Social Networks – Is There One You Just Hate?

Social Networking is all the rage these days and it seems like dozens of new social networks spring up each week.  There are several that really annoy me and for which a reasonable way to describe my emotions about them would be to say that I hate them.

Some are actually just MLM scams, disguised as social networks.  Those only benefit the people at the very top of the pyramid scheme.   “Your friend has invited you to join and let us spam your friends with the dream of MLM riches.”  “Join now so you don’t miss out.”

Some are intrusive, sending invitations forever, even when you have made it clear that you are never going to join.  Some of them trick your friends into spamming you by using vague language and not making it clear that they are going to send unwanted messages over and over until that e-mail hard bounces.

Some of these social networks are joinable and after joining I have found them to be unsocial, unfriendly and unusable.  The process for managing the interactions is cumbersome and the e-mails send by the system are essentially worthless, indicating nothing about the interactions and conversations going on other than something obscure such as “13jenny4gty has left you a message on XYZ network.”

Those are the kind I hate the most – the ones that look useful and worthwhile but then do not actually enable interactions by the mechanisms that people like to use to interact.  Five or six of the most promising social networks I ever joined have proven to be worthless because of the interface problems.  I never use them and can’t imagine that I ever will unless the systems are radically re-engineered.

Did you notice that I did not name any names?  I did not want to taint your thinking about which tools you like or hate.

I am leaving that up to you.  Please comment with your least favorite social network platform or tool and why you hate it and let’s see if there is a consensus on the worst social networking tool of the century.

Thank you,

Bill Austin  

East Valley Living

Scottsdale Job Network