The Stanifesto

A tale of two log-ins

I just signed up for two accounts. One at UselessAccount.com and one at Change.org. Let's consider which would win in a fight to the death.

Just to set the stage, I'm a bit of a social networking site junkie. I belong to far too many of them, mostly for "research purposes" since I'm a web designer myself. Note the quote marks around "research purposes", stretching them across the gamut of "interesting use of tag-based folksonomies here, I'll make a note of that" to "dear lord, that's what 19-year olds are wearing these days?" Luckily I don't have enough time to spend on any one of them to do too much research.

Some bookmarks

An elite list of bookmarks.

But anyway, UselessAccount.com vs. Change.org. Here we go.

On the one hand, Useless Account offers the following features:

  1. Unlimited account editing
  2. Truth in advertising

It's #2 that really sets it apart from so many other sites out there. I can say, without a doubt in my mind, that Useless Account completely lives up to the hype.

On the other hand, Change weighs in with these promises:

  1. Ending Global Warming
  2. Empowering Women
  3. Advancing Gay Rights
  4. Eliminating Borders
    5. Honestly, the list just keeps going on and on...
Some pretty tall orders there. A little ridiculous if you ask me. I mean sure, it hooks you up directly with Non-profits working on these issues and even allows you to find and commit to actions that help these issues, but who are we kidding. It clearly can't compete with the "Under Promise, Over Deliver" that UselessAccount has going for it.

In this day and age of information overload, there's something reassuring about UselessAccount's simple interface. It is 90% an advertisement for itself, with a very, very tiny "Login or Create an Account" near the top. Contrast this with the, although immaculately well-designed, "functionality" of Change.org. For example, when my colleague and paramour Sarah visited the former she immediately burst into laughter, presumably over how laughably simple to use the site was, whereas the latter filled her dread. "It really shows you how screwed up the non-profit/industrial complex is," she sighed.

Following her lead, I have to give the win to UselessAccount. No doubt some people will find use for a social network that allows them to describe, collaborate, and ultimately bring about a visionary new world, but do we really need another site reminding us how bad everything is? I just go to MySpace for that.

While we're on the subject of social networking sites and the whole "Web 2.0" thing, how much of a dork am I that this video actually gets me all choked up? Seriously. Tears.