Friday, February 2, 2007
SuperPages' social network far from super
posted by Andy Leff 
File this news under "Right Idea, Wrong Way": SuperPages just launched 'Reviewer of the Week', a competitive program intended to spur user-generated content and reviews.
Too bad it's doomed to fail.
Nobody is going to make SuperPages their destination place for social networking. It's too corporate. Hell, it's a phonebook.
The company is making an artificial social network because 'social network' is the buzzword of the day. I see this turning (and burning) out the exact same way Wal-Mart's social network attempt did: as straight garbage nobody cares about because the corporate entity controls everything.
In fact, that's the No. 1 reason such contrived networks fall on their faces: People can't get a sense that their input is valuable or valued.
People typically don't want to help large corporations. They consider them money-grubbing giants, which is why Google had the whole "We're not evil" lobbying campaign going.
A million to one, people want to help other people -- namely, their friends and community. And they are not dumb. If a company tries to create a false sense of community, their audience will know.
Yet this seems to be where SuperPages is headed. I certainly don't see 'Reviewer of the Week' as a threat to organic, vital, honest social networks. It's only a cheap marketing ploy to get viewers to the site.
Too bad it's doomed to fail.
Nobody is going to make SuperPages their destination place for social networking. It's too corporate. Hell, it's a phonebook.
The company is making an artificial social network because 'social network' is the buzzword of the day. I see this turning (and burning) out the exact same way Wal-Mart's social network attempt did: as straight garbage nobody cares about because the corporate entity controls everything.
In fact, that's the No. 1 reason such contrived networks fall on their faces: People can't get a sense that their input is valuable or valued.
People typically don't want to help large corporations. They consider them money-grubbing giants, which is why Google had the whole "We're not evil" lobbying campaign going.
A million to one, people want to help other people -- namely, their friends and community. And they are not dumb. If a company tries to create a false sense of community, their audience will know.
Yet this seems to be where SuperPages is headed. I certainly don't see 'Reviewer of the Week' as a threat to organic, vital, honest social networks. It's only a cheap marketing ploy to get viewers to the site.
Labels: Social Networking, SuperPages, Wal-Mart
