As a hip, swinging Web 2.0 kind of guy/gal, I’m sure you have the same problem – every other week, at minimum, you get an invite to join YASN (Yet Another Social Network). After a while your inbox is crammed with notices and spam from a bunch of websites have names with no vowels, and no traffic.
Fear naught, the answer is here! The defense is “JFunk’s Rule of 2”. Anytime I’m asked to join YASN I make a mental note of the name of the network and if I ever get asked again (this is where the 2 part comes in…) I’ll join. I figure that if a social network can’t get on my radar from more than one source, it’s probably not going to make it anyplace.
Not the most earth shattering post, but for some reason I feel much better on passing up an invite for YASN… “Oh, I’m sorry, we just have rules about these things, It’s not that I have anything against giving my personal data to some group nobody has ever heard of before”.
In other news we had the work Yankee Swap. I got a candle (not a guy’s gift), swapped for some lottery tickets (which always move on), swapped for a Mag-lite flashlight. I was happy with that but then that got swapped out for a cheaper no-name flashlight. I would have preferred the Best Buy gift certificate I threw in the ring, alas…
4 replies on “Defend Against Social Networks – The Rule of 2”
I join as a defensive play to reserve my namespace. My show’s brand is reaching a point where having a defensive name grab is actually worthwhile.
Good rule, John.
I wound up with a Blockbuster gift card and a box of popcorn in our office swap on Wednesday. Not bad.
Penn scores again…
Bry – Blockbuster? They’re still in business?
[…] So I thought I was pretty clever earlier this week with my Rule of 2 (don’t waste your time with social networks that you only hear about once), then Chris Penn, of The Financial Aid Podcast weighed in with a brilliant comment – who gives a damn about the 2 minutes it takes to register, join every network out there to lock down your namespace (protect your brand in Marketese), and he’s absolutely right. He also pointed me towards some other crazy crap Google is trying. The thing is, this is not the first time he’s dealt me a brainbuster. He’s doing crazy stuff all the time over on MySpace and he’s always experimenting. He’s also good at scripting, and I’m not, so that makes me jealous. […]