Last Friday I received an email from Kohort.  They told me that the site was now live.   I signed up to get a username to the long-awaited social platform several months ago, but to be completely honest, I forgot about it.  I love social media and I enjoy playing around on new platforms, so what the hell.  I created my account and gave it a shot.

Last April I saw this article on Mashable about Kohort and its impending launch…sometime soon.  But no one knew what it was.  Whatever, if it’s featured on Mashable it must be the biggest, greatest social media platform ever created, right?

Back to this last Friday…

My first impressions of the new social platform:

• It’s clean.  There isn’t a bunch of “crap” along the sides or any of the riff-raff we see on many other social networks.  This could be what they’re going for, but it also could just be because it hasn’t been monetized yet with advertising.
• It’s easy to navigate.  The links are clear, and the flow of what you should be doing on the site is obvious to the user.
•  It’s simple.  The idea and goal of it is right there.  They specialize in groups.  I never felt confused or overwhelmed.  It’s all very clear which is great.
• Almost no one I knew jumped aboard.  I interact with a lot of very social-savvy folks in and out of my industry, and just about no one flocked to Kohort on launch day.  I thought that was interesting.  Maybe they didn’t know about it.  Maybe they didn’t care?  Maybe they knew something I didn’t?
• It reminded me of Google+.  Well, sort of.  I’m not saying that it actually as a whole reminds me of Google+.  However, the entire “group” concept immediately made me think of G+ Circles.  Posts that you share on Kohort can be filtered to which group should see them, or if they’re public – exactly like circles.  And we all know how active people are (or aren’t) on there.  And, this doesn’t have the power of Google behind it.
• Facebook groups, too? Not much to say about this one, but Facebook has simplified and improved their groups quite a bit in the last several months, and on a platform that pretty much everyone is already on.  Just sayin’…
• Is the group concept really that original?  This was more of just a random, rhetorical thought.  But, we all wondered what Kohort was, expecting something super original.  And, it’s a network for groups.  I guess they’re trying to do it “better.”  Did they succeed?  We’ll see.
• On launch day, the groups created, well, sucked.  I searched and searched throughout the day, waiting to see what cool groups were being created, who was out there, etc.  As I filtered by “most active, “most popular,” and “newest,” I was very disappointed to find literally nothing I wanted to join.  I completely understand this was day 1, so I’m not trying to be too harsh on this point.  However, I just thought more people would’ve been active on there creating really interesting groups and content, especially after the anticipation of the launch.
• My group might collect dust.  I wanted to created a new group to try it out.  Being that it was launch day I figured I could probably claim something that people might actually want to join.  Why not?  Let’s see what happens.  So, I created a Kohort group for Ski Industry Marketing.  I connect with a bunch of people involved in this world on other platforms and thought that just maybe, some might join up and play around as well, maybe even start a discussion on Kohort.  Nope.  I broadcasted about the group on both Twitter and Facebook.  Crickets.  And I refuse to send an email to my contacts.  I’m not going to personally spam you about something like this.  So, as I write this 3 days later….still no one.
• Mobile? I personally have a Samsung Galaxy S III so I use Android, and there was definitely no app on Friday.  iPhone?  I wouldn’t know.

I think the site has potential, as it’s WAY to early to ever rule out any new social platform until we get a chance to see what the people think.  At this point, it’s very new, but people don’t seem to be racing to join it, to create cool groups, or interact.  My two followers both work for Kohort.  The jury will be out for a while.  Maybe they have something else planned to give it a boost?  Some cool digital marketing campaign?  Some earned media online write ups to give it some exposure?  Not sure.  But if it’s released to the wild and this is what it is for good, we might not be seeing it in a year.

Good luck to the Kohort team.  I hope to interact with better groups and more people soon.  Otherwise I might have to start cracking Google+-esque jokes about it.  And I don’t want to do that.  I wish them success.