Social media feeds off user-generated content. Without active members, social media sites cannot thrive. Throughout the digital revolution, we have seen countless social networks rise to popularity only to fade away in cyberspace:
But not all social media sites die off entirely like Friendster did. Some sites refuse to say goodbye, and they march on as lifeless versions of once popular sites. These sites are still online and functioning, but have very few visitors or users to help them survive.
As Halloween approaches, I’d like to pay homage to the eerily quiet social media sites still roaming the Interwebs today. Let’s look at how and when they became part of the social media “Undead”:
MySpace:
Perhaps the most famous of all the Undead, at its peak the site had over 185 million users and was valued at $12 billion. The emergence of Facebook sucked much of the life from Myspace – it lost over 10 million viewers in one month as Facebook continued to grow exponentially. But even these numbers don’t reflect the severity of the Undead phenomena. Many of the users have become part of the Undead. I personally joined the Undead a long time ago – my account has not been accessed since 2008. Every statistic points to the demise of Myspace, (the page views and time spent on the site decreased by 50% in just two months this year) but a small population of living users struggle to keep the site from passing on. Although many makeovers and buy-outs have attempted to shock the site and its Undead following back to life, it appears to be doomed.
AOL:
In many ways, America Online was the founding father of social media. The program started out in the 80s before the internet was publicly available. Subscription to the AOL service allowed users to access the largest “walled garden” online community in existence at the time. This community included the first forms of digital social interaction: messaging, forums and interactive games with leader boards. At its prime the service had 30 million paying subscribers, but when the World Wide Web became free for anyone to use and develop, AOL took a major hit. Today AOL has similar functionality to Google, Yahoo and MSN, but is only used for 6.6% of internet searches.
Orkut:
Launched in January 2004, Orkut is one of Google’s many failed social media attempts. The site was originally intended for users to meet new and old friends and maintain existing relationships, but multiple issues and controversies kept the site from rising to popularity. Today the site hosts 52 million users, but is nearly silent in the United States. Interestingly, over 70% of the live users are in Brazil and India.
Gowalla:
Gowalla is the youngest of the Undead on this list. At its start, the location-based network grew quickly, but stronger platforms such as Foursquare and Scvngr now dominate the geo-social sphere. Today the site has about 165,000 unique users compared to Foursquare’s 1.54 million. Its users are active, but they represent such a small portion of the internet population that Gowalla lists and locations look abandoned and lifeless.
As technology continues to change, more and more social sites will join the Undead. The question now is: