Fun with Classmates.com - Part 1

Okay, I graduated from high school eons ago. I don't wake up at night wondering "Whatever happened to (fill in random classmate's name)?" I don't have a particularly keen interest in connecting with/learning about people I went to high school with. This (1) seems more like the domain of a loser or busybody and (2) suggests an unhealthy obsession that borders on stalking.

I've got enough on my plate -- with protracted unemployment, precarious household finances, and a precocious 11-year-old -- without dwelling on the fortunes (or misfortunes) of others.

So why classmates.com? It's a class assignment -- sign up, look around, review the site. I have to admit, I was wary of even registering. "Give them my real email," I feared, "and I'll be swamped with junk mail from classmates.com and their myriad advertisers." The (Non) Privacy Policy at classmates.com provides little comfort on the subject:

We allow other companies, such as our marketing partners and companies that are affiliated with our parent company, United Online, Inc., to offer their products and services to you, to co-register you on their websites, or to communicate with you about their products and services at a future date, through the Site, co-branded pages hosted by the third party, or email....

As noted above, we may use Your Information to provide you with advertisements that are targeted to your specific needs and interests. These advertisements link directly to third party websites. Classmates has no control over the content or privacy policies of such websites, and therefore we encourage you to review such content and policies prior to submitting any personal information to them.

I'd also come across comments, like this one, savaging the site:

Classmates allows people to reconnect with past classmates. (Shocking, huh?) Users can create a profile, upload photos, write notes, and participate in groups. They have a [paid] membership program that unlocks … well most of the functionality of the site. You can’t message without a gold membership. In fact without a membership your account is virtually worthless...The pop-ups [and] constant e-mails [annoy] me to no end.

To counter the threat of a "junk mail dump" -- to "mask my identity" -- I set up an alternate email account on yahoo. Upon registering, I learned (in keeping with the comment above) that I had two options: the Free Membership, which allows me to:

• Join communities
• Post and view profiles
• View photos and albums
• Post and read message boards

... or the Gold Membership, with its nominal yearly fee (a $39 value, now only $9.95). The Gold Membership lets me:

• View guestbook signatures (whatever those are)
• See where friends live now (cue serial killer music/creepy voice intoning "He knows where you live...")
• Read all your bulletin board notes
• Send Classmates Email anyone can read
• Read all Classmates Email you receive
• Plan reunions and events

None of these Gold Membership features appeal to me (though I do know of folks who've planned their reunions through facebook). Call me old-fashioned but if I want to email someone, I don't need classmates.com to do it.

Once I was admitted to the site (as a Free Member):

• I was told that my high school (Horlick High in Racine, Wisconsin) was represented by 12,239 members (285 in my graduating class).
• I saw a roster of names for the year I selected... well, a partial list of folks whose last names start with "A." But even in that list, where I should've seen familiar names, I didn't (obviously because these people haven't registered on classmates.com). BTW -- Other people I searched for came back with 0 results. I was such an incorrigible wallflower, I just didn't know enough people...
• And I was urged -- here, there, and everywhere -- to "Be a Classmates VIP, "upgrade now," "Become a Gold Member."

On my Profile page, I was asked whether I was "Interested in meeting new people?" (uh, no) and encouraged to "Add your top songs" (sorry, not on a first date). I could also chime in on my favorite movies, books, hobbies, etc., which struck me as being both intrusive and insipid (hey, it's just the type of guy I am). Oh, and I could also respond to a quiz on whether I'd ever ridden a unicycle ("What did others say? Answer to see").

As I strolled around the site, I found lots of ads and plenty of short surveys but little in terms of content. What's there seems cheery and innocuous enough. I'm guessing, though, that classmates.com had its time in the sun... years ago (and has since been outstripped by other, newer, and more robust social networking sites).

In short, in light of my character -- and at this point in my life -- this isn't the type of site for me. And I suspect that, if you're into this sort of thing, facebook gives you everything classmates.com does and much, much more ("upgrade now").