Useless Social Software

Adam Greenfield’s verdict on social software is in: “they’re officially useless to me”. I have to agree. Mostly.

Something like 10 days ago I “suicided” my Orkut account and was one click away from doing the same to the one on Friendster, I only kept it because it’s still a subject that I have some interest in so I might as well keep an account in case I want to look something up. Then again, I could just delete it and create an empty account when/if I need it.

The one service that I do like though is Flickr, much simpler, cleaner and more usable interface, funny stuff you can look up quickly and painlessly. No group spam like on Orkut. It’s just fun. It feels like the folks at Ludicorp (love the name) built it for their own personal pleasure and yet I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up having a better revenue stream than their “competisters”. Wether they do or not though, I’m sure their users appreciate the out of the way Google ads more than the layout busting banners in Friendster.

I’m not sure though how much of it is the novelty of punching a few keys on a phone and seeing the picture on a website when I get back vs the actual use of the site but hey, it’s part of the package so it’s still a good comment on the whole.