The XYDO social network was launched in May 2011. It looked to me like the Web’s Social Network for News from day ONE. In August they launched a daily, customizable news brief that went into your inbox.
XYDO also had a community leader board, which listed the most influential individuals within the community.
Here is what Techcrunch and Mashable had to say about XYDO
“Every piece of content that enters its system (from over 100,000 content sources) is scored based on the recommendations of the startup’s 2 million+ contributors and curators. Using its secret sauce of social network aggregation and prioritization mixed with crowdsourced curator, XYDO serves its users with between 10 to 12 personalized headlines in every email — that have passed these socially-tested benchmarks to ensure the news you’re receiving in your inbox is the news you want to see” – Techcrunch
“XYDO gathers news from tens of thousands of online sources; matches articles against what users are sharing and talking about on Facebook and Twitter, and then sort’s pages by vote counts. Total vote count includes onsite up votes as well as Facebook or Twitter shares. The user can view news made by popular by the entire XYDO network, see stories popular in their social graph or view trending news items by topic” – Mashable.
“Social endorsement”
The XYDO web site had a connections tab, where you could see all your connections, and the followers that they had. My contact at Adobe was listed as one of mine, Jeff Jordan. There were many other popular Social media personalities that used XYDO. You could also see that each had a recommended number which could be a minus number. You also could see their latest news activity. You also could see a green number showing the popularity of the posts, with shares on social sites pushing numbers ever higher, which XYDO called “social endorsement”
If you clicked through on the news articles, they opened in your browser with a XYDO toolbar. There you could see the green number again. You could click “I like this” which made that number increase. You could also vote it down. You could also leave comments and share out the article via the toolbar. The toolbar had a Stumbleupon feel to it when you clicked the “XY see next” button as it then went and fetched a new news item to display from the community that you were in, which you could change in the toolbar. Clicking through the news links in your email update would not open the toolbar.
The XYDO Brief
The daily news is called the “XYDO Brief”. If you did not like the daily default frequency of news delivery, you could adjust it.
Digg and Reddit
I have used Digg and Reddit for many years and XYDO was a breath of fresh air at the time. If you were in your inbox at least once a day, like most of us would admit, then you would have found XYDO useful.
Why did XYDO fail?
XYDO likely failed due to severe user-generated privacy issues and cyberbullying stemming from its anonymous content feature, which led to a drop in user dependence and negative media attention, ultimately resulting in its removal from the market. Additionally, heavy integration with other platforms and its “no-setup needed” policy created operational problems and severe privacy risks.
- Anonymous Content and Cyberbullying: The posting of anonymous content was a significant drawback, fostering an environment of cyberbullying and harassment that drove users away and attracted negative media coverage.
- User Dependence Dropped: The negative user experiences, particularly around anonymous content, led to a decrease in user engagement and dependence on the platform.
- Privacy Issues and Operational Complications: XYDO’s “no-setup needed” policy backfired, creating functionality problems and severe privacy concerns for users, even leading to a lawsuit against a related company.
- Market Removal: Due to these significant issues, the platform was eventually removed from the market.
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