Oddbark is like craig’s list, with some added bells and whistles. For one, it doesn’t look like the web circa 1937. But more importantly, you can phone in ads. And get txt messages when postings expire.

But that ain’t enough to convince people to move from trusty CL, unfortunately. In New York City, there were only two items for sale on the entire site. Needless to say, if I’m looking to buy or sell, this ain’t gonna be where I look. Sucky. ‘Cause the site’s actually better than Craig’s.

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OOBING: Get featured on Sucky Startups in four easy steps!

Silly web 2.0 made-up name

“Beta” for no reason whatsoever

“Social Network”

Undifferentiated. Won’t make money in a million years.

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In the case of iYomu, which is an iSocial Network for iGrownups, the iAnswer is neither.

My guess is that not too many grown ups are using the site’s tools–iYLocate, iYCommunity (which lets you find people with similar interests), or iYDNA (which seems to be a sorta personality test).

Look out Facebook! Linked In, you’re dead!

Maybe I’m wrong, and this is going to be the next big thing. But I’d be willing to bet a bit of money that it ain’t.

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I know, I know, it’s old news. Plaxo is launching an ‘open’ social network called Pulse (or I guess it’s a feature of the v.3, which is currently in beta. It’s kind of a meta social network in that it can pull in data from other web apps like flickr and amazon; particularly your contacts’ data/feeds. There are some things that are cool about it. But does it matter?

It’s Plaxo! Everyone loves to hate Plaxo. The thought of getting Plaxo emails sends shivers up my spine.While I give it credit for not being a carbon copy of other social networks, it is like 40 years late to the party.

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Wow! This is one of the ugliest pages I’ve seen in a while. Reminds me of the first web page I created in 1995. Doesn’t make me want to entrust my website to their site builder–that’s for sure!

I guess it is free. And the underlying templates aren’t insanely bad. But you have to admit that the homepage that sells the service is hilarious! I predict that in about 3 years, this “vintage” look and feel will be all the rage. Let’s just hope these guys last long enough to capitalize on the vintage web bandwagon.

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UPDATE: As Eric & Zahasman point out in the comments, it looks like the CSS wasn’t loading correctly when I took the screenshots. I hit reload a few times, but it still looked the same. I’ll have to give it another shot one of these days.
 

Smugglers Music allows bands/musicians to upload music to sell and list gigs and sell to the flocks of people looking for unsigned artists. Just like MP3.com and a zillion others started doing 10 years ago. So why is this “beta” launching now? That’s what I’ve been asking myself. I’m looking for something that differentiates them and there ain’t much. I predict they’ll be gone in a 366 days.Rating: