Rapleaf

Rapleaf

Type	Private start-up
Industry	Database marketing
Founded	May, 2006
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, USA
Key people	Auren Hoffman, Manish Shah
Revenue	Undisclosed
Employees	28 (as of December 11, 2009)[1]
Website	www.rapleaf.com

Rapleaf is a Web 2.0 start-up company based in San Francisco, California founded by Auren Hoffman and Manish Shah. Acting primarily a B2B firm, Rapleaf's consumer information technology helps businesses understand their customers so they can personalize experiences in real time, segment customers, understand consumer penetration across social media,^[2] plan online marketing campaigns,^[3] find influential customers for customer relationship management,^[4] and investigate fraud.^[5][6]

Investors

Rapleaf was initially self-funded by Hoffman and Shah.^[7] Peter Thiel of The Founders Fund led a seed round of $1.0 million.^[8] Other angel investors^[9] in the round included Eric Di Benedetto, Aydin Senkut, Jeff Clavier, and Ron Conway, each with a background of venture capital-backed technology companies.^[8]

History, products, and services

Hoffman and Shah met at UC Berkeley's Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology.^[10] in spring of 2004. The two worked on a project from February 2005 to November 2005. They formed Rapleaf in April 2006.

The company's first product, Rapleaf, is a meta-reputation system that allows users to create reviews and ratings of consumer transactions, which they then contribute to multiple e commerce websites. On May 15, 2006, eBay removed a number of auction listings where the seller had included links to Rapleaf, claiming they were in violation of its terms of use. Business commentators have had mixed opinions about this move.^[11]

On January 26, 2007, Rapleaf released Upscoop, a service that allowed users to search for and manage their contacts by email address across multiple social networking sites.^[12] In June 2007, Rapleaf was listed among CNET News' Webware 100 Finalists, describing Rapleaf as a service that "lets [users] check on a person's reputation".^[13]

In late August 2007, Upscoop began e-mailing entire contact lists that were provided by their users when they log in. This caused some criticism,^[14] and the company later provided an apology for doing so.^[15]

On July 10, 2008, Rapleaf changed its interface^[16] so that it no longer allows users to search people by email addresses. Instead, the service only allows a registered user to view their own reputation and the websites (social and business networking) to which their own email address is registered. There was an immediate negative backlash by companies and individuals^[17] who had been using Rapleaf to both manage reputations and investigate the authenticity of people.

In May 2010, Rapleaf was included in Lead411's list of 120 "Hottest Companies in San Francisco".^[18]

In October 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported that Rapleaf had transmitted personally identifiable information, including Facebook and MySpace IDs. Rapleaf said it had inadvertently transmitted that info and had ceased the practice. ^[19]

On October 28, 2010, Facebook banned Rapleaf from scraping data on Facebook, and Rapleaf said it would delete the Facebook IDs it had collected. ^[20]

In June 2011, Rapleaf launched Instant Data, a service tool that allows users to access Rapleaf's database without technical configuration.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ "Rapleaf Company Profile". LinkedIn. http://www.linkedin.com/companies/rapleaf. Retrieved 2009-12-11. 
2. ^ Shobowale, Sheethal (August 26, 2009). "Get your Organization’s Social Media Profile from Rapleaf". Leap Work. http://lethalsheethal.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/get-your-organizations-social-media-profile-from-raplea/. Retrieved 2009-09-01. 
3. ^ Baker, Stephen (May 21, 2009). "Learning, and Profiting, from Online Friendships". BusinessWeek. http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/09_22/b4133032573293.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-01. 
4. ^ Krempasky, Michael (August 7, 2009). "For Effective Advocacy, Select "E" for "All of the Above"". FastCompany. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/michael-krempasky/digital-public-affairs/effective-advocacy-select-e-all-above. Retrieved 2009-09-07. 
5. ^ PRNewswire (August 25, 2009). "Accertify and Rapleaf Partner to Deliver Enhanced Online Fraud Protection". PRNewswire. http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/08-25-2009/0005082387&EDATE=. Retrieved 2009-08-31. 
6. ^ Internet Retailer (August 25, 2009). "Why retailers can probably trust consumers with lots of Facebook friends". Internet Retailer. http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=31590. Retrieved 2009-09-07. 
7. ^ Marshall, Matt (April 24, 2006). "Networker Hoffman launches Rapleaf -- to track your reputation beyond eBay". The Mercury News. http://www.siliconbeat.com/cgi-bin/mt331/mt-tb.cgi/1316. Retrieved 2007-01-26. ^{[dead link]}
8. ^ ^{a b} Marshall, Matt (June 11, 2006). "Rapleaf, the e-commerce reputation manager, raises ~$1M to take on eBay". The Mercury News-. http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/06/11/rapleaf_the_ecommerce_reputation_manager_raises_1m_to_take_on_ebay.html. Retrieved 2007-01-26. 
9. ^ Olsen, Stefanie (August 31, 2007). "At Rapleaf, your personals are public". CNet. http://news.cnet.com/At-Rapleaf,-your-personals-are-public---page-2/2100-1038_3-6205716-2.html. 
10. ^ CET (June 9, 2006). "RapLeaf Funding". Berkeley Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology News. http://media.coe.berkeley.edu/CET/index.php?title=News:2006-06-09:RapLeaf_Funding. Retrieved 2007-01-26. 
11. ^ Michael Arrington (May 17, 2006). "eBay Bans Rapleaf Links". Techcrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/05/17/ebay-bans-rapleaf-links/. Retrieved 2007-01-26. 
12. ^ Gonzales, Nick (January 26, 2007). "Stalk Your Contact List with UpScoop". Techcrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/26/stalk-your-contact-list-with-upscoop/. Retrieved 2007-01-26. 
13. ^ Webware 100 Finalists
14. ^ "Rapleaf and Upscoop spam". http://crusherdev.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/rapleaf-and-upscoop-spam/. 
15. ^ Hoffman, Auren (6 September 2007). "Start-ups, privacy, and being wrong". Rapleaf Blog. Archived from the original on 2007-09-17. http://web.archive.org/web/20070917133813/blog.rapleaf.com/2007/09/06/start-ups-privacy-and-being-wrong/. Retrieved 2010-03-07. 
16. ^ Hoffman, Auren (10 July 2008). "Changes to Rapleaf Services". Rapleaf Blog. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. http://web.archive.org/web/20080801162920/blog.rapleaf.com/2008/07/10/changes-to-rapleaf-services/. Retrieved 2010-03-07. 
17. ^ Rapleaf users. "Comments on blog post 'Changes to Rapleaf Services'". Rapleaf Blog. Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. http://web.archive.org/web/20080822211429/blog.rapleaf.com/2008/07/10/changes-to-rapleaf-services/#comments. Retrieved 2010-03-07. 
18. ^ Lead411 launches "Hottest Companies in San Francisco" awards
19. ^ Emily Steel (Oct. 25, 2010). "A Web Pioneer Profiles Users by Name". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304410504575560243259416072.html. Retrieved 2010-11-01. 
20. ^ Christopher Heine (Nov. 1, 2010). "Rapleaf Agrees to Leave Facebook Alone". ClickZ. http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/1866122/rapleaf-agrees-leave-facebook. Retrieved 2010-11-01. 

External links

• Official website
• Auren Hoffman, Rapleaf founder, on managing your online reputation Video