After long since avoiding the YASN / Web 2.0 service with the typical aplomb, I was actually convinced by one Ms. Belmont to break it on down and join up LinkedIn. I try not to be the type to take aim and fire potshots at another W2.0 site, but what a mistake it was joining, what a severe waste of time and an eye opener! However belated my joining may be, it took me only a couple of minutes to whip up that account and get in — where the problems immediately began. I had to validate the same email address three times to start exploring the site, which I found incredibly difficult due to their proprietary nomenclature for standard social network services, and the lack of useful navigational/utility links — this only to find out one can’t just add people in the network. No, you’re expected to have a predefined relationship (presumably by getting an invite), or have InMail. What’s InMail? I sure didn’t have any idea. Oh, it’s what they call sending a message to someone, and you have to upgrade your account to do it, $15 minimum a month. Yes, not “a year,” that’s “a month.” Did I mention the site had ads everywhere, but made no mention of the possibility of those going away if you paid for the service?

So, where’s the “social” part of this network if you’re not willing to pay up to $200 a month for service? I created an account, couldn’t add people on the network I knew, couldn’t even make contact with them, was advertised to, and further still asked to subscribe — and quit immediately. Social indeed. Why complain? I do have a point, believe it or not, besides whining about web services gone wrong, and it’s that I consider this a bit of anecdotal evidence that Web 2.0 — or whatever you want to call this next tech bubble we’re supposedly in right now — suffers from the same problems the web has always suffered from: good ideas followed only by poor execution and clueless concepts of how to monetize (and given an awful user interface to boot).