Icon Buffet now filled with social stupidity |
After seeing this I’m ready to swallow every icon on my desktop. Iconicide!
Look, I’ll sign up for just about anything but every once in awhile I see a good company — which I think the design company behind the following site is a good company — being suckered into the latest, greatest trend for the sake of, well, being trendy.
You know where I’m going: social networking. We have it for videos, for students (Facebook) for Geocities/Tripod (Myspace), music, etc. Now we have it for icons.
Umm, not quite.
My friend Lestat showed me that Icon Buffet has gone — or is trying to go — social. They have completely redesigned the site, added a token and stamp function for sending and trading icon sets with your friends online. They are also upselling “VIP” access for $6/month or $42 a year.
I’ve been signed up for Icon Buffet for awhile and it’s been a decent service, although I don’t recall ever using any of the icons in any project. I do appreciate and like some of the icons I’ve been sent. Someday I could see maybe using a few here and there. I was happy with the former system which emailed you free sets once a month.
Originally I turned Lestat onto the site when he asked me one day a (legit) place where he might acquire some icons. There are a bunch of icon sites out there that use trademarked images and their legality is questionable at best, Icon Buffet seems to be one of the good guys operating above board. I like to link to sites like these and share these type sites with friends.
The way Icon Buffet works is they email you notification of free icon sets once a month that you can download. This way you can pick up some different free sets of icons that you might use in a project someday. For a non-designer type like me, this is a worthwhile service. These icons can be used in your projects with the following licensing:
You may use the Product in your personal, commercial, and client projects, including advertising, web designs, software applications, on-line or multimedia projects, presentations, film, video, and computer games.
Icons only for personal use aren’t much use to a webmaster so it’s nice to see flexible licensing.
The catch here is most of the free icons — at least from myself and my friend Lestat’s perspective — aren’t really that fantastic. They aren’t bad, mind you, and certainly better than anything I could create without a lot more training, but the design technique is very similar across all icons and because it’s a free for all you’ll see these icons used on other sites. Maybe even other sites in your same niche. It could make it look as if you were copying the other site’s icons even though you both were using a free icon set. The really good usable icons are the ones that cost $$ and have much more limited use. I’m not saying all their free icons suck but when you factor in the saturation factor, well, they aren’t very real world usable.
It would be better, although more costly, to pay a professional designer for some custom icons or if you have the skill create them yourself. Aha, now you get what the real Icon Buffet pitch is here. The free icons are merely a loss leader.
That’s understandable and not a bad business plan.
Blogging about icons, come on
Now enter a site where adding blogs for the registered users makes little sense. Ok, maybe if I want to make one blog entry that says: everything in life I have to say about icons can be said in the following blog post (the one you are reading now) and link.
What else am I going to blog about? How much the free set I received for the month rocks but will be used by a bunch of other blogs? How I just sent a webmaster buddy a few mostly unusable sets of icons? Vent about how he tried to send me icons but I didn’t have enough “tokens” to accept them this month? If the icons sets are free then why is there a token charge to trade them?
Wait, I do see one use for the blog. A blog at Icon Buffet would be useful if I was a competing designer who sold icons. Come on over and buy my icons when you get tired of this design! Icon Buffet just opened the door to their competition to come in and blog on their turf. Oops.
As for the whole bug my invite my friends spiel (emphasis mine):
There’s another important way in which you can earn a whole lotta points, and that’s by inviting your friends to come join in the pandemonium. Hit the “Invite friends” link on your profile and send somebody a note about the fun you’re having trading Taipei Monkey and Manhattan Metroplex.
Join the pandemonium trading icons? LOL! Man, they can’t be serious. Just so it’s clear with Hmm readers, there are no invite or referral code links in this post for Icon Buffet.
The slogan: Welcome to the ice cream social
Icon Buffet has been the type of site that has existed for one purpose: a place to search and acquire free or pay icons. Call me an anti-social icon shopper if you like, but I don’t want to stop by and search for icons and have people asking me to visit their Icon Buffet blog or make them my Icon Buffet friend. The problem with most (all?) these social sites is they are bleeding our attention and time. We only have so much of ourselves to spread around and I don’t see a MySpace of icons being a good place to spend time.
While the site is very nicely redesigned none of what they’ve added makes me any more likely to buy icon sets nor do I see a point in dropping 42 bones a year to be a VIP member and get a surprise once a month and some more of those 31 flavors tokens. I had already invited my friend to this site before any of this social crap. I see them trying, the wheels spinning, but they aren’t going anywhere.
And what do icons have to do with ice cream? Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s like hanging around the ice cream parlor. Old school, but it’s 2007, not 1957. Johnny’s ice cream just melted.
Solutions?
Now if these tokens could be amassed and used to buy the good, unsaturated icon sets that could be worthwhile, but it doesn’t appear — at least neither Lestat or I saw — that the tokens have any value beyond charging your friends (in non-value tokens) to send them free icon sets they don’t have. It’s not like we’re trading baseball cards or comic books, free icon sets are not that valuable.
I could understand if you could create your own icons with flexible licensing and share into the Icon Buffet pool, but it doesn’t appear that we can. It’s a one way gig where Firewheel Design (the company behind Icon Buffet) is the only one who gets to share their creations but nobody else can. That’s some kind of warped social networking.
Now if they change that then they might possibly have a worthwhile community building site. Instead all I can do here now is beg my friends to join so I can earn points to earn tokens which have no value, or become a VIP member where I get more tokens with no value.
This is not social networking, it’s social networthless.
Update 8:51pm PST: Wow, a number of strange and mostly humorous things happened this morning after making this post. You can catch the gist of it by visiting the comments below, but let me see if I can summarize the sequence of events:
1. Post published above here.
2. One of the lead “Chef’s” Josh Williams (comment #4 below) stopped by to say he was sorry I didn’t like the site and that they were “… growing at a faster clip than ever before since the launch, and I think we’re willing to call the experiment a massive success.”
3. I posted a new blog post at Icon Buffet under the “my blog” section pointing to here. There was no hyperlink just the text. You can read the post and all the replies here. I’ve made a copy on the outside chance it will be taken down and will post it over here instead if that happens.
4. comments started to appear over at Icon Buffet and here from the VIPs at their site as well as Hmm readers. VIPs are people who paid the $6/month. You can judge how those comments fared yourself, but from my perspective, my opinions clearly weren’t shared by the VIPs.
5. I replied questioning why only VIPs were responding. I mean, after all if it’s such a massive success where are all the non-VIPs … or are they all VIPs?
6. More comments flood in. Icon Buffet closes comments on the thread so I can’t respond to more people that responded to me.
7. More VIPs keep adding comments to the thread but I still cannot reply. Neither can my friend Lestat who I mentioned in the piece above. Confirmation that comments could no longer be left.
8. I point out here that comments have been closed on a blog thread created by me under the heading of “my” blog at IconBuffet (comment #8 below). See the screenshot of the green message.
9. More angry VIP Icon nerds appear angry that how dare I question the value of a service they are paying for both here and yes, even on the comments at Icon Buffet where I still couldn’t respond. Social networking … how?
10. I begin receiving email notifications from other Icon Buffet members trying to send me free icon sets — only I don’t have enough tokens to accept them. Still can’t respond to comments being made at Icon Buffet on my own profile and the first and only blog post I made had the comments closed without any official explanation or email.
In comment #21 I tried to explain the joke which, well, if you explain the joke you ruin it somewhat, but apparently some people did not understand what the “humor” category means.
11. Chef Josh Williams returns (comment #24) to accuse me of trying to do this to generate traffic from Icon Buffet and suggest that the number of comments means this blog is desperate to receive comments: “Be grateful you have our paying VIPs to come troll your blog. Looks like you wouldn’t have much to talk about otherwise. Trust me… I’m laughing too. Hope you got some traffic out of the deal.”
12. I respond by pointing out that the third party stats site I like the least (compete.com) indicate this site has more traffic than Icon Buffet and that I would have been more than happy to continue the conversation at Icon Buffet on “my” supposed blog post started over there but couldn’t since they closed the comments. Strangely, other people could continue to leave comments — and all of them were Icon Buffet VIPs — when the Icon Buffet site still indicated to us that comments were closed to me!
13. Chef Josh Williams again ignores addressing the issue of why the comments were closed and how other people could continue to leave comments but not me (didn’t he get how UNsociable that is?) and replies that Alexa stats show Icon Buffet has better stats but concedes third party stats are inaccurate. The big dick contest is on!
14. I point to another third party site stats and that Site Meter has been available on this site for ages showing full TRANSPARENCY of stats here compared to the no stats transparency at Icon Buffet.
15. Chef Josh Williams replies again saying that third party stats are “tools for tools.” I guess he hasn’t yet learned that many advertisers LIKE TRANSPARENCY, but he’ll figure it out someday. Maybe. It seems at this point he can only try to insult me and the blog rather than explain or answer any of the questions I’ve asked.
One of my favorite insults he lobbed was that I still had the Feedster #7 Feed of the Year icon up on the homepage from 2005. You bet it’s there, I’m proud of it too! But it’s not like we’re stuck in the past like a band with a hit record 20 years ago. Tell you what, Josh, I’ll continue to leave that up there until at least the end of 2007, is that OK with you? I don’t think two years is that long for a blog to be acknowledged out of the millions of blogs out there. And CNET added this blog in January 2006 and we’re still on their CNET 100 blogs. I don’t think we’ll be removing that one any time soon either although maybe we should have a separate awards page. Perhaps I’ll solicit reader opinions on that in another post someday. This would have been a good week since it was navel gazing week.
Josh also responds to a challenge from reader darkmoon who points out that you can’t compare time on page for a blog to a social site. And then he says the kicker: I shouldn’t have brought up stats when he was the one who brought traffic and stats up!
16. I still can’t respond to any comments being left at IconBuffet, but I continue to receive free icon set offers from other Icon Buffet members. I receive a friend’s request through Icon Buffet, too. Hey, I’m not hated by everybody over there.
17. I leave to host today’s 331st radio show. After all the playing around this morning, there wasn’t enough time to get today’s Hmmcast (#118) produced, edited and published, so I had to take a vacation day there.
18. As of this evening’s update I can now leave comments on my own profile page at Icon Buffet again but the comments on the blog post I made over there are still closed. No new comments on the situation left over there although there was one strange comment that I’m not sure how to respond to below (comment #35). Seems like the icon nerds have calmed down.
Today I’ll always remember as the day I made the IconBuffet nerds angry. It’s not quite as poignant as The Day The Earth Stood Still, but it made me laugh. Hard. I can’t look at an icon the same way again. The Firefox icon made me laugh the most I think and that has nothing to do with Icon Buffet. It’s this fiery fox trapped in a sphere! It’s me, it’s me!
Chef Josh Williams, IconBuffet VIPs, MakeYouGoHmm loves you, have a nice weekend and don’t spend all those valueless tokens on oversaturated free icon sets at once ya’ hear.
Did this post make you go hmm?
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I used to use it back before it had the tokens. I dislike the whole token deal. Even before that, it was.. well.. pretty boring. Neat concept to gain interest in their icons to share them with the community. But the whole token deal? Bleh. I don’t login to iconbuffet anymore. Seriously. What’s the point? IconBuffet gets a F in my book when it comes to that.
Truthfully, I dislike everyone going the whole social networking route. Seriously. ICONS? Come on. There are some things in life that don’t need social networks. Icons are one of them. It’s like creating a social network around… a glass of water. Why? Seriously. Why????
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 9:21 am PST
If it was a joke it would be funny.
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 9:42 am PST
Alas it is not.
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 9:50 am PST
Sorry you don’t care for the site. Fortunately for us most folks don’t seem to share your sentiment. IconBuffet is growing at a faster clip than ever before since the launch, and I think we’re willing to call the experiment a massive success. Oh well, it’s not for everyone…
Comment by Josh Williams — May 18, 2007 @ 10:07 am PST
It’s too bad you didn’t address any of my questions, Josh
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 10:42 am PST
I think the tokens are less for “value” and more for slowing things down. As you stated, they sell icons. They also have some limited ads (just changing from Google to “The Deck”). It’s in their best interest for you to visit their site often. If you could send/receive as many sets as you would like, you would log in, have somone send you everything, download them, log out, check back in a month to see if there are any new sets. As it is, however, you can only receive up to XX tokens worth of icons. Your tokens get refilled every month. You can earn more tokens (get a lot of points, or sign new people up for VIP). It makes people care more about WHAT icons they accept, and keeps them coming back more often. Which, since it works, isn’t such a bad idea after all.
I’ll admit, there’s not really a “point” to all of it, but it’s enjoyable for many, and profitable for FireWheel.
Comment by Aaron D. CAmpbell — May 18, 2007 @ 11:08 am PST
I do like the design of the site. It’s pretty slick. I also have some of the icons, but haven’t used them. I like that they can be used for commercial or non-commercial. I just don’t get the social aspect of it - that’s the part that I don’t take part in. It just seems… twitterish
Comment by Lestat — May 18, 2007 @ 11:15 am PST
aaron - that’s the first sensible explanation I’ve seen, thank you.
It is shameless bandwagon jumping, Lestat. Trying to shoehorn in something that’s trendy. I can understand if they want to provide something for their customers to interact with them (Firewheel) like a messageboard but to have their users and clients interacting with each other then give us some real tools and don’t call it “my” blog and tell me what I can and can’t say. That’s weak.
Don’t look now, but they’ve already closed my very first blog post because the conversation wasn’t “friendly”
Social my ass.
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 11:30 am PST
You know.. the more I think about it, the better an actual social network would be. For instance, if they set up something like a mash between DeviantArt and IconBuffet. They host it, artists draw the icons… put up their own page and their price. They do the ecomm and take a cut. On top of that, they could still sell their stuff.
See… now THAT would make the whole social thing useful. If they do that, I take credit. I want a dragon logo for my new project. :p hahaha..
But yeah… as is now, it’s very Twitterish. Fad, but not very useful. I don’t like the slow down thing either. I wasn’t that fascinated with the whole icon trading thing to begin with, but it was amusing for a while. The tokens just kinda deflated this end of it. Maybe I’m part of the long tail when it comes to icons, but don’t forget that the long tail is what made bloggers a community. Well… whatever.
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 11:52 am PST
Interestingly enough, after airing this opinion of thoughts, and opinions of social networking both TD and I cannot access our Icons. We can log in, but not access them….. but maybe it’s just coincidental that part of the site is down for maintenance?
That, is sad. sad. sad. Disagreeing, and conflict are perfectly normal adult conversations. Now having a “social” site, in which only members who are all up in the bandwagon can be heard, and only voice/ contribute positive and wonderful comments makes for a questionable site. Especially when the thread is closed, and account is limited after stating an opinion about the networking aspect. I know, lets have a satisfaction survey where only the positive selections can be made before the submit button is un greyed?
It’s unfortunate for such a sight to have the conversation moved outside of their control. But from my experience with the open mindedness of sites like makeyougohmm.com I’m pretty sure the comment thread will remain open for commenting, even if you have not so nice things to say. Unless of course it violates (the clear comment policy here). In which it doesn’t state anywhere that if you disagree, you will be banned. How can we open up communication if nobody can disagree?? Thats your opinion, and what the www is all about.
After this experience I say no thank you to any social networks indeed.
Comment by Lestat — May 18, 2007 @ 11:54 am PST
There’s social and there’s insults. What you posted were insults. I’m not surprised they closed it. If they hadn’t you’d have had a stream of invective from members who do enjoy it.
Nobody forces you to be a member just as nobody forces members to pay for an upgrade. If you don’t like it then don’t use it.
Comment by Gil — May 18, 2007 @ 11:56 am PST
Lestat, did you read the “How to Build a Community with Icons” at Firewheel Design’s website? I really think they’re just trying to have fun over there… and your post to their blog/message board wasn’t much fun. Actually, it looked a lot like something a troll would do. Maybe you just made a bad first impression. (And they said something earlier about working on the site this afternoon, so I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that you’re being locked out unless/until they say something to that effect.)
[[One of the non-VIP members]]
Comment by Travis Seitler — May 18, 2007 @ 12:18 pm PST
Gil - I told them I didn’t like it and exactly why. Then who responds? Only people who have paid for the service. That doesn’t seem even remotely suspicious to you? And it’s funny you say they should have closed it because after it was supposedly closed more comments have filtered in that I cannot respond to … how’s that for social networking? So it looks more to me like they closed it but left their precious VIP buddies to pile on.
I wasn’t saying that VIPs didn’t have a worthwhile opinion but it appears to me like they are the only ones who can have an opinion and the opinion better be positive — or else!
Kool-aid, anyone?
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 12:27 pm PST
Maybe they’re saying that you should pay the $6 a month so you can defend your argument. :p
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 12:32 pm PST
lol darkmoon, yeah, I guess I need to pay to get my special Icon Nerd badge.
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 12:35 pm PST
Hi Travis,
Yea, I mentioned that “but maybe it’s just coincidental that part of the site is down for maintenance?”.
Really, I had no beef with icon buffet. There were free icons to be had. Most I didn’t fancy, but I didn’t expect many to do so. And yes, I think the limited ’social networking’ is cheesey. And thats all ok. I was just sitting in wait for some I liked. No biggie. Sometimes I think a post on here is cheesy, and I even say so by voting and commenting on the posts. But I certainly don’t expect the author to close th thread because I had an opinion. I’m pretty sure thats why there’s a comment box on here. (Sorry hmm, but you know where I stand on some posts ;p)
On that note it seemed the more ‘destructive’ comments were comming from members at icon buffet. This is understandable too because we all beleive (for the most part) in the organization that we belong to.
Comment by Lestat — May 18, 2007 @ 12:36 pm PST
As a VIP, I find it unfair that you are suspicious of me becauswe I paid them money. It’s not the other way around you know…they aren’t paying ME anything. If you ask me what I think about my phone company, electric company, Hosting Company, ISP, etc., I’ll give you my opinion. Will it be “suspect” because I pay them money?
Comment by Aaron D. Campbell — May 18, 2007 @ 12:37 pm PST
Paranoia rules.
Comment by Gil — May 18, 2007 @ 12:41 pm PST
“It’s like creating a social network around… a glass of water. Why? Seriously. Why????
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 9:21 am PST ”
Water… Now THAT IS something worth having a Social Network around… After all… Water is life… Where would we be without water?
Comment by FranciscoIV — May 18, 2007 @ 12:43 pm PST
Aaron,
I think you miscontrue TDavid. He had something negative to say by observation. So he went and said it (ironically, it was about the social network that IconBuffet is about). Yet, it’s not very social when the comments closed but “paid” users can still leave comments on it? That makes it obviously one-sided.
For example, it’s like if someone said to a restauranteer: “Hey, your salad isn’t very fresh because I got a wilted green in mine.” Then the restauranteer goes out and and gets the people that picked it, the shipper, and the distributor and says… “no… these guys back me up.”
When the person making the complaint says.. hey, I just wanna talk about it, the restauranteer says: “Oh no. It’s the end of discussion because we’re right, and you can’t defend yourself anyways, so just shush.”
That act alone makes the whole social networking point moot. Social networking isn’t about getting together under one flag. It’s about the conversation regardless of what side of the fence you’re on.
Let me know if I didn’t explain it to your liking, TD.
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 12:45 pm PST
Gil - if you are taking most of this serious, then you need to see the doctor. I’ve been laughing my ass off most of the morning. It’s too bad I have a radio show to host in a bit or I’d keep playing!
Lestat - here’s what I find really amusing about this sequence of events and for those that are getting their undies in a bundle should look at one of the categories this post was put in: humor. I was intentionally over the top in my mocking of the social networthless features. That’s called dramatic license and I’ve used it here hundreds, maybe thousands of times. I don’t expect the Icon Buffet people to understand this, but regular readers like you know this and maybe with this comment others who didn’t know will realize this.
When I made that post there I fully expected to receive Icon Buffet fanboys responding. Those I can discount already, because I was more interested in the people who had not paid the $$$ to be a VIP. People who had been registered to the site the way it was before and had chosen not to pay the $6/month fee.
When none of them appeared and yet Chef Josh said this was a “massive success” this made me immediately wonder where all these so-called massive successful non-VIP members were? I’ve run free and pay sites before and I can tell you any massive success will have larger numbers in the FREE column than in the PAY column. The comment responses to my post do not bear these numbers. Or maybe everybody has already been converted to the cult, complete with applesauce and NIKEs?
(that’s a JOKE IB Nerds, a JOKE!)
Seriously, if paying $6/month to be a VIP icon nerd turns anybody’s crank, more power to you! I just said it wasn’t for me nor does it seem to be for any of the people I know and it looks like a very cheesy social networthless site. If we are the odd nerds out, then so be it. Wouldn’t be the first, won’t be the last time.
But at the end of the day I’m chuckling that people get this riled over icons! LOL.
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 12:49 pm PST
To clear something up: I’m a paid user. The comments are closed for me too (I didn’t get to post to it any longer than any non-paid members).
Comment by Aaron D. Campbell — May 18, 2007 @ 12:51 pm PST
That makes it all the more strange.
The comments are showing up as VIP users, but the comments have been closed for a long time now.
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 12:56 pm PST
TDavid… how many comments does a typical post here at your blog generate recently? One? Two? Four? Zero? Be grateful you have our paying VIPs to come troll your blog. Looks like you wouldn’t have much to talk about otherwise. Trust me… I’m laughing too. Hope you got some traffic out of the deal.
Comment by Josh Williams — May 18, 2007 @ 12:57 pm PST
Yeah, maybe the only VIP people who can comment are the ones who work for Firewheel. Somebody get Oliver Stone on the case now!
The ironies in this whole sequence of events is hilarious. Every time I look at an icon I’m laughing.
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 12:58 pm PST
Josh - that’s funny you think I was doing this just to get traffic from Icon Buffet. I was happy to KEEP the conversation at your site and you guys started crying and had to close the thread like a bunch of babies.
Actually I’m going to help you a lot more than you’ll help me, take a look:
http://snapshot.compete.com/iconbuffet.com+makeyougohmm.com?metric=uv
Don’t want to use those stats, then try any of the other third party stats out there and compare apples! LOL, there are comment threads here with over 400 comments, so this has a long, long way to go to being significant on the radar.
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 1:01 pm PST
Oh boy gonna be another one of those drip drip drip threads… (Nintendogs anyone)…
Comment by FranciscoIV — May 18, 2007 @ 1:16 pm PST
Ahh David, we all know that Compete.com is worthless for stats. I would have thought you would know this. Try running the same query at Alexa (which is mostless worthless too), but I’m afraid they won’t give you such nice treatment. So if you want to use Compete.com, that’s fine… just be sure to check the Average Stay and Page View stats. How are those working out for you? I see you’ve flatlined. A long time ago. Enjoy your Radio show.
Comment by Josh Williams — May 18, 2007 @ 1:23 pm PST
Wow. It’s come down to comparing penis sizes again. Why do men do this type of stuff? Geeez. When there can’t be agreement that the closing of the comments was bad, suddenly out of the blue… let’s compare penis sizes. heh.
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 1:23 pm PST
umm… just fyi. you’re comparing average stay and page view stats for an social network site versus a blog? Lord almighty. Hate to be offensive, but where the hell did you learn web statistics? It’s two different animals.
People read a blog, move on. You have users staying on the site. That’s a plain STUPID argument. Seriously. That’s like saying… hey, let’s compare Flickr versus Woot. And I’m sure Woot makes a lot more money than Flickr does without average stay or page views.
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 1:28 pm PST
Yeah Josh, go ahead and deflect to a big dick contest in order to miss the point that you needed to piggyback on some web 2 point blow scheme to get some new traction for Icon Buffet. Actually, I used one of my least favorite sites (compete, those guys suck) to compare, Josh.
I’ll give you props for looking good in Alexa, whoopie.
I covered Alexa Stats being worthless a long time ago here — and many agreed.
How about Site Meter? Wait, uh .. oh … mmmm, Icon Buffet doesn’t have site meter on their site open to the public to see … but look at what you see at the bottom of every page here … ahh, yes, TRANSPARENCY.
Icon Buffet is so short on transparency it won’t even keep a thread open for comments about your social networthless site that aren’t all positive
How about newcomer Quantcast which I just talked to the VP the other day (nice guy):
http://quantcast.com/iconbuffet.com
Nice 18-24 demographic, there
You can put all the third party stats sites together and the only truth we both know are server logs.
Not only wouldn’t I dispute that traffic is down here from what it was at the end of 2006, I discussed that in great length earlier this week.
Ok, now you folks have the forum for awhile, bombs away, I really do have a radio show to get to. I’ll try and check in during the show and see if there’s anything intelligent here besides dick comparisons or you failing to get my name correct (hint: missing the first letter, osh)
Comment by TDavid — May 18, 2007 @ 1:36 pm PST
Sigh… fine… compare uniques then… who cares, this is worthless. Just don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can use Compete.com (or Alexa) to get reliable numbers. You won’t find them. And maybe there’s a thread here form some time gone by that has 400 comments. Who cares? David doesn’t get the point of IconBuffet. That’s not our problem. Just because I don’t “get” something, does that mean it’s stupid? There are plenty of sites out there that aren’t my thing… doesn’t make them stupid. Just not my thing.
And when you’re still posting a badge on your site that says you were a Top 500 blog in 2005, it’s time to take the badge down. Just a thought.
Comment by Josh Williams — May 18, 2007 @ 1:39 pm PST
Third party stats tools are for tools, my friend. You’re the one who brought them up. If you know the stats are worthless, don’t bring them up. Evidently they seem to mean a lot to you though. That’s all.
Comment by Josh Williams — May 18, 2007 @ 1:51 pm PST
I won’t bother to mention this where traffic was brought into the picture. And not by TD. Don’t be a hypocrite.
Comment by darkmoon — May 18, 2007 @ 1:56 pm PST
I assume you’re trying to create a dialog between your visitors and yourself on this site by allowing comments… but I can’t find where to post my own blog entries. What kind of dialog are you trying to create if you won’t let your visitors post their own blog entries?
I mean, hey, run your site how you want. I’m just saying it’s a pretty half-assed dialog if you won’t let anybody who visits post their own blog entry instead of just posting comments.
And seriously, if you don’t let people post their blog entries on your web site, you’re just going to lose control of the conversation when people post blog entries on their own web sites.
Comment by whoisgregg — May 18, 2007 @ 3:35 pm PST
whoisgregg. See the trackback URL down there?
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Comment by orangecrush — May 19, 2007 @ 9:41 am PST
@orangecrush: Yes, I do. Pardon my bluntness, but I haven’t a clue what in my comment made you point out the trackback URI.
Comment by whoisgregg — May 20, 2007 @ 6:53 am PST
whoisgregg - trackbacks are useful for you to post on your own blog to a related post here. A link then appears here without NOFOLLOW enabled which gives your blog search engine juice and encourages readers to travel to your blog and continue the discussion and to engage in other subjects you create and write about. It’s a way to promote your own blog posts and discussion on your own site and share in the traffic here. Many other blogs don’t share their SE juice with other sites which means every link that Josh left above to Icon Buffet in his comments above — where he was mostly bashing me and this site — are helping his site. Did I get the same shake at Icon Buffet? Nope.
“What kind of dialog are you trying to create if you won’t let your visitors post their own blog entries?”
A dialog on what topic? This post is a dialog on Icon Buffet adding social features of questionable value (to others, but not to Firewheel) locking down the trading of supposedly free icon sets through some game that Josh created and thinks and is already branding a “massive success” before he has had time to evaluate any sort of renewal rate or retention. We clearly disagree about the value of the social features and icon sets and I’m sharing that here.
If you want to leave a comment related to that subject, have a dialog on that subject, the space is here and available and you’re already using it
You aren’t even required to subscribe or register for the site or need some bizarre amount of valueless TOKENS to do so.
At Icon Buffet now I’ve got a bunch of supposedly free saturated icon sets I can’t access unless I pay Icon Buffet money to be able to download them, does that make sense to you? I think that’s cheesy and so do my friends, but that’s our opinion (and I’m not the only one that doesn’t “get” it, as Josh thinks), and I haven’t seen word one from anybody above that changes that. The only people saying this is a good idea and bashing me and my opinion are the creator and people who have already paid him $$ money $$ to be VIPs.
Where are all the people who think it’s a good idea that are not yet VIPs? The ones planning on becoming VIPs in the near future? I keep asking that question and hearing crickets chirping. Any site that has free and pay services will always have more people signed up for the FREE services and you can ask anybody that’s been building and deploying websites with both options.
You wrote: “And seriously, if you don’t let people post their blog entries on your web site, you’re just going to lose control of the conversation when people post blog entries on their own web sites.”
Why do you think we’re trying to “control” any conversation here other than keeping whatever is being discussed in each post relevant? Readers subscribe here because they are used to and like a certain type of content. People comment here can either agree or disagree — and you’ll note from the comment rules — they are more than welcome to disagree. Comparatively I was not welcome to have a dissenting viewpoint at Icon Buffet on “my” supposed blog there. What kind of blog is that? It seems to me that Icon Buffet is using the word “blog” when they should have just said “forum” — if you look at the tab on their site it says “blog forum.” It’s a very poorly realized mashup.
As I mentioned above, if you want to talk control than look at Icon Buffet who wants to control how much you can trade with your friends each month. That’s not what a social networking site does. Does YouTube limit the number of videos you can post? No. Do they not allow you to create and upload your own videos? No. You should have unlimited trade capability and creation with your friends but Josh and company seem to feel with the current implementation that not only should you NOT be able to create your own icon sets and share with others, you should be limited as to what you can say on a blog with your own name! LOL.
Can I post a video saying how much I think new YouTube features suck on YouTube? Yes. Can I post on my blog at MySpace that new features they have suck? Yes. I tried to doing that at Icon Buffet and the conversation was shut down by them. Tell me why I should bother to pay to be a VIP that can only be a yes sir man?
As I said above, social my ass!
I see where some have been referring to what Icon Bufet is doing as a “game” — really, I don’t see that either. A game implies some sort of strategy or goal to rack up score. I’m a huge gaming fan (just peek through the archives) so I’m into the idea of playing a game but where is the ‘game’ here? Is our goal to collect all the free saturated icon sets and if we have any problem with the ‘game’ to have that dialog elsewhere? Is the game for me to see how long it will take me to buy pay icon sets? For me to pay Firewheel to do any design work for them?
What I’m saying with this new system and response to our criticism — and I’m not joking in this statement — they’ve driven me and others above away rather than encourage us to do any business with them ever. If that’s the goal of the game, Firewheel wins.
Comment by TDavid — May 20, 2007 @ 9:56 am PST
Wow, you definitely set me straight. Clearly, my original assumption as to the intent of your site was wrong. All my resulting criticisms, based on that flawed original assumption, now look pretty stupid. Jeez, I must look like an *idiot* to all the readers of this blog. :’-(
At least I can console myself with the fact I’m the *second* person on your site who made that error in criticizing someone else’s site. At least I’ve realized my mistake… I think the first guy hasn’t figured it out yet.
Comment by whoisgregg — May 20, 2007 @ 3:34 pm PST
Whoisgregg: The neat thing is that you can voice your opinion either way
It’s unlikely that MakeYouGohmm will ever close a thread (unlike another site icon imagine).
Comment by Lestat — May 20, 2007 @ 5:34 pm PST
Talk about a tempest in a teapot! I think this is hilarious.
Comment by gtcaz — June 21, 2007 @ 2:16 am PST
Posted an open letter to IconBuffet about spamming users. Go figure that they’re not abiding by CAN-SPAM. Should have another update today since no one seems to actually test their code and actually make sure that when you uncheck all of the boxes for notification emails, that the emails actually don’t get sent.
Enough of an annoyance from a decent site. What’s amusing is that, some of us, actually want to participate…. WHEN we want to do so. We don’t want the stupid emails. Guess what though? You can’t turn them off. Well, you can try, but it doesn’t actually work.
If this doesn’t get fixed soon, it’s not my butt on the line with the FTC.
Comment by darkmoon — August 16, 2007 @ 9:33 am PST
[…] aren’t crappy icons and part of some lame icon social network and Ades doesn’t even require a credit link although that’s the nice thing to do as […]
Pingback by A bunch of free user interface icons, credit link not required » Make You Go Hmm — November 7, 2007 @ 7:30 am PST