UnitedGunGroup.com: [Another] Facebook for Guns. Your Thoughts?

1. Their security policy is about as loose as Ted Cruz’ marriage vows.

   • For every Facebook+Guns=positive outcome that appears onscreen, there are a dozen Jamie Gilt’s out there just waiting to go viral with their transgressions.

     Gilt’s arrogance shot the gun community in the back. Far too many people use guns as a mode of personal identity that they believe gives them friends and an importance in life. And Facebook gives them a global platform to dig their grave deeper.

     But alas, the gun is an equal opportunity hater and holds no loyalty to its owner or anyone else. And thus, so is Facebook.

     Be careful for what you wish for. Nothing gets adults in trouble faster than social media.

     • If its like facebook…NO… Facebook should be called Openbook

   • Thanks for the feedback. The builder of our site built several highly functional websites for national level mortgage companies that have loan volume in the billions. While there are parts of the site that do not require any security, the parts that do need security have security that measures up to federal banking standards. It is our goal to constantly evolve not only to the standards of our members, but also meet the standards of and well ran business that safeguards its members personal data.

2. I wasn’t using social media before, and this is not doing anything to change my stance.

   • Same here, I don’t have or want social media in my life. But I do like seeing competition especially if it makes the antis uncomfortable, and support the idea. (I just won’t use it)

     • Um… You guys *do* know that this (TTAG, your posts above, etc.) is social media, right? You are using it.

       But I think I know what you mean. I try to avoid the larger general platforms that can – inadvertently or not – lead one to release a lot of personal information.

       • True enough, but this is more like a traditional blog, with comments following a specific article. Facebook is more like, “Here’s what I ate for breakfast” or “Here’s my latest duck-face selfie, ain’t I cute.” I suspect the average gun enthusiast doesn’t relate well to that tripe. Even if it takes the form of “Here’s the pile of .40 S&W I reloaded this morning.”

       • This is not the same beast. This is commentary around a topic that I, and nobody I know created in a fully public forum about non-personal content. I am not generating the articles, describing my day, or do much more than possibly providing a sliver into a personality. No pictures, locations, shopping lists, or other information traditional to social media were exchanged to or from me. If I see a commercial on TV for a truck, then drive to the dealership to have a conversation about what I saw, that does not make a commercial social media.

         I see this nothing different from bumping into a stranger at the gun counter at Cabelas and sharing a few words over the firearm we are both interested in. I did not leave that person with even a semi-personal connection, contact information, or plans to continue our firearms dialog later. I also did not hang around to find out about their last hunting trip, how their kids birthday went, or anything outside of the context of that very moment. I probably could not describe that person after a couple of days (sorry if you are that person) either.

3. I’m on board all the way . These are the type of enterprises we all need to support . I don’t do facebook or any of those things , don’t have time , but I would like to see alternatives .

4. Come November when Hillary Clinton is elected the armed intelligentsia is going underground. Robert is going to need a new gig.

   • Dream on Alice…

     • About what?

       Trump vs Clinton, Clinton wins. He is too far behind to catch up.

       Cruz vs Clinton it is theoretically possible for Cruz to catch her but the Trumpsters will stay home or vote for Hillary out of spite. Clinton wins.

       The candidates who could beat her like Rubio, Walker or Fiorina are long gone.

       • Dude you are dreaming and really should find something more productive to do with your life then troll… Over and out….

       • Cruz could and would beat Hillmeister , if Trumps mouth was silenced and the Trumpsters that stayed home are the Dems and Progressive moderates that have been propping him up all along . If there weren’t 400 frigging candidates at the outset of this thing sucking away different voters , Cruz would have been thumping Trump . The old GOP elites shot their wads early in their fear of Cruz and his shrinking government positions and now they’ve been forced to circle their wagons around him to stop old Adolf Trump from his conquest to conquer the world , funny really . Cruz would destroy Hillary in ideas and on character and he is the real actual outsider .

       • If Trump weren’t in the race Scott Walker would probably be the nominee. He is the only candidate to take on the Democratic Party machine and defeat them. Of the candidates that remain in the race from both parties Kasich is the only one who is remotely qualified for the office and he is not a conservative. I think that without Trump the main race would have been Walker-Christie. Jeb Bush could be Rand Paul or Ted Cruz and he would still have flopped. We are Bushed out.

       • Still part of the Cuckservatives for Clinton camp I see.

       • Actually Mark it you who wants Hillary. You want to play the hero when they come to get your guns. I appreciate that very much because while Feds are concentrating on low hanging fruit like you we professionals will have time to organize the resistance. I will be happy to send you sufficient lube to make life with your cellmate tolerable.

         The Chumps for Trump are the people who have found socially acceptable way to support Hillary.

       • Republicans are going to vote Republicans, and Democrats are going to vote Democrat. Trump supporters voting for Clinton out of spite? You’re kidding, right?

       • There are a lot of blue collar Democrats voting for Trump in the primaries so yeah Hillary is an option. And you seem to forget that Trump is a Democrat to begin with.

   • Oh that’s right. you are angry because your people got beat soundly and constitutionally by Scott Walker. I mean why go with facts and laws? Just trump up charges, run a massive untruthful smear campaign and go to court. Good thing there were still enough law minded judges out there to out that leftist kind of people!

5. I’m all for it but I agree with tdiinva, we are all about to become a persecuted class in this country (as if we are already aren’t, in a way, especially here in Kommiefornia) so not sure letting the NSA as well as every other alphabet agency in the government know about your gun business is smart.

   • This may be a difficult thing for you to realize from behind Kommiefornia’s iron curtain, but I assure you that, except for Kommiefornia, gun rights are spreading and gaining strength across the nation. Just this week Idaho became the 10th Constitutional carry state. During Obummer’s reign constitutional rights have gained a foothold in such socialist paradises as Illinois and D.C. We’re not losing. We are rising above the static. People, in general, are getting wise to the PC bullshit.

     As for the NSA… just another bogey man we are told about to keep us afraid… Would-be terrorists within our borders are posting all sorts of crap that should be getting them one way tickets to Gitmo and it always comes out AFTER they commit an act. Meanwhile, some random white guy posts an OBVIOUSLY sarcastic “where do I send the bomb?” and he’s being questioned by the FBI within hours. Yes, it was a dumb thing to say, but that’s not the point. Our government is as much “on top” of social media, or even the Internet in general, as all these clowns on this page that think facebook is all duck-face selfies and Justin Bieber worshipers.

6. All of these “Facebook for Guns” sites are doomed to failure. They all seem to have a pretty big misunderstanding about the “social media” business model. The only way for a social media site to succeed is to build a huge user base. Narrowly focusing your site to just one interest group automatically shrinks your user base to a small fraction of what a site like FB can attract. The reason FB is so popular is because it’s a one-stop shop for most people. They can read news from places they like, follow the goings-on at businesses they patronize, see their niece’s baby pictures, find out what old high school friends are up to, and buy and sell shit (just not guns), all in one place. Compared to that, what do these other sites offer? “You can sell guns here!” Yeah, well, there’s plenty of places for that already, too.

   I wish them luck, but I just don’t think there’s a large enough market for a “Facebook for Guns” out there.

   • Exactly. I don’t want “Facebook for guns.” I just want Facebook without an arbitrary SJW usage policy.

   • I partially disagree. I created a FB account solely to use my local city’s firearm trade group. I met several others that did the same.

     • I’m sure there were a few people who signed up with FB for the same reason you did. But I’ll bet the majority of people using that group already had FB accounts and used them for lots of other things.

       No doubt there are some people who will use something like this. But I don’t think there are enough such users to keep the lights on and the servers running long-term. Facebook can make money selling out its users’ data because it has a huge amount of information on millions of people. What’s the business model for a “Facebook for Guns”? Sell trashy, virus-laden ads like TTAG? Take a cut of firearm sales made on the site?

       It’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Since social media relies on the users to generate the content, you probably won’t have much of that until you get a lot of users. Without decent content, it’s hard to attract users. And without a big user base, you won’t get quality advertisers.

       • I’ll go start my own Facebook, with blackjack and hookers.

7. I can’t help but wonder when competition turns to dilution.
   There are only so many log-ins and accounts a person will tolerate before settling with one or turning away completely.

8. All of this spawned from FB banning sales on their site. Instead of boycotting FB for being a douche, we make more FB-like sights and then tell people to go to FB and like pages on FB?

   This is all a bit ridiculous. Either use FB and stop crying about their crap policy, or get off of it.

9. If it’s not named the GunBook.com

   It would be a travesty.

10. Way back in the day, we had these things called ‘forums’, and even before that, there were things called ‘newsgroups’ where people interested in a topic could discuss it without fear of some angry troll getting offended. We should get back to that.

    • +1

    • Bring back the bbs

11. No thanks. Won’t matter to me if TTAG links to it, of course. I’m perfectly able to ignore anything not useful to me. I don’t “do” FB, Twitter or any of the rest of that nonsense. I enjoy many articles and the spirited debate at TTAG. Hope that doesn’t change.

12. Feedback: the beauty of FB is that creating and moderating groups is easy, enabling local chapters to spring up. I don’t care to see what’s for sale 400mi away on the other side of my state. Or if I am, I can go to that group’s page and browse. I mainly want to see the offers in my local area.

    If that feature is as robust as FB, I’m all in.

13. It is up to you but aren’t you building a cool gun range? Your data shows readership is about at peak. Does UGG help you meet your goals? Is TTAG going to be something more than it is and will this help get it there? Chances are TTAG will get more hits than the UGG for the foreseeable future. If nothing else just make sure you can bail out with no notice or financial responsibility.

14. MEH. I’ll wait and see. As far as Gun Forums I never joined any. I have perused Taurus forums and some others BUT every single one was way too restrictive. No thanks. It ain’t hard to buy and sell guns either. I know a guy…

15. Love to hear the Idiots talk, or write!! most face book posts are brain dead from the gitgo and most of the ludicrous babble that tries to pass as serious speech turns into a one upsman ship tirade or self righteous indignation when their statement are proven too be so far out in left/tight field, TTAG already has enough of that crap so why do you want to sponsor more crap, this site used to be a fairly good site until the flash ads appearing and turning on by them selves, must be making the big bucks to risk you name in a losing proposition! already changing to other sites because of your ways and pedaling unstoppable, and from my prospective un- wanted auto play flash ads, I like to select which ads I want too see so will view your page less often! yes I can turn them off but why should I have to spend time doing so every time I look at your Page!

16. If your idea of social media is duck-face selfies, pictures of food, and various other inane crap, then you might be really bad at social media. It is what you make of it.
    Same thing with privacy. Facebook doesn’t magically suck all your personal info out of your wallet or even your computer. All the personal information facebook has, or would have, about you is exactly what you give it.
    I don’t have any of that crap on my facebook wall. I follow news sources, companies and organizations I “like”, and friends and family, and like-minded people.
    Stop pretending you’re in some way above social media. You’re not. You either don’t understand it or you’re making sad excuses. If it’s not for you that’s fine, but you just make an ass out of yourself in attempting to look down your nose at everyone else.

    That being said, I have not and probably never will even look at the United Gun Group site because, it is completely detached from all those other things I mentioned above. When gun sales were allowed on facebook it was ridiculously convenient that it was right there meshing with everything else I liked. If I have to crawl to some far corner to make an occasional sale or purchase there are already hundreds of other choices. The real benefit of facebook, for me, was that you could look at someone’s profile and get a feel for who they were. If I wanted to buy a pistol from ‘Joe’ I could click on his name and see that he likes the Nazi party, or the KKK, or something else that would give me pause about entering into a transaction with him. Or, I might see just the opposite and feel better about dealing with him. A wanna-be facebook clone focusing mainly on gun sales isn’t going to be as personal as that and it will just be one more of a long list of websites I’d have to keep up with on a regular basis.
    So, I’ll have nothing to do with it until it, in some way, outshines the myriad of other choices that offer the exact same thing it does. It simply looking like facebook is not enough by far.

17. I wonder if one could build a sort of “plug-in” for facebook that synthesizes your current profile(and maybe FB page as a whole) with a 3rd party provider of group listings. Forums, chat room, you get the idea. You get the security of being at least somewhat aware of who the person you’re talking to is via FB content and the freedom to do as you wish.

18. I have enjoyed reading these comments, as a start up its good to hear what people think. At UGG we knew early on that if we were “just another social network” we’d fail. From the start we had planned on being a “social marketplace”. How is that is different from a social network? We have basically taken all the functionality of Facebook (profiles, friends, groups, pages) and added a video sharing channel like youTube, a auction like eBay, a classified section like craigslist. To top it off a in-depth fully functional marketplace where any business can create a store, list their products and services and have a turn-key e-commerce store complete with a custom URL. All of this gives members and businesses a unique opportunity to connect and engage in business. We hope you will give us a chance and look forward to serving you.

19. Todd Underwood, as an FYI your developer is either yanking your chain or – like most website developers – unaware of the levels of security required to safeguard user data. Simply relying on the pre-spun PHP application SocialEngine http://www.socialengine.com/ and a bunch of plugins does not make your site secure. Are you running a firewall? If so it’s not properly configured. Your server isn’t properly hardened as you still have several services open despite not needing them (email for example), your Apache instance isn’t properly configured by still allowing things like HTTP TRACE / TRACK methods. You’re using PHP version 5.4.45 went “End of Life” last year. You have a new dedicated server, why not run PHP 5.6? Your use of secure HTTPS is inconsistent, and when you do use HTTPS it’s vulnerable because it isn’t properly configured. Still running SSL3? Really? So NO. You do NOT have security that measures up to federal banking standards or anything close to it. Rule #1 of hiring someone else to make your vision a reality … make them prove they did it right. There are plenty of tools available to test this junk. Everything I’ve mentioned above is easy to fix, but should have been fixed from the start as this is beginners stuff. If all the basics aren’t being handled I have reservations about the actual security of user data or more sensitive transactions.
    I’m not knocking you Todd. I’m knocking your team. My statements above aren’t conjecture but statements of fact. Your team has no grounds for arguing these points. You need to hire a Linux admin familiar with the LAMP stack to come in and properly secure your server and its backups (yes, even the backups). You should hire a developer consultant to audit the site to ensure that data is properly encrypted and secure. The internet isn’t what it was 10 years ago. A baseline of security is required.
    And who am I? I have 18+ years of experience running the Information Technology and Security initiatives for a handful of internet technology companies. Hope this information helps you in the future and good luck with your venture!

    • The social engine was just a temporary data base to get this off the ground, we are almost complete with the framework for a transfer to a complete custom platform.

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