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Source:Mashable!

ZocDoc, the online tool for searching local doctors and making appointments online, has just announced its Series A round of funding. Led by Khosla Ventures, this round has extended $3 million in investment funding to the New York-based startup. Launched nearly a year ago, ZocDoc has been building up its user base on both the doctor and the patient end, rolling out its service on a city-by-city basis.

This has also grown in conjunction with its practice-by-practice strategy of providing its service to dentists, dermatologists, ophthalmologists and primary care physicians, which has probably been its most successful implementation thus far. Tackling the health care industry on a practice-basis has allowed ZocDoc to adjust its strategy and technology offerings, enabling it to better achieve the growth its seen in the past year. According to ZocDoc, there are about 90,000 available appointments through its service at this time.

With the recent round of funding, ZocDoc is looking to expand its service even further, to cities beyond NYC. That means that there’s a heavy focus on the local market as well as the practice market, giving ZocDoc two levels at which to promote its service. That’s double the work, so ZocDoc will have to double its staff–something the company has already done in the past 6 months, from five to ten full-time employees.

As we’ve also seen a growing trend in Web-based personal assistant service and other initiatives like Google Health which aim to provide more ways in which consumers can control their information as well as access necessary local resources, there’s a great deal of opportunity for ZocDoc to continue its current expansion strategy and hopefully become more valuable in the integrated Web space. To that end, ZocDoc will be releasing a Facebook and an iPhone app for additional appointment-making capabilities, as a result of its recent API offering.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:ZocDoc Adds More Doctors, Launching in New Cities14 Online Tools To Help You Choose A DoctorKateModern Team Creates Series For MySpaceJoost Announces Partnership with Major League BaseballBebo’s Next Kate Modern is Named SofiaNew Animated Series Attacks Clinton, Obama & MoreMySpace TV Debuts “quarterlife” This Weekend

Source:Mashable!

While reading a blog posting by Ed Brill, he brought up how someone was using his name and company designation on Gmail. After reading the statements on Google’s website, he discovered that they would be of no assistance. There lies two areas of discussion here:

1. What are the rights of the user and the responsibility of the social site or online company?

2. Does every company, no matter the size need a policy defining what steps need to be taken to tackle this growing battle of identity squatting?

In general, the user has no rights. The social networking company does not fall under the guidelines of newer Identity Theft regulations. Those are reserved for thefts of social security numbers, trafficking in such identities, and financial gain. While some states have statutes that loosely point to any misrepresentation (making them a misdemeanor), there isn’t much on the books for online portrayal and pretending. Yes, you can argue that the new laws on cyber-bullying carry heavy weight (I applaud these), they don’t point to someone just claiming a name on Twitter that isn’t really the person. So where do we head from here when attempting to deal with it?

Smaller social networking companies seem to be more open to step in the middle and assist in clearing up someone purporting themselves as you. However, who is to say there cannot be two people of the same name at a company? Who wins in that regard? First come first served? Why would any site wish to step in the middle, when deleting accounts or editing information holds them more liable in many people’s eyes. Larger companies, such as Google, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook seem to stay far away from the matter. You are hard pressed to find a statement or help item on the subject, much less who to contact when you are the victim.

As a smaller company, I would attempt to help faster, to preemptively beat bad press (Twitter, podcasts and blogs alone) from some A-list blogger that catches wind, or worse yet becomes a victim themself. The spur to be first is not only for early adopters, but cyber social squatters. Look at the amount of times someone has tried to (and still exists) create accounts for people like Scoble or, Leo Laporte.

This is where companies of any size need to format a default policy that is clearly stated, and easy to find, on their websites on how naming battles will be handled and verified. As my real name is common, I could not expect to always have it on each site, unless they included my company or some other derivative. However, using an online brand or persona would easily be identified as a squatter. So I am calling out all of the companies with no formal policy in place to get one drafted and published. I have already begun a template for one myself. Am I saying that a new department needs to be created to handle the conflicts when they arise? Nope. I am simply stating that you have no identifiable plan on dealing with these issues and it will only continue to grow and hurt social networking more.

But before they go removing accounts all over the place, there is a missing piece to all of this that has not been defined. If the network owns the data, then does editing the data and accounts make it acceptable? Are there any legalities involved? If I remove an account and the person removed had rights to it, what is their course of retaliation? Do companies now become identity managers and confirmation departments? What happened to trusted and centralized ID creation and management? Oh yeah, the majority of social networking sites don’t believe in that.

It is really me on Twitter and my blogs, so you can trust those

Chris Miller is the blogger behind TheSocialNetworker and the podcast TheSocialGeeks. He is an avid social media consumer, which leads to his apparent enthusiasm to write and podcast site reviews. As well his his own opinion. You can find Chris on all the social networks as IdoNotes, including Twitter.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Amazon MP3 Teaming With Rockstar GamesLifeLock’s Founder Caught in Lies; Forced to ResignYuniti Offers ValidationID Options to UsersNaymz Adds Community Interaction for Building Online ReputationsFake Facebook Profiles Will Get You ArrestedFlickr, Yahoo and the Web’s Identity CrisisStoryLink - Social Network For Screenwriters

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 5:34 pm and is filed under social networking, web 2.0, web, social media, crime, Web2.0 Startups, Opinion, identity theft, squatting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.