In the process of doing research to find ways to make our website- and more importantly our web experience- better, Nathan passed along iminlikewithyou.com citing the simplicity and elegance of their signup process. At first glance, I chuckled to myself and thought “typical teeny-bopper…” Bubbly, cute rainbows, clouds and pastels welcomed me to a site where pictures of random people leering at me were complimented by videogame-esque sounds that chirp to let you know that “Im2kewl4U has logged in.” My first impression:

• I have no idea what to expect
• I have no idea what this site is about
• I have no idea what I’m supposed to do
• More importantly I wonder how Nathan stumbled upon it

I had a pretty good idea who the site is targeting - or so I thought- until I saw some of the pictures of users on the homepage. ImInLikeWithYou members seem to be well into their 20’s. I’m intrigued.

I hoped the opening splash screen would offer some explanation about why this website exists, because until now I just assumed that every site existed for a reason. No dice. Most of the messaging is written in “Teenglish” (a phrase I just thought of, and wanted to claim as my own, but after googling it I see that it has been used before…), a mashup of English, “txtspk,” and curse words. The best description I could find advised me that I’ll “probably be all like OMG WTF?” and that it’s probably best that I just explore.

So I clicked around finding a collection of news stories that appear to be ripped from the tabloids (because it is all celebrity gossip), a videos section where users can add comments that overlay on the picture and only appear at a specified time during playback (coupled with an annoying sound effect when they appear which makes each video virtually unwatchable), and an arcade that’s main feature is a version of Tetris that you play head to head with other users.

WTF?

No less than 2 weeks later I found myself with time to kill, and headed to iminlikewithyou.com. I have no idea why, but I wanted to see if maybe I’d “get it” this time. I did a lot more digging and put a lot more effort into it, and found out that even the people behind the site weren’t sure what it was for. I started to notice some truly questionable content and some usernames that don’t belong anywhere near a teeny-bopper site. On the site’s “about” page, it states:

“We are just trying to make a really fun thing to help you waste time.”

So to this point, I’m totally thrown for a loop, and a few of the fundamental laws of the internet are called into question. Here is a website that

1. Admits it only exists to help you waste time
2. Does not appear to have any way of making revenue
3. Is not backed by any corporation
4. Uses messaging and visuals that target a 12-18 year old female but provide very adult content.

So why did I come back? Why did I choose to explore a little more rather than checking out any of the other sites I frequent? Why is it that even when the makers of the site openly proclaim that there is no use for the website other than to help you slack off, there is clearly no shortage of people frequenting the site (including me, someone who is clearly well outside the demographic)? Details.

It’s the little things. It’s the choice of graphics, sounds and animations. I entered fake login information probably 10 times just because I liked the way they made a red alert box drop from the top and fade in. The animation was smooth. The color was vibrant. The navigation menu provided useless interactivity, and like several other sites with similar function, mousing over images created a clicking that I couldn’t get enough of.

I like to think my time is valuable and I try to be as efficient as possible in how I spend my time, but over the next week or two, I visited the site everyday. I shared the link with friends to show them things I found (quotes, comments, design elements) and my friends became just as hooked as me. Not only did this site get me to keep coming back (which is already a huge accomplishment) but they also got me to evangelize - the holy grail of achievements when creating an online web experience.

However, through all of these visits, I have yet to register my own account. They have me hooked, but there’s not enough value for me to take the plunge. But what if there was? Just imagine what that kind of experience would mean to someone who had a REAL reason to keep going back.

… or is the draw in the fact that I have no reason to be there? Is it possible that this site can be so confident that they will tell you outright that they’re useless and still believe you’ll come back? I guess it’s similar to a girl that knows she’s hot and nothing else. I know it’s probably a complete waste of my time, but I’m helpless to resist.