Loading ...Last year I wrote about the different paths taken by FaceBook and Classmates.com and how Classmates’ decision to charge consumers up front may have ended up costing them the market that FaceBook now dominates.
Today I received an email from Classmates with the subject line “Classmates Has Big News, David.” I assumed that this would be the announcement that Classmates had finally abandoned their subscription fee and adopted the FaceBook ‘monetize with advertising’ model. Alas, old habits die hard. Here’s the email’s contents:
That’s right – it’s a FaceBook-style news feed and friend finder, but you still have to pay for it. And of course the number of people you know on Classmates at this point is probably about 1/10th the number you know on FaceBook. Less features and less friends – and you get to pay for it. While I often like the idea that “less is more”, it doesn’t apply in this case.
CORRECTION: Classmates Friends is actually FREE for everyone. No payment necessary. :)
Add to that the fact that, if you try to opt out of unsolicited e-mails from Classmates they tell you it takes 10 days and then they keep filling up your inbox with crap. What kind of crap? Stuff like: You have one new comment but you can't see it until you sign up for a free full membership and that you have to pay for. Duh! Besides bogus comments, check out their adverts. It's the usual sleazy stuff about single women in your area yearning for you. I have always thought classmates was a good idea; Yet it's so badly implemented it deserves to die the death of incompetents.
Thanks for the comment Grover. It really is amazing how they could have had a billion dollar business were it not for the fact that they decided to spam people to make a few million instead!