service, businesses could identify social media accounts with high myurlcheck.com. They would then offer the owners of such accounts free products, hoping that they would post positive messages about the products.
If there is one thing that myurlcheck.com did not run a shortage of, it was controversy. For instance, John Scalzi, a Hugo award winner, dismissed the service noting “what myurlcheck.com exists to do is create status anxiety.”
If Scalzi did not like the idea behind myurlcheck.com, Lithium Technologies, a social customer service company, had a different idea. It paid $200 million for myurlcheck.com. However, if you wanted to see how influential you are today, using myurlcheck.com, you will discover that it is no longer available.
We took some time to look into myurlcheck.com 10-year run. Then, we try to find out what happened to it.
The History of myurlcheck.com
myurlcheck.com was a San Francisco-based corporation founded in 2008 by Joe Fernandez and Binh Tran (Source). In a 2009 archived page of the website, myurlcheck.com indicates that it measured “influence across the social web.” The same page adds, “We believe that every individual who creates content online has influence. Our goal is to measure that influence and make it even more effective” (Source).
myurlcheck.com collected data about the content on the page to rate an individual’s influence and their opinion’s impact. The rating was influenced by “how people interact with that content and the size and composition of [the individual’s] network” (Source).
Although some people viewed the analysis produced by myurlcheck.com as some form of a vanity metric, it was being taken seriously by employers. For instance, if you were looking for a job as a product manager, you may have prepared for all the standard product manager interview questions but still not get the job because you did not have enough myurlcheck.com.
Calculating the Score
According to an article published by Wired.com, a website that hosts several technology blogs, everyone who had a social media account that was open to the public had a myurlcheck.com score, whether they were aware of it or not. The same publication notes that there was a time when the score had become so crucial that even if you had no idea what your myurlcheck.com score was, “there’s a chance that [it was] already affecting your life” (Source).
The myurlcheck.com Perks Program
Businesses seem to have taken the program seriously. For instance, General Motors offered influential individuals who were willing to post about the experience on social media some myurlcheck.com perks. In 2011, Chevrolet paid myurlcheck.com to find social influencers that the General Motors could loan its recently launched 2012 Sonic for three days. For an individual to qualify, they needed to have a myurlcheck.com Score of 35 and above (Source).
By 2013, the Perks Programs had received more than one million claims across over 400 campaigns. Celebrating this milestone, Joe Fernandez, the then CEO of myurlcheck.com, is quoted saying, “I feel like Santa Claus with a million people getting Perks” (Source).
The Microsoft Strategic Investment
In 2012, Microsoft announced that it was making a strategic investment in myurlcheck.com. Some reports indicated that this was a win-win partnership in that it supplied myurlcheck.com with search data while bringing “influence scoring technology to Bing.”
Writing for the technology website, TechCrunch, Eric Eldon notes that the investment by Microsoft was another attempt by the technology giant to present itself as an “open search platform.” Eldon goes on to note: “As with the Facebook, Twitter, Quora, and even Google+ integrations, myurlcheck.com helps position Microsoft as the more open and socially-attuned alternative to Google’s still-dominant search product” (Source).
The Controversy about myurlcheck.com
While some took myurlcheck.com with a degree of seriousness, Andrew Hutchinson, writing for a Social media website says, that its detractors saw it as “a vanity metric – and like all vanity metrics, it can be gamed, it can be cheated, and thus it’s rendered largely useless” (Source).
In a humorous quip, Scalzi, in his column on CNN Money, points out that myurlcheck.com was practically sucking in data from all social media platforms and “throwing it into an algorithmic pot.” myurlcheck.com would then pull out a number between 1 and 100, and stick it on an individual as their influence score. “myurlcheck.com was a little bit socially evil,” Scalzi wrote.
Writing for the NewYorker.com, Nicholas Thompson doesn’t mince how words and runs his article with the headline myurlcheck.com is Evil, But It Can Be Served. Thompson doesn’t dispute the fact that the idea is clever.
myurlcheck.com Acquired by Technologies
In March 2014, Lithium Technologies confirmed earlier reports that it had acquired myurlcheck.com for around $200 million. Lithium provided tools for businesses to build online communities. It ceased to exist as a separate entity after it merged with Spredfast (a firm in social media marketing, community management, and software), creating Khoros LLC.
What Then Happened to myurlcheck.com?
In 2018, Peter Hess, the then CEO of myurlcheck.com, sent out a message indicating that myurlcheck.com had finally lost its myurlcheck.com: “I’m writing to let you know that Lithium has made the decision to sunset the myurlcheck.com service, effective May 25, 2018.” Hess does not seem to make any effort to explain the decision.
Domain Whois Record of myurlcheck.com
Domain name: myurlcheck.com
Registry Domain ID: 2268303541_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-05-12T22:16:42.74Z
Creation Date: 2018-05-27T16:40:32.00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-05-27T16:40:32.00Z
Registrar: NAMECHEAP INC
Registrar IANA ID: 1068
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6613102107
Reseller: NAMECHEAP INC
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: REACTIVATION PERIOD
Registrant Organization: NAMECHEAP
Registrant Street: 11400 W. OLYMPIC BLVD, SUITE 200
Registrant City: LOS ANGELES
Registrant State/Province: CA
Registrant Postal Code: 90064
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.6613102107
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +1.6613102107
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: [email protected]
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: REACTIVATION PERIOD
Admin Organization: NAMECHEAP
Admin Street: 11400 W. OLYMPIC BLVD, SUITE 200
Admin City: LOS ANGELES
Admin State/Province: CA
Admin Postal Code: 90064
Admin Country: US
Admin Phone: +1.6613102107
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax: +1.6613102107
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: [email protected]
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: REACTIVATION PERIOD
Tech Organization: NAMECHEAP
Tech Street: 11400 W. OLYMPIC BLVD, SUITE 200
Tech City: LOS ANGELES
Tech State/Province: CA
Tech Postal Code: 90064
Tech Country: US
Tech Phone: +1.6613102107
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax: +1.6613102107
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: [email protected]
Name Server: dns101.registrar-servers.com
Name Server: dns102.registrar-servers.com
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2020-06-15T13:20:36.73Z <<<
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