Catholic Social Network 4Marks.com Closing Down
It seems that 4marks.com, a Catholic social network that was created by Catholic Match LLC in 2005, will be closing down its website on February 23.
4marks.com members report having received a letter stating that “while 4marks.com continues to be the most visited Catholic social networking site, it no longer fits within the parameters of what is possible for our organization. As a result we have decided to no longer operate the website.”
The letter states: “We are considering some alternatives for 4marks.com, and when we make that decision we will be sure to notify you. If their is any content you have uploaded to your profile that you would like to make a copy of, please do so in the next 5 days. You will not longer have access as of Feb. 23rd, 2011, at which time the site will be taken offline.”
What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments.
bobdobb, 
Ray Latham, 
Walter Rochester and 7 others are discussing. 
Ray Latham 6:51 pm on August 31, 2011 Permalink |
Guess I like a lot of others was surprised. I’m saddened to see it go and will remember it well. As a new Catholic I made a lot dear friends here and will miss them. Hope that we will find each other on other sites.nPeace to All.
bobdobb 9:32 am on September 1, 2011 Permalink |
hey Ray, it’s Bill He i m i ll er here.u00a0 I had to travel to S. America, then whammo, found out 4Marks was extinct.u00a0 I’d like to ask the owner if he got any “incentive” from anybody to shut it down so abruptly.u00a0 I hope you’re doing well.u00a0 God Bless!
Walter Rochester 11:36 pm on March 9, 2011 Permalink |
I think that there’s more to 4marks.com closing down, that most people do not understand and will never take the time to understand. Do some research if you’re interested and figure out what really made 4marks.com disappear.
bobdobb 9:20 am on September 1, 2011 Permalink |
Walter, do you have any information?u00a0 I thought it was strange that everyone was given a 5 day notice without letting them organizeu00a0something.u00a0 please email me with any info you might have at bheimiller@yahoo.com
Brandi 2:09 pm on February 23, 2011 Permalink |
I am not sure what “it no longer fits within the parameters of what is possible for our organization” means.
joe sales 1:15 am on February 23, 2011 Permalink |
.As far as catholic online communities, i am apart of http://www.onlinecatholicnetwork.com/ and i am currently waiting for my account to be approved on SQPN community. i do believe in supporting Catholic efforts of evangelizing to others online. As for 4marks, like steve, it’s been a while since i thought about it.
Inge 11:10 pm on February 21, 2011 Permalink |
I am not surprised. Why would you duplicate something that everybody is already using, with the only difference that it’s Catholic. I think all sites that try to be the Catholic Facebook, the Catholic Youtube etc. are doomed to fail because they add nothing really new.
bobdobb 9:17 am on September 1, 2011 Permalink |
Inge, I suspect you were not a member of 4Marks.u00a0 It was just getting its legs and the privacy concerns and content assurance are justu00a0two reasons to have a Catholic filter to things.u00a0 It had promise, and it is strange that 4Marks was shut down so suddenly.
Jan - Stfrancisgirl 6:13 pm on February 21, 2011 Permalink |
I gave up trying to keep up with anything other than Facebook and some Twitter follows. I have a dormant profile at Catholic Match and felt the 4Marks profile was some what redundant to the Catholic Match profile. Catholic Match also has forums. 4Marks never became a Catholic Facebook — which I’m not claiming that was their intent — but I better manage my friends on Facebook and organize by groups.
Steve Nelson 6:03 pm on February 21, 2011 Permalink |
I thought 4marks had great potential but I have to admit that I haven’t thought about it in over a year. It seemed to be a very serious place and it didn’t really draw me in.
Greg Willits 5:50 pm on February 21, 2011 Permalink |
While I didn’t use 4Marks that much, I’ll always be indebted to them for their sponsorship of the first CNMC. They were the biggest single sponsor that year and played a major role in helping us pull it off financially. So I’ll be curious to see how they rework the site and what lies ahead and would encourage people who want to see events like CNMC continue to keep giving their business to sponsors who make Catholic New Media happen.
Angela 5:37 pm on February 21, 2011 Permalink |
I’m not heartbroken about this. There are other Catholic social network experiments taking place right now, but none have really impressed me. XT3 is probably the most impressive and successful in terms of producing and sharing content that generates activity (and hits). I’m still waiting for someone to convince me why I should join *and invest time into* a Catholic social network platform vs. using more advanced and popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
bobdobb 9:27 am on September 1, 2011 Permalink |
One major reason is the security factor.u00a0 What is Facebook doing with your information?u00a0 Las time I checked they were violating Germany’s privacy laws.u00a0 Also, having a forum and organizing site for every aspect of Catholics, without filtering throughu00a0au00a0secular for profit website[owned byu00a0theu00a0thief who stole it btw]u00a0will eventually be essential.u00a0 Catholic credit unions are a good example of the good results from “A Catholic ______”