Are You a Facebook Addict?

by Pete Cashmore 17 Comments

Constantly refreshing your Facebook news feed? Logging in 10 times a day to browse your friend’s latest party pics? Facebook Gifts causing your own economic crisis? We can fix you! With….a social network?

BeatingAddiction, a new social site from Kinal Corp that’s currently in beta, does have some less ironic uses than its questionable Facebook addicts support group (which, like most of this newly-launched site, lacks members - the entire site only has 25 so far). And among some rather geek-centric addictions - Guitar Hero, Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft - there are more standard topics like medical drugs and food. The company explains to Mashable:

Users can become supporters of other users; can create and join support groups; can create (if not already existing) addictions; to their profile, they can add addictions they have, had, or have any kind of experience with; can add medical drugs in the same way; can find others through addictions, medical drugs, support groups, and supporters; can create journal entries; can create announcements; can upload pictures to be more public with their recovery efforts; can leave comments; can search for addictions, medical drugs, and support groups; can view active ingredients within and forms of administering medical drugs; and tons more.

And yet…the time has really passed for niche social networks. To gain any traction these days, services must plugin in to existing networks.

Ironically, perhaps, BeatingAddiction would gain more traction as a Facebook app than a standalone site.