When I started Medical Mingle, I knew absolutely nothing about professional and/or social networks. I had just read in lots of places that social networks were going to be a big part of recruiting in the future, so I decided that we should build a site for the healthcare/medical community to compliment our Absolutely Health Care job board.

As I look back on the first year, I see a lot of good, but also things that have been disappointing.

If you read the comments on my main profile, almost every one of them is positive. So on one hand, members really seem to like our site. I personally love it, as I've made some great friends, and I have a forum to write, educate, and communicate about things that are of interest to me, and can benefit our members. That to me is very cool. 

As you know, I'm also on Facebook, and as a pure social network, Facebook offers lots of fun things that we don't, but we offer lots of things that Facebook doesn't. Facebook doesn't have forums and a general blog, and you can't learn about most members unless you become their friend first. They also don't offer all of the professional content that we do. Those are things that I REALLY like about our site by comparison. Facebook also doesn't offer the terrific contests that we do. For the advantages of each is why I like being on both sites.

On the other hand, I see so many people here that sign up, post a profile, put up a few pictures, and you never hear from them again. That's the part that I find extremely disappointing, as I really expected a much higher percentage of our members to be much more active "mingling", hence the name Medical Mingle. I never understand why so many people join our site, and then just don't participate. Then there are other members that participate for awhile, and then they just disappear, either never to be heard from again or very little.

It always makes me wonder why? It also makes me feel that Medical Mingle will never become a site of significant importance in my eyes until and/or unless this changes.

Your thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I thank each of our members who have participated during our first year, and I look forward to a great second year on Medical Mingle.