Marc Canter's The People Aggregator, is having trouble getting traction, and on Tuesday Marc's frustrations boiled over and he posted this on his People Aggregator Blog.

What is it about users?
only about 10-15% put up their images into their accounts (but at least they do that!)

......and less than 2% do anything beyond even that.

The modern day tire kick - sure is pretty minimalistic.

I wonder what it'll take for people to actually start using this thing?
Posted by Marc at Tuesday, August 29, 2006

First blaming the apparent apathy to his product on the user is a bit silly. I am sure he knows that, but he is obviously frustrated that people just don't get what he's trying to do, and jumping on board in droves. Unfortuneatley there is no real activity on the site. That could be because people don't understand it (Marketing), people don't know how to use it (UI), or people see no need to use it (technology). However, since Marc designed it, marketed it (he is a promoting machine and built it for his peeps), and has evangelized the need for it - you would assume that he would use it, but he doesn't really use it. Yet, he has enough time for his external blog, which he updates and redesigns at a crazy pace.

I check his PeepAgg site (as he likes to call it) out a couple times a week. I am trying to figure out what I can do with it and how our community at Project Opus could work with it, but the benefits and value proposition of The People Aggregator is simply not apparent. What can I do there that I cannot do on MySpace, Bebo, Flickr et al?

So Marc, asks "I wonder what it'll take for people to actually start using this thing?"

Well that's an easy question to answer, Marc. Others will start using it probably the same time you feel compelled to use it. Don't expect users to fumble through and test your product for you these days. We are just too busy, but here is a suggestion, start eating your own dog food, you might understand the short comings of your product - be it UI, Technology, or Marketing.

This is a lesson that we have learned and continue to learn from at Project Opus. As we get closer to understanding the real value proposition to our community, we make adjustments to UI, Technology, and Marketing. In turn our activity and membership has begun to increase rapidly. If you start to nail it, be ready for some growing pains as we are experience now - Quadrupled bandwidth in less than 3 weeks!

Here's a fun country-rock track from my friend Kelly Brock.