Each year around the holidays we’re flooded with emails linking to this or that holiday site. They’re meant in good fun with the added benefit of viral potential — something any interactive agency hopes for. “Elf-yourself” is probably the most famous example, though it’s a bit tired by now. But one agency’s site is apparently backfiring due to some anonymous tipsters. Let’s watch.
“UltimateNaughtyList” is a microsite from Austin, Texas based nFusion. It’s essentially an anonymous comments board where folks are encouraged to share their naughtier misgivings. Others can rate and rank them, “But because the only people using [the site] are all the vanilla suburban people who work there, everyone’s trying to figure out whose ‘naughty deeds’ belong to which employee,” says a spy. Result: entertainment. Or an HR nightmare. “The site is basically this anonymous confession booth for all the employees to talk trash about their coworkers and other shit that has gone on in the agency.” Example: “the account service candidate who just interviewed is totally doable.”
Sounds more fun than devastating, but we live for this stuff. Actually it sort of feels like we’ve fallen into some marketing trap meant to make the site spread even more. Ah, well.
So nFusion essentially built their own AgencySpy, something we’d have advised against because the only thing more dangerous than anonymity is truth, or something. So now that the thing is rolling downhill, we’d advise HR to let it go. What’s the worst that could happen?
More: “Dell Throws a Blogger at AgencySpy and Tribble, to Dispel Jones Rumor”