We Know What You Did Last Night

A buddy and I were joking about new pricing models on the web. We quickly landed on blackmail. :) This is a fictitious press release for a fictitious company. But in an increasingly bi-polar world where we are both paranoid about our privacy yet tweet about what we ate for lunch, the what-if's are endless. Possible?

Side note: This domain is currently available. Let me know if you need our top-secret algorithm. :)

New Website To Offer Safe Surfing for Some, Unfortunate News for Others: Suspicious Web Surfing Activities No Longer a Personal Secret

Grand Rapids, Mich – April 16, 2009 – We Know What You Did Last Night™ (www.wkwydln.com) is a free service intended to limit the objectification of women and men online. Using a proprietary algorithm that’s patent- pending), WKWYDLN collects data about a person’s Internet-browsing behavior.

“It’s actually a wicked brilliant design,” said Erickson Leftelm, CTO and technology evangelist, WKWYDLN.com “We call it our passive/active system. By passively collecting data through a large network of online ad affiliates, we can effectively track traffic patterns and filter millions of page views per hour,” Leftelm said.

The information is then filtered and tagged into distinct categories. The active system constantly traverses the web, mapping what they describe as “digital thumbprints” it detects on blogs, social networking services (such as Facebook and Twitter) as well as hundreds of other well-trafficked sites.

“We spent several years perfecting this technology. The lines between public and private lives have been blurred” said George Forest, CMO and head decency analyst. He added, “by cross-referencing multiple sites, we can build a pretty complete profile of a person including a spouse, child or parent’s contact information.”

Information from the passive/active system is cross-referenced and if suspicious behavior is detected, the real power of the system kicks in. “In-house, we like to call it the ‘10AM Fire Alarm’” Leftelm added with a slight grin. “We’ve built a very robust communication system that is already connected to Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and sooner or later, Myspace.”

Using WKWYDLN’s advanced profiling system, it can notify friends, relatives and loved ones of the improprieties. “We consider this the next wave of social networking. We call it eIntervention™. Our whole mission is to let loved ones know what is going on after dark so that they can confront the offender and say ‘hey, we know what you are doing, and you should stop’” said Forest. “If we don’t stop it now, what will the world look like in 5 or 10 years? Honestly, I’m doing it for my children, and more importantly, all children.” Before researching this venture, Forest had never even heard of some of the subject matter people view in the privacy of their own homes. “I didn’t even know badunkadunk was a word, let alone what it meant. Now I reluctantly consider myself an expert, and we’re going to let the world know what you are looking at!”


We Know What You Did Last Night™ will be free-to-all, but that does not mean they don’t intend to generate revenue. “We actually have a two-pronged approach to get in the black as quickly as possible.” The first approach is through a subscription service called myBad™. “Simply put, myBad™ allows someone to pay a small yearly subscription fee to opt-out of our eIntervention™ service.” Forest said.

“Even the most innocent person can stumble upon some pretty unsavory sites. We created the myBad™ opt-out service so people can quickly login to our site, and not experience unnecessary Facebook notifications, tweets or emails to their spouse and friends. It’s all about control”. Forest thinks pricing will fall somewhere in the ten to twenty dollar range, “but honestly, in our testing, once someone receives an eIntervention™ they seem willing to pay almost anything to opt-out!” he added with a chuckle.

The second factor in reaching profitability fast is going to be accomplished through cost savings.
“The great thing about social networking is that word spreads fast. We don’t really need to advertising in traditional methods. Social media is booming, and we intend to spread the word virally, not through a huge advertising push”, Forest said. “One of the other ways we plan on staying lean is through our distribution of CPU utilization. Through our testing and research we found that most of our suspicious traffic, oddly enough, happens between the hours of 10:00pm and 2:00am”. So in effect, data collection and filtering happens during the night, while the eIntervention™ system works during the day. “Without even trying, we effectively doubled our CPU capabilities, lowering our hard costs.”

A soft launch is expected sometime in May and Leftelm expects they will be running at full capacity in June. “Early estimates are that we’ll send approximately 500,000 unique eInterventions™ a night” he added. At that rate they expect to clear $100 million in revenue within the first 8 months of operation. “This is the real deal. We’re coming out of the gates quickly” said Forest. Plans are already in the works to integrate their technology into the latest Mobile devices. “With GPS widely available in almost every new mobile phone, we see a huge market in the mobile world” added Leftelm. “Ultimately, it is about personal accountability.” Forest said before going into a meeting with potential partners.