Compare People Tells You How Much You Suck. Quite Often.

I’m really not sure why, but I find the compare people facebook application very interesting.  I’ve had a number of friends tell me it’s pointless and stupid (I’m inclined to agree), yet I find it intriguing.  Perhaps I’ve yet to remove this app (like almost all other facebook apps) from my profile because I find the social interactions it provides unique.  That doesn’t mean however that I think the app is well run or perfect, and I have an example.

Compare People sends it’s users emails a couple times each week to update them on their rankings. The rankings compare you against others in questions such as “Who’s hotter?” or “Who’s would win in a fight?” and then give you a ranking (no real science involved) among your friends.  The emails users receive tell them what their rank is at a given time and whether that ranking as decreased or increased recently.  Much of the time user’s are not voted on for many of the questions.  While you are not voted on your friend Bob might get a positive rating for his good looks which inadvertantly bumps your rank in good looks down.  Meaning you’re likely to get a lot of emails from Compare people telling you your rankings have dropped, or in other words:  “You Suck”.

Clearly I get no love on the Compare People application, but they don't need to tell me that all the time.

I happen to find it funny that an application with such a large user base continually reminds the users that they are not doing well. Perhaps compare people uses this to motivated users to utilize their service more often, or maybe they should just start sending you emails when a ranking of yours goes up.  If they did that every email from Compare People would be telling you “You’re Awesome!” which I think most users would prefer.