MyYearbook: A Glam Networking Site For Teens

by Veena Krishnan

MyYearbook (www.myyearbook.com) is a social networking site founded by teenage siblings (a high school junior and senior) and their older, Harvard-educated (and investor) brother. The site was founded around Nov 2000 and is popular among teenagers but is as infamous in some minorities.

The site members can create a profile, add their school classes (math, English, etc.) and list the students in the classes, create a locker (to hold photos, MP3s, movies), vote for “Bests” (athlete, student), give out gold stars, view other members’ yearbooks, comment on pictures (yours and other members’), leave an autograph, form groups and clubs, create a top-10 list, post forums, maintain a personal calendar, take polls, leave a will (memories that you leave to friends), and post a blog. It also offers quizzes and a weblog section, as well as videos and free content from CliffsNotes. This is a main highlight of the site as it features access to CliffsNotes editions and users can connect to start study groups.  The standout points are its quite diverse community. And, to keep its members entertained, one can do a variety of things ranging from competing in photo contests to sending other members gifts purchased by ‘money’ earned by doing things on the site. This has earned the site a rank of 810 in Alexa rankings worldwide and 243 in the US which shows its popularity among all walks of people, especially teenagers.

Though the site presents great potential, it is also criticized by a huge number of users. Most of such comments come from the parents/ well-wishers of the members who think the site isn’t fit for the age of the target members and should really exercise some kind of content and image/video monitoring. Some of the site’s sections encourage users to rate other users’ appearance (the Battles section) and users get “popularity” points — both of which can also foster low self esteem. Members also complain about loss of their Secrecy and bombardment of unwanted (spam) mails and content on the site.

Users can interact by doing things like posting comments in the unfiltered forums and profiles, becoming someone’s secret admirer, or voting on whom, between two users, is prettier. The site does offer privacy settings to control which sections approved friends can see, an option to block people, and easy ways to report abuse. Parents need to know that this teen social networking site is all about having fun connecting with past and present classmates. Despite that high schoolers are the target audience; many of the features aren’t for teens. The forums and profiles aren’t filtered, so the site contains swear words.

Also there are certain negative aspects of the site in terms of its usage and user friendliness. Average Load Time for Myyearbook.com is really high (6.81 Seconds), which means 89% of other sites are faster than this. Despite of all disparage on the website, it is still doing good among regulars and is fast acquiring the status of “next Myspace.com”.