After over a dozen invites, I finally gave in and tried Eskwela.com. We had a sneak preview account before it was launched last year but it was way deep in the beta (or was it alpha?) version to really try out and write a fair review. A recent assignment (Friend Request) prompted me to revisit the site. Unlike before, the bugs have been sorted out and the site loads quite fast (not sure if that’s good or bad as an indication of visitor usage) and according to Alexa, site usage has been steadily climbing.
The main page displays their total market reach — 862 universities, 6,639 high schools, 42,644 elementary schools, 1,526 companies. Impressive collection of data, IMO, but they don’t indicate specific user statistics. A recent article in Inquirer pegs the number close to 50,000 members.
The article also quoted 3,000 new member sign-ups every week, but if you log in inside, you will see a list of new member sign-ups in the last 6 days. From my recent count, the site only gets between 4 to 6 new members per day — this is based on the last 5 days from yesterday (total 23 news signups). My interpretation of that recent members could be wrong but it sure does indicate the level of activity within the network.
Moving forward, realizing that Eskwela seems to be filling the void that Friendster left and narrowing the niche, I wonder if the day will come that Eskwela will replace the class reunion. If high-school batch mates are connected online and always updated with each other thru social network sites like Eskwela, will reunions be unnecessary in the future? There won’t be any excitement at all and no surprises between classmates who have might have gotten married, had kids, joined the convent or visited the Moon.
I’ve never attended any class reunions ever, not that I’m that old to be attending one. But surely, sites like Eskwela.com is a good replacement to re-connect with your old friends and school mates — if only everybody’s in there too.
P.S. If you’re also on Eskwela, you can add me up thru my Gmail account.
Terence, I think Friendster got out of the red because Google saved them with that multi-year ad lock-up. If the number of CEOs changing over at F in the last couple of years was any indication, I thought they were heading to the dumps.
As for Eskwela, I do hope you’d be able to get it off the ground real soon. Some people are whispering it’s bleeding money all over.