5 Reasons Why We Shudder at the New Rippln App

You may have heard about a new so-called viral App called Rippln – you may have even been invited to join the “inner circle”. Well, it’s not viral yet.

A video posted on YouTube boasts that users can become part of the beginnings of the next Facebook and make millions off of its success. They even claim that soon, the App will be more important than Email. We’re cringing at every second the introductory video plays. Why?

1. Sure To Overpromise and Underachieve

One of the looming challenges for everybody in the digital sphere is delivering on expectations. The top people and organizations have grown their successes through Apps that provide something that’s either fun, resourceful, engaging, or relevant. They’ve created virality by being a resource. By boasting of what success lies ahead, theoretically and in their minds, it gives no real or solid evidence of why it would ever become viral, other than making people money. If making people money is the only real evidence, we smell a ponzi scheme.

2. Demonization of Top Apps Like Instagram

A cult-following always has one main characteristic: they demonize those they stand against. No one in their right mind should be in a cult. Therefore, when the video started making the founders of Instagram seem like foreign dictators, it sounded an alarm for us. Though, it’s true that Instagram and its founders have made a fortune, they’ve done it by creating, developing and giving a beautiful and enjoyable App. Cheers to them!

3. Self-Proclaimed Greatness

We can all agree, leaders aren’t formed by talk. They’re formed by leading. They take charge, make sacrifices and above all, they let their work do the talking for them. Rippln is talking, but talk is cheap. We’ll see what really happens when the App launches. My guess is Facebook and Twitter, and particularly email, will remain more important.

4. Disingenuous To The Core

Clear purpose is a must when it comes to any creative or sharable resource. It is a mission which takes sincerity and genius.

Twitter’s mission, for example, is: Find out what’s happening, right now, with the people and organizations you care about. We love that! It’s clear, appropriate, and they deliver on every word of their mission. Contrastingly, Rippln promises a fortune to everyone involved. It’s simple enough to say that we’re fairly certain their mission won’t ever happen.

5. We Don’t Want Salesman, We Want Friends and Followers

Perhaps the most irritating part of Rippln is that it encourages digital friendships on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere to sell themselves to what boils down to a form of layered corporate marketing. It takes user-interactions and turns them into one big horrifying commercial. It’s commercialism to the core. Who wants friends selling them products, not as a genuine recommendation, or as something they love, but to make a cut from the sale? That’s selling your soul, in the digital equivalent.

http://youtu.be/FhgC5E0YtwA