

How to Avoid Irreparably Destroying Your Reputation Before You Even Have One - jdbentley
http://blogdesignguy.com/how-to-avoid-irreparably-destroying-your-reputation-before-you-even-have-one/

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daimyoyo
This reminds me of why Color flopped. When people hear you've raised a titanic
sum of money prelaunch, especially from a VC firm like Sequoia, the
expectations for your product are exponentially higher than if you raise a
decent A round from angels and small VC firms. Color was a base hit when
everyone expected a grand slam. From that moment on, they face an
overwhelmingly tough task convincing people their first impressions were
wrong.

~~~
robin_reala
Same with Cuil. I think by this point it’s safe to say this isn’t the best way
to market your new service.

~~~
ivanbernat
But these guys have webcam, chat, games, classifieds and ... much more! :-)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Yeah, and using their chat is as simple as signing in via Facebook!

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StavrosK
From their Twitter stream:

> The most epic website launch of all time... The Facebook Competitor may
> reign supreme,,,, uh oh Zuckerberg

",,,,"? Why do people struggle with their language so much? I mean, all you
need to do is get a sentence right, and I'm guessing they'd seen an ellipsis
before.

~~~
jdbentley
It's ironic that you can like "Social Pog - The greatest social network of all
time" on Facebook. [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-Pog-The-greatest-
social...](http://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-Pog-The-greatest-social-
network-of-all-time/101365109924435)

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kristofferR
It's ironic that the site is now struggling because of all the traffic it's
getting ;)

And guess what, they're using Facebook Connect
<https://twitter.com/#!/kevinrose/statuses/80809855933353984>

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mgkimsal
I guess there's another lesson here - don't let anyone you don't know do
promotional work on your behalf. "Anthony" apparently let someone do some
promotional efforts for socialpog thinking "what harm can it do?" and then
found out it can do a lot of harm. He probably _spent money_ with for that
promotional effort too, which makes this all the more tragic.

~~~
jdbentley
I can relate to Anthony. He seems like a nice guy who fell in love with an
idea and let blind ambition get the best of him. When I was new to online
entrepreneurship, I did things just as stupid, but they (thankfully) got far
less attention.

Hopefully he learns from this and pushes forward with new and better projects.

~~~
amay0001
Thanks JD.

I appreciate your understanding and support.

I have learned a lesson that most won't. Aspirations grabbed me by the arm and
pulled me into a pile of poop.

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andrewcooke
everything is dead. the digg link is dead. the site <http://www.socialpog.com>
is giving an error. the linked video is dead.

at the bottom of the page (the blog design guy link) the site owner appears,
apologising. it seems like comments are from about 6 hours ago.

~~~
pavel_lishin
It comes up for me - half the time. The other half is a 500 error.

Also, their homepage is a screen requiring me to login. What? Why? I don't
know anything about you, SocialPog - how about a page that explains _what you
are_ before asking me to invest.

Also, why is this required? <http://i.imgur.com/avHf3.png> And what happened
here? <http://i.imgur.com/Ou3Uv.png> And why do I have to sign in _using
someone else's system_ to chat? <http://i.imgur.com/td9zr.png>

~~~
amay0001
@pavel_lishin Excellent points, thanks for your constructive criticism.

I'll touch on the chat a little. Good idea or not, I'll let you guys be the
judge. The chat feature was to connect everyone site wide. Then would be
defined to location and friends if needed....Problem was integration. Without
signing in through facebook/twitter it allowed users to create fake names
which couldn't be allowed for obvious reasons. Plans to design new chat were
in the works during this fiasco.

IDK, maybe future UI's for social networks will have this option. Personally I
like this option, but understand it may be not for everyone.

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wccrawford
I never really understood why people lie about their site in order to gain
users. I mean, you can't fool them for very long, so your opportunity for
whatever you plan is has to be very quick.

The only thing I can think is that they expect to earn a lot of money real
quick to help fund development... But I really can't see that working.

~~~
astine
Well, I can see it as a phishing opportunity for user logins.

~~~
amay0001
Phishing really? I have no intentions of going to Federal Prison. So I think
phishing is absolutely out of any equation. However I know there are lot's of
people who would.

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rglover
This is a reason why (to some extent) you should let users dictate your
marketing for you. What I mean by that is to avoid touting yourself as this
mega awesome site and just sort of go with the flow. Your users, if they
exist, will take care of getting the word out. Doing things like this is cheap
and not representative of a company that's interested in their own success.
Also, the whole "Facebook" killer thing? Why has it become common practice for
new social networks to have to "kill" their competitors? If they were truly
intelligent, they'd develop some feature as the core of their service that
Facebook lacks and then put that at the forefront. This, though, isn't helpful
and doesn't draw any interest toward the product.

~~~
amay0001
Thanks @rg

Couldn't agree with your comments more. Marketing and target audience was a
bad idea from the beginning.

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ltamake
I run a web BBS, and we had to deal with my competitor spamming imageboards.
It didn't do him much good (because he's finally gone), but he gained infamy
because of the incident, thus ruining his real life and causing him much debt.

~~~
pavel_lishin
What's a web BBS? And can you elaborate more on what happened?

~~~
mkr-hn
It's what a lot of people called web forums early on. UBB (old perl-based
forum software) even put it in the software's name.

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amay0001
Hey,

This is "Anthony". Lesson learned absolutely. Not a whole lot to say except
for gigantic mistake on my part. Let this be a lesson to all new webmasters.
Shortcuts as JD has written are bad ideas. Respect is earned, and I in know
way deserve it.

The article JD wrote was absolutely amazing. While reading I was just shaking
my head at my self.

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thestranger
HUH! I never think in that way!

