Breaking Up With Your Favorite Apps

NPR music podcast All Songs Considered just released a show about breaking up with your favorite bands. It got me thinking about favorite web apps or services that I’ve broken up with. So in the tradition of Internet era music, I’m going to directly rip NPR’s idea and breakup categories.

In this post I tearfully discuss past relationships with MySpace, Last.fm and Soup.io. I finish with a love story that has a happier ending: Flickr. I’d love to hear your own tales of web app woe in the comments.

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App or Website You Broke Up With: MySpace

I admit it, I broke it off with MySpace and hooked up with Facebook. Despite the fact that Facebook is loose with my privacy and takes away things I want from it (like third party widgets and tabs).

But MySpace brought this on itself. It became garish and trashy over time. All of my friends hated it. Even its corporate parent, News Corp, wants MySpace out of the house now.

It’s sad how MySpace declined after those party days of 2005-07. Sure it was loud and colorful, but we had some fun didn’t we…

Remembering The Good Times: Last.fm

I used to have a ball with music streaming service Last.fm. We’d sing together and dance the nights away. Last.fm would constantly surprise me with new music, bringing a joyful smile to my face. It even tracked my music listening (our pet name for this was “scrobbling”).

Then Last.fm latched onto a big shot called CBS and it stopped surprising me as often. That’s ok though, because new subscription music services have come along to take my breath away. My current favorite music squeeze is MOG, which lets me pick and choose which albums I listen to. Last.fm never did that.

(I still "scrobble" with Last.fm though, for old times sake.)

It’s Not You, It’s Me (Apps/Sites We Grew Apart From): Soup.io

This particular story breaks my heart, because I so wanted Soup.io to become popular. It’s a lifestreaming service very similar to Tumblr and Posterous. Of the three, I felt that Soup.io had the best features. It still does, in many respects. My favorite feature is the full-text import of content from third party services (like Last.fm and Goodreads). Aggregating your content from all around the social Web is so much easier – and works better – in Soup.io than in Tumblr and Posterous.

Yet, this year I moved to Tumblr. Why? Because of its slickness and its far superior social network, which I admit I wanted to tap into. I feel so shallow, like I dumped a smart and quirkily cool nerd for the prom queen. Shame on me.

App or Website You’ll Always Stand By: Flickr

Here’s a ‘happily ever after’ story, to cheer you up. Despite having Yahoo as its parent (which has a reputation for not being able to look after its children), Flickr has been a mainstay for me over the years.

I’ll always have a soft spot for Flickr, because it guided me into the new world of online photos back in 2004. Over the years Flickr has continued to host my photos, despite other sites like Facebook trying to woo me away. To this day I pay to be a premium member of Flickr – that’s how much I love it.

(note: the lead photo of this post is from Flickr user crimfants, who photographed himself after a 1991 breakup – "It worked out for both of us," he concluded.)

So there you have it, 3 sad break-up stories from my life on the Web and 1 happy story. Thanks again to NPR All Songs Considered for inspiring me to write this.

Which web apps or services have you broken up with; and why?

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