Skip to main content

Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 2: The Worst


Although I generally try to keep the tone of this blog positive and avoid disparagement, it's important to expose what doesn't work as well as what does. Saves you the time and trouble. With that in mind, here are 11 Web 2.0 social tagging sites to avoid.

If the owner of any of these sites cares to fix their problems and contact me, I'll be happy to post an update.

folkd.com
On my first attempt at registration, I tried five different email addresses; the service kept saying "email address already in use. Please use another or click 'password forgotten.'" There was no link to "password forgotten" on the page. My second attempt at registration went more smoothly until I reached the account activation page from their activation email, at which point I copied the activation code they had sent and got an error stating "Could not activate your account! Please insert a valid activation ticket to activate your new account." After the third attempt (again, it wouldn't accept the validation code provided), I almost gave up. I gave this one more shot a week later, and it told me that my selected username was already in use. Service could not be evaluated.

Jots
Attempted to register on three separate occasions; every time I clicked "Signup," I got an error message saying "Invalid action: signup."

My Bookmark Manager
Registration failed on three separate attempts. Registration page displayed this error: "Disabled - check back soon." Gave this one more shot a week later -- this time my connection repeatedly timed out when trying to access the registration page. Unable to evaluate.

Namakkal
Again, made three attempts at signing up. Unable to register -- kept getting a 403 "Forbidden. You don't have permission to access /register.php on this server." error. Not very friendly for a social tagging site!

Scuttle
A fitting name for what should be done with this site. I made three attempts at registration, but was unable to evaluate as the registration page link kept returning a 404 error page.

SiteTagger
Attempted to register on three different days. Unable to evaluate as the registration page said "Signups are disabled for the time being." each time I checked it out.

Smarking
Tried five times to register; kept getting a "500 Internal Error" message page.

Taggly
Unable to create an account; none of the links worked (login, register, about, feedback) except the link to the Taggly blog -- which is written in Italian. On my second registration attempt, I again got a "No input file specified" error when I clicked the "Register" link. Tried one more time -- three strikes, it's out.

unalog
Unable to register because "new registrations are disabled." There is also a prominent warning that this is a beta site, and therefore all passwords are passed in clear text. Until they fix this issue as well as re-enabling new registrations, avoid this site.

LinkaGoGo
Yet another site where new user registration failed: I continually got a 404 error page after filling in my account information.

Previous articles in this series:
Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 1: Alexa Rankings

*****

Terms: Web 2.0 social tagging sites, the worst, what doesn't work

The source for web marketing news, resources, guides and books: WebMarketCentral.com

The B2B IT PR, go-to-market strategy and lead generation experts: KC Associates

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

Comments

George said…
There are several online marketing services but finding the most genuine and top quality Organisk SEO online service provider is important. We are one of the renowned and recognized service providers in the city.

All Time Greats

Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEM

Search engine marketing (SEM) is one of the fastest-growing categories in all of advertising, because it is both measurable and logical: present your ads when people are searching for what you're selling. A well-crafted search marketing program can provide not only broad brand exposure at a very reasonable cost (with CPMs of $10 or less), but also high-ROI lead generation. As with any other type of advertising, however, a poorly-designed campaign will be a disappointing waste of money. In addition to best practices in search engine marketing , the following articles and blog posts were among the best of 2007 at providing helpful guidance for creating and managing effective search marketing programs. Five Common Paid Search Mistakes That Can Sink Your Campaign by Search Engine Guide Blogger Jennifer Laycock explains how common mistakes such as "ego bidding," writing a single ad for all keywords, and directing all of your traffic to a single landing page can limit the res

Getting More Out of Each Click with "Post-Click Marketing"

With the economy now officially in a recession (as if we didn't know that), marketers are under increasing pressure to do more with less. On the interactive marketing side, few marketers will get budget increases enabling them to drive more clicks. The challenge, then, is to maximize marketing productivity—to get more leads out of the same number of clicks. This is the first of two posts that will look at how to improve conversion rates to get more value from each click. One answer to this challenge is provided by "post-click marketing," a.k.a. lead automation management vendors. While the specifics of each service vary, all of them essentially: automate the process of extracting visitor IP information from your log files; match the IP address to an organization; filter out ISPs; and map the company name to one or more external databases to provide additional information (company size, industry, key contacts etc.). The better services also use geo-location filte

The 8 Layers of a B2B Web Marketing Plan

One way to think about designing a B2B technology web marketing plan is as a series of layers, like an onion. At the core is SEO—simply making your website "findable" through organic search to buyers who are looking for what you offer. Working out from the center are concentric layers of additional investment and sophistication. Small companies and start-ups with modest budgets will focus most of their efforts on the inner layers or rings, which are primarily designed for lead generation. As the company and its marketing budget grow, efforts can be expanded to the outer layers, which are aimed more at branding but support lead generation efforts. Ideally, a company eventually reaches the outer layer where pure branding activities (such as print advertising) help to maximize the effectiveness of lead generation programs (such as SEM) near the center of the circle. This diagram shows how different types of web marketing programs can be prioritized in order to maximize the retur

Best of 2007: Web 2.0 Sites

A number of new social networking, social search, social bookmarking, and other Web 2.0-related websites and tools either got their start or got traction in 2007. Here are some of the most notable new sites and tools that made it onto the radar last year. Go2Web20.net Billed as "the complete Web 2.0 directory," this site has cataloged more than 2,000 Web 2.0 applications and services, searchable by an extensive list of tags and sortable by date and name. Snitter Snitter is a small desktop application that makes it easy to keep up with those you are following on Twitter, a social networking site that lets you keep "followers" up to date on what you're up to, and stay in the loop on what they're doing. KickApps A hosted web-based platform that enables webmasters and site owners to create, deploy and manage a branded social media community on any website. Socialtext An enterprise wiki tool that enables workgroups or organizations to create secure, group-editabl

Don't They Know Who You Are? Why Reputation Management is Critical

This content has been moved to Don’t They Know Who You Are? Why Reputation Management is Crucial on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: Lee Odden, digital reputation management, Jon Rognerud, Guy Kawasaki, LookupPage, Google Knol, TechCrunch, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Twitter, Wikio, Mixx, Digg, StumbleUpon, Wikipedia, Tim Young, Socialcast, LinkedIn, Facebook, Naymz, Jigsaw, Plaxo, ZoomInfo, CrunchBase, VisualCV, Scott Monty, Christopher Barger del.icio.us tags: Lee Odden, digital reputation management, Jon Rognerud, Guy Kawasaki, LookupPage, Google Knol, TechCrunch, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Twitter, Wikio, Mixx, Digg, StumbleUpon, Wikipedia, Tim Young, Socialcast, LinkedIn, Facebook, Naymz, Jigsaw, Plaxo, ZoomInfo, CrunchBase, VisualCV, Scott Monty, Christopher Barger icerocket tags: Lee Odden, digital reputation management, Jon Rognerud, Guy Kawasaki, LookupPage, Google Knol, TechCru

Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 2

This content has been moved to Best of 2008: Social Media Marketing on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: best free tools for monitoring social buzz social media marketing Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel Techrigy SM2 Key Web Data Chris Lang Google social bookmarking HubSpot Catie Foertsch Kate Morris TopRank Online Marketing Blog Jessica Cameron-Ruud Duct Tape Marketing John Jantsch CircleUp Traffic Travis del.icio.us tags: best free tools for monitoring social buzz social media marketing Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel Techrigy SM2 Key Web Data Chris Lang Google social bookmarking HubSpot Catie Foertsch Kate Morris TopRank Online Marketing Blog Jessica Cameron-Ruud Duct Tape Marketing John Jantsch CircleUp Traffic Travis icerocket tags: best free tools for monitoring social buzz social media marketing Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel Techrigy SM2 Key Web Data Chris Lang Google social bookmarking HubSpot Catie Foe

How To Use the Tools of Social Media Optimization

The term "social media" encompasses several different types of sites, and it's important to use all of them properly in order to really be effective at social media optimization (SMO). Blogs are of course one of the most common forms of social media, and there are significant benefits to having your own blog as well as building name recognition and credibility for your company through other industry blogs . But what separates SMO from SEO is that search engine optimization is about owning a top spot in the search engines for your website on a specific term, while social media optimization is about owning the entire first page of the search engines for multiple sites that point back to you for a specific term. So, here are some tips for using different types of social media sites for SMO. Discussion Forums These are a place to showcase your expertise in a non-promotional way. For example, in an SEO forum, telling everyone how great your agency is at SEO is suicid

MarketingSherpa Releases 2008 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide

MarketingSherpa recently published its Search Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2008 , providing data on cost per click (CPC), conversion rates, SEO and other key online marketing metrics. The study is designed to help online marketers set PPC and SEO budgets, forecast results, test online marketing programs, and even (toughest of all)—explain search marketing plans to your client or CEO. Among the key findings: Search marketing continues to grow at an incredible pace, with spending up 39% globally in 2007. A third of respondents anticipate double-digit spending increases on both SEO and Google PPC programs in 2008. Marketers rate SEO second and search engine marketing (PPC) ads third in terms of ROI, behind only house-list email marketing. Online banner ads and print advertising receive the lowest grades for ROI. The return on PR spending is viewed as the most difficult to measure. Thinking of bringing SEM and SEO in-house? Nearly a third of corporate respondents said that finding ta