I didn't like Lost in Translation.  I was supposed to.  Other people I know did and it got great reviews and had fantastic buzz.  I wanted to like it.  But when I finally got around to seeing it I was just sort of bored. I just didn't get it.  So, inspired by Lost in Translation, here's a list of eight pieces of technology that I'm supposed to love but just don't:

(1) Second Life.  The whole alternative online world concept is brilliant in theory.  But I've tried to get into Second Life three times now and just can't. I don't have the patience required to learn my way around the place and ultimately am not that interested in living an alternative version of my life online.

(2) Memeorandum and Techmeme.  The technology here is cool, but whenever I visit the site(s) I'm underwhelmed by the content. To me Memeorandum and Techmeme feel dominated by old school publications (New York Times) and A-list bloggers (Techcrunch).  It is filled with content I've already seen elsewhere or am purposefully avoiding.  Also, Memeorandum would be much more interesting if they added some discussion/community features. I prefer Digg.

(3) Boing Boing.  This "Directory of Wonderful Things" is currently the third most popular blog in the world according to Technorati.  I've tried to like it, but only around 1/5 of the stories interest me so I packed it in.

(4) Yahoo Answers.  This service is wildly successful, having answered 40 million questions and gotten a lot of buzz from its Ask the Planet campaign featuring celebrities like Bono.  For whatever reason I don't know a single person who uses it regularly.  I'm also bitter because none of the questions I've tried asking as a test got a response.

(5) Rocketboom.  The world's most hyped video blog.  Watching Amanda Congdon was fingernails on a chalkboard for me.  Maybe I'll loop back now that they have a new host, although Ze Frank has my video blogging needs taken care of at this point.

(6) 37Signals Family of Products.  These time/project management tools are really slick and I know a lot of people that swear by them.  I've tried pretty much all their products and they just didn't click for me.  I'm probably a dinosaur, but I prefer to do this kind of stuff in Outlook for personal management and have other tools I use to collaborate with others. 

(7) Online Office Replacements.  I've tried Writely, Google Spreadsheets, Zoho, etc.  They are all very good web services whose concept I love.  The problem is that I can't make myself actually start using them.  After that initial burst of activity I always go back to using more full featured software running locally on my machine.  Same story for Meebo and web-based IM solutions.

(8) Google Analytics.  I've got this installed on a few of the sites we run and pretty much never look at it.  It's got great features, but I find the user interface really frustrating. I'm perpetually confused when I use Google Analytics and that is not a good place to be.

Please feel free to set me straight in the comments.  Or add to the list.

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