Jen Dodds: Will ‘video texting’ app Glide really change my life? (BSL)

There is another pitfall too unfortunately. I know via another group the wife of one of the developers of this app, and it was being promoted very much as the ‘bees knees’ over everything else. Being the cautious person I am with security I did some investigation and there was evidence of privacy concerns where the app would automatically message EVERYONE in your address book. This would include people at work which isn’t ideal. They claim that they don’t do this but I am not convinced they don’t use other methods. Why do I say this? I downloaded it and got as far as being prompted for my phone number and did not feel comfortable so deleted it. A short while afterwards, I had a text message saying “have you seen this? 😉 http://vdotxt.om/join” I texted back asking who it was as their name wasn’t in my address book. I had a reply in broken English that didn’t make much sense. Meanwhile I looked up this website information to find it was linked to the Glide website. I am not happy at all that despite not installing it, I was still spammed. I do intend telling this person I know about what happened. Yes, if you do a lot of video texting, and you have plenty of free data it could be of use. But please be aware of the privacy issues.

I would just like to give a bit of an update on the security issue. I have contacted Sarah, the lady I know about what I have said above. She told me that somebody who already is using Glide will have had me in their address book and sent the invite. They no longer automatically message everyone. She also said the reason they ask for your number when setting it up is so you can see who else already has it. On reflection, I am wondering if the person who sent me the text was someone I knew and had changed numbers without telling me. Sarah also gave me two links to show they are being inclusive and have a growing Deaf following. Although in ASL, they are reasonably easy to follow and also have subtitles. They are m.youtube.com and blog.glide.me. It is possible that as long as attention is paid when setting it up, it may not be as bad security-wise as first thought.

Thank you for making me laugh and cheering me up after the #AtW stuff this morning (I’m catching up on Internets after days away)…

I love your bilingual posts, there’s things I get from each language I couldn’t get from the other. Your sign is lovely to follow and I loved your funny editing.

I still use ICQ (anyone remember that?) and indeed daily use IRC which is even mre oldschool have all those “old school” IMs in a single client (Pidgin) but haven’t really got with the Smartphone ‘revolution’.

I absolutely agree with you about twitter over facebook, I have to hide from the latter from time to time cos it’s just overwhelming and annoying. I do like to be on a real computer, two screens and my decent keyboard though, not much of a mobile social mediarite.

Social media before it was called that was a revolution to me, aged 16 I could suddenly hold my own with people in conversation, I typed faster than most (even now hearies can barely type in my experience) and could hold 8 conversations at once in text 😀 I still frighten people with my typing speed (and typos). I love love love social media, real equaliser for me as a deaf person, same with SMS a few years later.

I love seeing the same people like yourself Jen who pop up all over the place in different social media. I may not know many of you very well but I am very fond of you all and hope we can keep inhabiting the same social places in different ways.

Thanks, Pauline/Madcapy – appreciate the info! It sounds a bit less dodgy now.

Natalya, you are too kind 🙂 thank you – glad you enjoyed it. And yes, I remember ICQ!! I didn’t mention it because I thought it went too far back for most people – only geeks really used IM in those days, right?!