Ning Stinks — any “platform” that enables people create social networks for people that have letter Z fetishes shouldn’t exist, in my oh so very humble opinion.

They’re all boasting that they have 115K social networks, but like 8 of them are mine and have 1 member. I know, I know–I’m sure the other 114, 992 rival Facebook and Myspace in their scale & usefulness.

Why not just create a group on a real social network? Why does everyone love it just ’cause it’s Marc, who created Netscape? Netscape isn’t cool–it was Mosaic that was cool. LoudCloud isn’t cool. Why would Ning be cool?I think I’m going to create a Marc Fan Club network on Ning.

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I had kind of a crappy day, but iPartee completely turned it around.

I haven’t laughed this hard in a while!

What is IPartee?
In their own words, “IPartee is a place to find events and venues you and your friends want to attend. We let you plan, publish, promote and monetize your events for free.”

That got me chuckling, but I lost it at:

“What’s are the benefits of signing up?
What makes IPartee really useful is the ability to use it with your friends [emphasis mine]. By joining IPartee, you’ll be able to use features that help you plan events with friends, as well as post events, venues, polls, reviews and photos.”

I seriously want to invite all my friends, so I can use features! The part I’m most excited about is posting venues! It’s so funny…because I actually have a list of venues by my computer that I’ve been compiling over the past months, and just waiting for the right outlet! Now that I have iPartee, and I’m going to feel much more fulfilled!

iPartee made me so happy that I went to their careers section–I’d really enjoy a career at a place that makes me laugh every day. Alas, I got a “not found” error.

OK, OK–I’m being too harsh…I’m just jokin’ around…

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GetItNext is a whole site devoted to searching ebay. I tried it out and it does provide some decent search results. But nonetheless folks, a whole company around this?!?!

My favorite part is that they have multiple offices! “Headquartered in Canada, we have offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, New Jersey and New York.” I would guess there isn’t enough of a business model for an unemployed coder who built this in his bedroom–I can’t imagine what they are doing with FIVE OFFICES!!!

Maybe there’s something I don’t quite get. Maybe you’ll generate some nice returns if you invest now. It just so happens they are raising money.

“Dear Prospective Investor:
Let me invite you to join an exclusive group of individuals who have been caught up in the excitement of GetItNext. Currently, we are in the process of raising additional venture capital to finance the continued marketing and ongoing development of a new service that will revolutionize how people use the eBay marketplace.”

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Zipidee bills themselves as “the internet’s largest (emphasis mine) marketplace for buying and selling digital goods online.”

The only problem is that it’s “beta” and not yet accessible to the public! I’m sure it’s bigger than say, iTunes’ 3 billions songs sold. Or ebay’s sales of digital items.

My question is: do consumers need a separate site to sell digital goods? Granted, this company claims to add DRM to items it sells, which is wildly popular with consumers. But besides creating additional restrictions for buyers, what’s the value prop?

I’m confused.

Teach The People was included in one of the TechCrunch 40. From their site: “Teach The PeopleSM is the world’s first social community and content networking service equipped with tools and features for the flexible sharing of knowledge!

Instead of just messaging with other users like on traditional social networking services, users on Teach The PeopleSM
are creating their own communities for fun, education, innovation; whatever! User can then fill those communities
with as much content & media as they desire:

Documents, Images, Videos, AUDIO, Blogs, Discussion Boards, Chat Sessions, Broadcasts…

…you name it.”

Now, read About.com’s About Us copy: Exclusive to About.com, over 600 expert “Guides” steer About.com’s content - sharing their passions, expertise and how-to information with visitors every day. The result is a vast information “bank” that couples the breadth and reach of large content providers such as AOL and MSN with the depth of consumer-focused sites like CNET and WebMD.

Sound kinda similar? But About.com was started in 1996, almost 12 freakin’ years ago.

All I’m sayin’ is Whatev.

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Adobe just announced Photoshop Express. Well I guess they announced it a while back, but they just previewed it. What’s the point?

To me, traditional desktop software for desktop tasks works great. Desktop software for things like spreadsheets and photo editing is better.