I’ve been thinking about PleaseRobMe. It’s a clever idea, and a clever name. But all it does it search.
So I went to their site, and figured out how it works. And I set up a search for my local area. Now I can easily see who in my local area is not home. It certainly brings the robbing me issue closer to home.
Now the question is, what do I do about it? I’m not sure I need to do anything. My thinking goes like this..
1. Most of the time I check in, I am out of town at a conference. This is obvious by my earlier tweets, anyway. Am I putting my wife and daughters at greater risk?
2. Is anyone really reading that stuff anyway?
3. Shouldn’t I just protect my updates and not worry so much?
How do you all handle it that travel a lot? I confess I like to see folks check-in. It gives me a personal flavor to their tweets. And for me, Twitter is inherently personal.
Chris,
If I am out of town at a conference, I don’t mind tweeting or mentioning my attendance on Facebook or my blog; I have family at home and my husband is well equipped to deal with any and all would be burglars. I do protect my tweets and updates but know that it is not foolproof (or should I say hacker proof?).
However, if we are out of town on a family vacation, I will not mention the vacation until we return (if at all). I don’t want to invite trouble.
Fran,
That seems very reasonable. Thanks for commenting.
This is something I was talking about just the other day. As you know, I travel a lot and post my updates. I look at it in a different light… Foursquare for me… is a way to… in a sense protect me when I am traveling. What if I went missing… or was in an accident… or… any number of things. I am leaving a bread crumb for people to find me. Sure it might tell people I am not at home but IF something were to happen while I was traveling, it might make it a little easier to trace my tracks. Maybe that is far fetched but its how I look at it.