Rantic
Type of site | Social media marketing |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owners | Simon Z (CEO)[1] "Jacob" "Juice" "Jerry" "Alexander" "Kamaruzaman"[2] |
| Revenue | Unknown |
| URL | www |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | 2012 |
| Current status | Down |
Rantic.com (formerly SocialVEVO and Swenzy) is a social media marketing website that sells fake likes, followers, views and web traffic.[3][4][5]
Background
Rantic.com was registered in 2014 by a group of internet marketers.[6][7] The group also has used the names SocialVEVO and Swenzy.[8] During an interview with Vocativ, one of five people claiming to be founders said the online business was created by "Jacob, Jerry, Juice, Alexander and Kamaruzaman".[2] The CEO is listed as Simon Z and consumers are said to include musicians, teens, celebrities, politicians and governments, according to a New York Times and Forbes report.[5][9] The website sells "fake account" services for social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, a potential violation of these sites' terms of service.[10][11]
In April 2015, a Facebook engineer said the site's effort to crack down on the "small problem", coupled with an effort to help pages gain authentic followers instead, had shut down most of the fake "like" sellers.[12] Rantic called itself one of fewer than a dozen such companies remaining,[13] and has promised to refill any "likes" or followers lost to account sweeps by the operators of sites including Facebook and Instagram.[10][14]
See also
References
- ^ Revesencio, Jonha (August 31, 2015). "Climbing A Mountain -- Career Advice from Simon Z, CEO of Rantic.com". The Huffington Post. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
- ^ a b Markowitz, Eric (December 9, 2014). "This guy claims to be the mastermind ..." Vocativ. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
- ^ Langdon, Scott (December 3, 2015). "6 Quick Tips for a Successful Startup Social-Media Campaign". Entrepreneur.
- ^ Carpenter, Julia (July 2, 2015). "Can we ever beat the bots? Not on Instagram". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 2, 2015.
- ^ a b Bilton, Nick (April 20, 2014). "Friends, and Influence, for Sale Online". The New York Times.
- ^ "Whois search results". Go Daddy. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
- ^ Hoffberger, Chase (November 15, 2015). "The new kings of YouTube botting". The Daily Dot. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
- ^ Alfonso, Fernando III (September 24, 2014). "The serial hoax artists behind ..." The Daily Dot. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
- ^ Olenski, Steve (August 19, 2015). "8 Ways Marketers Are Being Heard In 2015". Forbes. Retrieved 2015-08-24.
- ^ a b Rodriguez, Salvador (December 11, 2014). "Instagram Could Delete Up To 10 Million Accounts". International Business Times. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
- ^ Eordogh, Fruzsina (August 10, 2015). "Inside An Instagram Bot Farm". VICE. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
- ^ Huseyin Kerem Cevahir (April 17, 2015). "Breaking New Ground In the Fight Against Fake Likes". Facebook for business. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
- ^ Griffin, Andrew (April 20, 2015). "Facebook fake like sellers destroyed by site's efforts to clean up pages". The Independent. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
- ^ Griffin, Andrew (March 6, 2015). "Facebook purges 'Likes', with pages' fan counts expected to plunge". The Independent.