Two and a half months ago, a friend of mine had read about invite-only i’m in like with you in geeksugar and was trying to get in. When he finally found a way in, he used it for a short while, played the games, and eventually abandonned it. He invited me and I tried it out and did the same.

Earlier this month, I read about InviteShare on TechCrunch (ironically purchased for $25k by TechCrunch days later) and joined to try out newcomer Pownce and later 8apps. There’s a pretty good review of InviteShare over at Jeffro2pt0.

Here’s how long it took:

Pownce (within 5 minutes) - send stuff to your friends
8apps (within 1 hour) - social networking for productive people

Also on the InviteShare list was GrandCentral (telephone number linking service) which I had heard about from the Cool Product Expo earlier this year, but knowing someone who has an account, I decided to go through that person for an invite instead of InviteShare which took longer (a day and a half).

When I tried to return the favor with my invites, the waiting lists were empty; there are a lot of active inviters and you almost have instant gratification getting into the parties even moreso than asking a friend to get you in.

I wonder how many people actually test out the products with a watchful eye and how many just sign up to be part of the “in” crowd (ahem, iPhone buyers first in line). I can see how InviteShare might dilute the crowd of beta testers who would provide feedback and report bugs because the people from the early majority or late majority groups (in Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory) adopt earlier.

InviteShare can give more exposure to the lesser known new products and bump up the adoption timeline by increasing awareness of a product and its features, however it’s possible that it might do more harm to the product than good. The early or late majority may not be as forgiving as the tech enthusiasts (early adopters) about problems; more of them expect the product to work and not be buggy and the word beta doesn’t have as much meaning to them. Even Jeffro and others have complained how the InviteShare site was producing errors which I also experienced. I have to say though, i’m in like with you’s feedback/bug reporting feature is the best I’ve ever seen; it’s easy to report a problem with a link that appears on every page which slides out a form on top of the current page in a drawer-like fashion.

Also, the Digital Natives are more quick to decide whether a product is cool or uncool. A new product out in the wild better be ready for them.

If anyone wants to try out Pownce, 8apps, and GrandCentral, let me know… or you could sign up for InviteShare and get into the party on your own.