Tuesday, September 20, 2005

More Reasons to Hate the New Nerve

I'm high on rebellion. Here's what Fast Cupid's customer service said to me....

Dear Member

Your account is part of Fast Cupid Networks, which runs several different co-branded websites. When you sign up on one of the Fast Cupid websites, your account will show up on the other Fast Cupid Network websites as well.

The website that you are complaining about is part of the Fast Cupid Network. At this time, there is no way to control which websites your account will be displayed on. Since your accont has now been deleted, it will be deleted on all of the websites.

If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us.




Is that fair? I guess I don't mind so much being on other websites, BUT what's the point of having a special "nerve" or "onion" personal ad, or a special "bgay" ad if they're all just going to be cross-listed? Where's the edge, man? Where's the corporate identity and brand loyalty? How will this work in the pseudo-rebellious world of hip upscale marketing? It seems like it will eventually turn the once hip Spring Street into the achingly boring, match.com. It will do to the personal ads world what (first Stern, then "Village Voice Media" did to the Village Voice, MPLS Reader and the City Pages (MPLS). Of course, the ownership of a personals'ad website is nowhere near as important as is the ownership of the "alternative" newsmedia, but it is part of the same general, "engulf and devour" capitalism that shapes the small details of our lives these days. The creepy takeover of Nerve certainly has gotten a rise out of people. In fact,
here are some other places to find discussions about nerve, in fact one of them referred a lot of people here. They are:
nerve in exile and
also listed there is the marvelous Susie Bright




I promise to write about politics in a minute.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Originally, that being 2001 I was on Nerve. Recently maybe January I switched over to Onion, mostly because it's more my speed. Granted it's the same database of personals accessed through different websites but I would know I was on the Onion.
I think Yahoo personals is the tortoise in this race. They keep asking me for money which I haven't sent and they keep sending me an email of people who fit my "criteria" who have updated their profiles or recently signed on to Yahoo.
I met someone I liked quite a bit. I subsequently got dumped but that is not Yahoo's fault and it was worth it anyway.
I'm trying to come up with a non-offensive metaphor for what yahoo is like compared to Nerv/onion/etc.
I cannot without being completely inaccurate.

Anonymous said...

I am a reporter for the Wall Street Journal Online, and I am working on a story about the takeover of Nerve.com personals and its affiliated network by another company, FriendFinder.

I'd like to interview a personals user on the record who is upset about the change. Please contact me by email if you'd like to discuss the issues involved in the transition that have been disappointing for you.

Thanks,

Aaron
aaron.rutkoff A T wsj.com

Anonymous said...

Uh,
Scratch that. Loosk like the finally cancelled my yahoo personals account.