Blog-Off II Entry: Whatever Happened to Ryze?

When I started my business, online networking meant joining one or more Yahoo groups. Then one day, a fellow member of one of those groups told me about a cool new site called Ryze. I checked it out and could see immediately why she'd recommended it. Unlike the email groups, you could actually see pictures of the other members, and with a little HTML knowledge, you could customize your profile just about any way you wanted. You could connect with your existing contacts, join groups to network with people with similar interests, and search for other people to add to your network. If you weren't careful, you could easily spend many valuable hours exploring the site. In many ways, it was a lot like Facebook, but with purely a business focus. I made some great contacts on Ryze, some of whom I'm still in touch with today.

A short time later, I learned about LinkedIn and signed up, but was pretty disappointed, as it didn't have all the bells and whistles that Ryze offered. At that time, you couldn't even post a headshot on your profile, nor were there any groups. Of course, that's all changed now, and they seem to be adding more features all the time. Furthermore, LinkedIn just keeps growing; as of 2008, they had 33 million members, and is now at 53 million.

In the meantime, Ryze has only half a million members, and the features are pretty much the same as they were when I joined in 2003. I'm not sure when I stopped using it myself, but I can tell from the information on my profile that I haven't updated it in over two years. I was looking around while writing this post, and it looks like most of the other people I knew there have abandoned it as well. I imagine that, like me, they're now spending their online time on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or one of the hundreds of new social networks that seem to be popping up all the time.

I'm not sure whether I'm more amazed that Ryze continues to exist at all, or that the owners of the site have made no effort to keep pace with what's happening in their industry. What was once an innovative, happening site has become a virtual ghost town. Maybe it was just ahead of its time...

About the Author: Janet Barclay, co-owner of Organized Assistant, provides Internet Marketing assistance and website services to career coaches, professional organizers and other small business clients. You can find her in various places on the world wide web, including Twitter and her blog, From the Desk of Janet Barclay.

Comments

[Janet Barclay]

Karri, now that you've refreshed my memory, I remember there were a lot of spammy types on there. You could set it so only friends could write on your wall, but then you closed yourself off from growing your network (unless you wanted the paid version, of course.)

Thank you, Sam - that means a lot coming from you!

[Sam Diener]

Quite interesting!

Thanks for an awesome read!

Sam Diener

[Karri Flatla]

I've often wondered about Ryze too. And like you, I haven't updated my profile in ages. One thing that turned me off of Ryze was the lack of quality. The network in general was dominated by a type of "evangelist" that really turned me off. I just wasn't getting anything out of it anymore; though I'm not sure much really came out of it for me to begin with. Harsh but true.