Email from @ryze.com.
Subject line: Someone wants to network with you
Okay, fine, I’ve not been to Ryze, but I thought it was cool a long time ago, and I don’t mind linkedin, or facebook, or even myspace messages, so I take a look at the email.
Body:
Someone wants to network with you:
http://www.ryze.com/networkwithme.php NOTE: You can change your Ryze notification preferences at http://www.ryze.com/preferences.php
I visit the site, log in and see the headline:
People who want to network with you…
And the actual message:
Upgrade your Ryze membership to see the list of 2 people who want to network with you
Uh, what? Really? I click the link and it’s $10 a year for Gold, and $20 a year for Platinum.
If the two people who want to network with me are legit, they’ll find me through some other channel, or heck, won’t they just email me?
Ryze was one of the earliest social/professional networking sites I joined. I remember seeing this visualization of the Ryze network and even being spotted on it. I even paid for a premium account at one time. I believe it was the same $10/month thing. But eventually it reached a limit in terms of what it could deliver, and I canceled it. Eventually it seemed that everyone who was talking to me was in MLM folks. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I started avoiding the site.
And now, just to view people who want to network with me, I have to pay? That’s the whole reason I think classmates.com sucks. To do anything useful, you have to pay, and yet, the site is trumpeted as this great tool to network with. I’m sorry, but exclusivity and dubious value do not go together. And Ryze definitely is only of dubious value.
Ryze, get your act together. Your value proposition stinks. Bad.
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