ArsGeek

Yahoo’s Mash

Well folks, I tried the new beta staged social networking and I have to say that after a little over a week in I’ve lost interest.

Due to the slaughter of gaudy weighed down profiles of partying strangers wanting to be my friend in which I sprained my finger from pressing “block”. I felt a de ja vu of MySpace… aka Idiocracy Central.

Granted it may have largely been due to the profile tag war with my friend that could have prompted the mindless morons to flock to me. Personally, I’m thinking it’s the general social networking mentality that did it all on its own.

There were fun features such as getting to edit your friends profile (hence the putting silly tags on your friends profile and editing their likes, pictures etc.) dubbing it “fugly” and reverting it back to its bare minimum when you view it and it gave you more control with the over all look and feel should you know CSS.

The downfall:
Any comment you write in someone’s “guestbook” appears on your own site without any option to NOT allow the world to see what you’ve written else where. It winds up pretty confusing to the viewer who is merely reading your one sided conversation.  “You’re welcome!, I know huh?, I fed it!” Sometimes it’s best not to leave things up to interpretation.

Unlike Multiply, it doesn’t allow you to upload your own library of music, videos etc. without bogging down your profile. There’s no organization at this point and the bugs are difficult to overlook: I’ve tried to add an arsgeek reader ten times now, and I keep getting a pop up error.

It’s awkward, sloppy and lacks any appeal that could possibly do more than herd the “Oooh, the more virtual friends I have, the more meaning my life has.”

I will stick with the underdog that has so many features that I find appealing (at one point I almost didn’t feel the need for my personal site… but narcissism and middle child syndrom prompted me to keep MY domain going).

Sorry folks but Mash is merely another version of MySpace that lacks the templates, photo album, and privacy options.

I think I’ll keep my original social network where I can create media libraries, write my own reviews with ratings, blogs, guest book, live conversation in the comment fields AND have access to thousands of templates, styles and designs that I can edit.

Maybe Yahoo will step it up, but from what I’ve witnessed, I highly doubt that it will be able to stand apart from the Idiocracy Central.

I will remain on Mash for a bit because the profile war is fun… and there’s no option yet to delete it.

The Girl Ghic

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