Yuwie: A Social Networking Site that is Not so Social

By now I am sure that everyone and their dog has heard about the new social networking site that pays its members, Yuwie. You have probably seen all the ads and the spam that goes with it as well.

There are two main things that Yuwie promotes.
1. It's a social Networking website
2. You get paid

Now these two things sound like an amazing idea, but does it really work? I'm sure thats the question that plagues all the people who are sitting on the fence. That, my friend, is the purpose of this article. I will dispell all the rumors and make some bold confirmations about Yuwie.

There are only 2 reasons a person comes to the decision to join Yuwie. You are either looking for a change from one of the thousands of other social networking sites out there, or you are looking to make some cash as they so prominently advertise.

Well, lets take a look at the two separately first.

The main question here is, of course, why? Why would you use Yuwie as a social network?

For starters, it has most of the features that Myspace has. But it also has far less users than Myspace. You also have to look at the mentality of the social structure of Yuwie. With over 600,000 members, how many of them do you think joined to make money? I am willing to say that most, if not all, joined Yuwie for the sole purpose of making money. After all, why join another Myspace clone with a lot smaller community?

Now, look at another social networking website. Myspace, Hi5, Facebook, Tagworld...they all have one goal in mind (or so it seems), which is to make it easy for people to get in touch with one another and stay in touch. There is no benefit from trying to sell things from Myspace. There are several reasons for this as well.

1. Myspace is cluttered with Spammers.
2. The community is saturated with advertisments.
3. Your lucky if you don't get random invites from people you don't know, thinking they are legit only to get spam messages or comments telling you to try their product.
4. Myspace does not allow links to most websites with a link to "buy now" in it. They also prevent links that have anything to do with referrals.

It's been around long enough for any member of myspace to know what a marketing pitch is. With myspace it still isn't exactly the best idea to just invite random people all day. You just simply don't know if who you are adding is going to be legit or an advertising spam bot. We can thank myspace for training most of the internet about how to avoid and pick out marketing pitchs! Thanks!!!!

Aside from the spam bots, Myspace isn't actually all that bad. There is actually a point to the network. Which is to make friends and meet new people! If you happen to stumble across a really nice myspace profile you can see REAL comments by real people. Real discussions about whatever is meaningful to the persons talking. You can make real friends on Myspace....but can you do the same on Yuwie?

At first glance, I wouldn't expect it. Yuwie works by paying its members based on page views and viewing ads. Which means that any time someone views a profile, sends a message or does ANYTHING to interact with another member...they get paid for it. Personal gain is the purpose to the communities interaction!

Every single time someone leaves a comment or sends a message to you, they know they are getting something in return (a page view, which increases their income).

I will admit, that on Yuwie you can make real friends and meet really cool people. But those types of Yuwie members are few and far between. Most likely the most friendly person you will meet, is the person who referred you (if they are any good at MLM that is). So, out of the 1000+ friends that you may invite on yuwie, maybe 1 of them will actually keep in touch with you on a meaningful level. The other 999 'friends' will be spamming comments and message hoping to get a page view in return. The community in general is built on a 'please return the favor' system. Simply by leaving a comment on your profile page, there is a hint of obligation to do the same for their profile. I've been a member for a while now, have over 190 friends and only 1 comment or message has been a real post that shows the least bit of concern about who I really am. Most comments and messages are either "Check out my blog" or those annoying pics that say, "Showin some love"..etc. How can you base real friendships on that type of system?

If you look at Yuwie from the social aspect and don't take the MLM scheme into consideration, the community would utterly collapse.