So if you’re even a little bit like me, you’ve probably signed up for a few community/social media sites and have never gone back. And in my case, by a few, I really mean a TON. Not purposely, sometimes I sign quickly when I’m busy, intending to check it out later, and never make it. Sometimes I just poke around a while and decide it doesn’t appeal to me. Sometimes I just downright hate it (though rarely, I’m pretty easy to please!)
Anyway, what I thought could be fun if I named off a few sites that I am a member of, but don’t ever visit. Also I’d love for you to jump into the comments and tell me either a)Why i *should* get involved with one of my abandoned sites, or b)What sites you’ve done the same for. I think it could make for an interesting list!
Here goes:
SocialMedian
Socialmedian is even trying so hard by sending me emails everday! And I think it *sounds* like a really cool concept, but for some reason I haven’t been back. I think one day someone added me as a friend or whatever they call it, and I had difficulty logging in, and that was the end of that. The deal is it’s a personalized news service, and you can share your news with others. I think I could get into it, but haven’t yet.
Plurk
I actually really like Plurk, and log in from time to time, but the problem is I have over 600 followers on Twitter, and about 25 on Plurk. Which one would you use? However it does seem that Plurk has a loyal following… I’m just not a part of it.
Identi.ca
Sooooo identi.ca is just like twitter, but with less features, and doesn’t look as nice? Yea, not sure why I haven’t given it much of a chance. Like probably most of its users, I signed up when Twitter was having service issues, but since those have been resolved, it’s barely crossed my mind.
Delicious.com
OK I was a die-hard del.icio.us fan, but some where along the way, dropped it all together. In fact, I’ve only been to the site once since it was re-branded as delicious.com. Is the social bookmarking trend dying down or is it just me?
Ok that’s what I’m starting with. Let me know which sites you’ve abandoned. I will probably update this evening.
**Update** Here are some I’ve added since this page originally went up:
MySpace
One I can’t believe I forgot is MySpace–which actually prompted this post! I joined MySpace a couple years ago, before Facebook was public–because many of my personal friends were using it. However, I always hated the interface and ugly layouts and embedded music on pages, so I was happy to abandon it! Sadly I don’t think I was the only one, because you seldom here anything about it anymore. However out of the blue yesterday I received a “MySpace Newsletter” (which I don’t remember ever seeing before) so I guess they’re finally trying to get things together again. Either way, I’m done with it.
FriendFeed
As a few people have mentioned in the comments, FriendFeed is another one that’s fading. I really like the idea of FriendFeed — aggregating all your services, but I just couldn’t figure out what I was suppose to do on the site… Because I’d already read all the updates in Facebook, Twitter, etc. I suppose I don’t regularly use enough services to make FriendFeed completely worthwhile.
StumbleUpon
One nobody has mentioned, but I just realized I’m not using nearly as much is StumbleUpon. Which I absolutely ADORE, and I have no idea why it fell off my radar. I suppose because I’m not using my iMac as much, I wonder if there’s an iPhone app? (If not… there should be!)
MyBlogLog
I used to LOVE MyBlogLog! And it used to bring great traffic to my blog, but it fizzled out somewhere. I think when I started Web 2.What? it did not have the same momentum as when I’d started out with MBL while it was still new and I lost interest. I go on from time to time, and just feel like there’s of members just trying to drive traffic and it’s lacking a community feel. *shrug*
Also be sure to check out the comments….
14 thoughts to “Land of the forgotten community sites…”
I have abandoned the following sites soon after creating an account:
– Plurk
– HelloTxt
– BrightKite
– Last.fm
– Ping.fm
– FriendFeed
– Delicious.com
I think the reason I couldn’t keep using them is because I wasn’t able to properly integrate it into my workflow. The tools themselves might be great but, unlike others sites (such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), I just could not seem to establish their daily use. It’s completely my fault.
I’m not big on the whole social website movement going on right now. I started a Facebook account about 2 years ago and quickly stopped using it. I went back recently to try it again, updating my info and reconnecting with friends I’d added the first time around. That was over 2 weeks ago. I haven’t been back. My LinkedIn account is only 50% complete and it has been in that condition for almost a year. I’ve had multiple MySpace accounts that were canceled. Friendster. Tribes. Occassionally I’ll get an email from some social site that I created my account on and quickly left and/or forgot.
I think the main reason for this is I don’t find them enjoyable and it is some what of a hassle for me to go every day and log in. I enjoy and continue to use things like Twitter mainly because I’m able to run a client on my desktop. I don’t know if I’d still be using it if that wasn’t possible.
Great topic! Is still use and love delicious.com With all my various topics and tags I would be lost without it. What I need to do is get in the habit of searching delicious.com for answers instead of Google. I I often google for something only to find that I already found it and bookmarked it in delicious 10 months ago.
Plazes used to be lot of fun then they morphed into a yet another twitter-clone. I then dropped Plazes for BrightKite but then lost interest in telling people where I was at random times. Besides no one I knew was was using it.
I left Plaxo after all the bad press they received about betraying their users privacy a few years ago.
I still use Facebook but I don’t post photos of my kids there because their terms of service are really scary. Facebook’s entitlement to your content is something you really need to monitor.
I abandoned LinkedIn.com a while ago (and my profile reflects that) but now I am starting to use it more now that it seems to be having a resurgence. I think I will start using it again.
I really love Pownce.com but no one I know uses it so neither do I.
I guess to me it always comes down to the status quo. It depends on where both your RLF friends and “friends” are. Twitter has had rather significant service outages over the past few months yet we all hang in there because the thought of mobilizing all your friends to move to another service (like Plurk or Identi.ca or Pownce) at this point seems in impossible.
Having said that I still really value Last.fm even though I don’t really have that many “friends” on that service. That site still provides a valuable service based on the input of anonymous peers. I guess that is what leads me back to what I still value about delicious.com
Scott — I’m going to add Last.fm, Ping.fm and FriendFeed to the list tonight. And Scott I think you are dead on–the challenge of a community site is to make users feel like they need it and it’s easy to use.
Paul — There are some people (like me) who are really into it and want to check out everything, but I think the vast majority of people are more like you, and will only get into the tools that add value to their lives, not necessarily because they are looking for a community site. Thanks for your input.
Jay–I definitely agree on Last.fm, though I haven’t really got into it yet, but I really wish I could because it sounds like a great tool.
Thanks for the comments guys! I think we could go on about this topic for WEEKS. The more I think about it, the more are coming to mind, a little sad I guess.
Give us another shot (please) — we’ve got a very active user base who are really engaged and provide us with great feedback as we continue to enhance socialmedian.
Here is a quick link to our web 2.0 network
http://www.socialmedian.com/network/web-2-0
And another to the very active discussion the financial crisis
http://www.socialmedian.com/network/global-financial-crisis
And finally, a link the current hot discussions on socialmedian — many of them around web 2.0
http://www.socialmedian.com/stories-list/hot-discussions
I tend to be a late adopter so I am pretty much still using the various apps and sites I started. Del.icio.us and Identi.ca are probably the only exceptions, as I just couldn’t integrate them with my day-to-day work.
How can you abandon delicious? What are you using for bookmarks? Hands down delicious is the most useful of the web 2.0 sites for me. I don’t know how I could keep track of things without it.
I setup a MySpace account, but never really got into using it – FB is much easier to use I find. I occasionally get a message from LinkedIn, but there’s not really much value to going there – I find the ability to connect with others pretty limiting.
There’s so many interesting sites out there to try that I often sign up for something to try it out and then forget about it. I’d be very interested to see a good SM aggregater or mashup or desktop tool, that pulls together info from any SM site at one location.
MySpace, FriendFeed, Pownce, and Last.fm come to mind for me.
I still use Delicious – the Firefox plugin is a must and make sure you add your RLFs to your Delicious Network – I’ve found some great stuff that way. Similar to Jay, I don’t use my Pownce account because no one I know really uses it either, and I only use last.fm occasionally when looking for new music recommendations. That too might change given the new iTunes Genius functionality.
WAYN & 43PLACES- Every so often a stranger contacts me to sleep on my couch. Creepy.
BEBO- I only use the birthday portion of this and it goes to my hotmail account.
Hi Jason–Since you asked nicely, I think I *will* give socialmedian another chance. I do think it’s a great concept I just don’t think I’ve put in the time to really understand how it works.
Ryan–I have no idea?! I loved delicious, but just realized I haven’t been using it! I honestly think Twitter is to blame for most of these abandonments because it sucks so much time up.
Mark–Have you checked out FriendFeed. It is an aggregator, however it’s also another tool I’ve abandoned, so that might say something about it. Though I think taking that concept and making it a desktop app is pure genius!
Chris–I have the delicious FF plugin, but I think that I’ve got to the point where I have so many plugins that they got lost in the overwhelming sea of icons. Perhaps it’s time for a cleanup??
Dana–Interestingly, I’ve actually never signed up for any of those.
Oh I forgot Joe– It’s definitely true that the sites I sign up for that are already well established I usually tend to stick with. I suppose that is why they get well established because people like them!
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