Pardon the rant here, but this is something I would like to get off of my chest about ’social networking’ sites.    I’m one of the biggest of the ‘web 2.0 consumers’ (read: addicted to beta sites) I can think of, but honestly none of them have done me REAL good, save for a few.  I don’t want to join a site to communicate with people I already know, I want to meet new people, I want to get new contacts, etc. 

Right now the biggest ’social’ sites that benefit me are forums and IRC chat rooms.  I have met far more valuable contacts inside of community websites and IRC chatrooms than I have EVER met in a social network.  As a testament to the power of social networking in age old technologies like IRC, this entire website exists because of #ubuntuforums on Freenode.org.  Some of my favorite people to talk to have come from that channel, and that’s what social-sites are about. No social networking site has done that for me, ever.

Perhaps it’s time to start looking past the network, maybe it’s time to start building engaging communities.  Special interest groups in places like Myspace and Facebook are just thin, and pointless, no one converses in them.  Being part of “Ubuntu Users” in Facebook is like having a pretty ribbon saying you’re an Ubuntu user, it doesn’t connect you to people because they don’t talk.  Go to the cafe on UbuntuForums and you’ll be in for a treat of conversation, people with similar interests getting together and talking, promoting new software, sharing ideas, and THAT is what the social web is about.  Why is it, then, that age old methods like forums and IRC continue to be better methods for meeting new people and getting involved with them than social sites?  That highlights a problem.

You know what would be useful to me?  A site that connected me to communities, and friends.  I would spend an eternity on a site where I could have an engaging conversation with someone who has a similar interest.  I think I would probably have an e-gasm if vBulletin ever added the social tools I have in sites like Myspace and Facebook, that would be perfect.

Build me a site that is about socializing and making new contacts, and then give me the tools to make those contacts worth something to me.  Give me a way to link into other services that are useful to me, like Streamy, Scrybe, Del.icio.us, or even e-mail.  Give me an address book like Plaxo to import my network whether or not they’re a member of your site. 

In short, redundancy sucks and I don’t need new ways to talk to my friends, give me a place where I can make new ones, and keep in touch with my old ones.

Rant Over.  Flame On.

- Adam.

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    For the last couple of days I have been playing with Wesabe, a social site based around the concept of money.  Very few social networking sites do something that I consider to actually be valuable to me as a person, but Wesabe actually does a good bit for me.

The prime functionality for me is that Wesabe will allow me to upload bank statements to it (downloaded from your online bank account of course) and allow you to tag different places you spend money.  For instance, I might tag the local chevron station as ‘gas’ because that’s the only reason I ever go there.  So, then, all of my transactions with Chevron will be counted as a ‘gas’ expense, and so forth.  Now, the cool part is that Wesabe will tell me exactly how much money I’m spending on what, in convenient chart form.  That can be valuable, sometimes it’s difficult to see how much you’re actually spending when you’re slowly chipping away are your bank account.  Wesabe showed me that *maybe* should be slacking off a bit on the iTunes Music Store downloads.

But, the fun doesn’t stop there, I mean there’s nothing social about what I just described, right?  Well, Wesabe has a great community built around it that is just filled with small bits of financial wisdom, and they’re more than happy to give you tips.  Recently I’ve been looking at purchasing an Apple MacBook for myself, and thanks to Wesabe’s community I actually found out I could save a bit of money by purchasing through Amazon rather than Apple.  Although that’s just an example specific to me, there are TONS of tips available for a variety of goals, and they’re all good info.

But what really got me using Wesabe in the first place was it’s Firefox extension.  This extension made it easy and quick for me to set up an account and even makes uploading my latest bank statement to the site very simple and easy.  I highly encourage anyone who reads this to check out Wesabe, it’s one of the most useful things to come out of ‘web 2.0′.

Rant Over.  Flame On.

- Adam.

Streamy, what were you thinking?

That’s a good question.  Well, let me try to clear some things up for you, Trevor.

Yes, Streamy absolutely positively looks web2.0ish in it’s current form.  But it’s theme-able so I expect that’s kind of subject to change, ya know?  Considering we live in a world where web2.0 pastel colored site with an obnoxious design can become one of the most used sites on the web, I don’t consider the colors a downside.

The sites interface is pretty much one of the single best things I have ever used in RSS readers, and it’s why Streamy has completely replaced GoogleReader for me. Everything is click-and-draggable and that makes for a fun time when reading your feeds.  Concerning the browser’s back button, I’ve been using Streamy for a good while now and I can tell you that I’ve never once been tempted to use the back button.

Now, I notice you’re ranting about the save-feature on the site.  Firstly, when I read your blog I can’t help but notice that the title says you’re a ‘web designer’.  Well, as a web designer maybe you could explain to me why I, as a user, would want my browser filled with bookmarks of articles?  If we’re going to go down that route, why not just eliminate RSS all together?  I mean, I could just bookmark all the pages right?  No, the save feature on this site is a feature, and not a usability issue.  Getting to your saves is very simple and very easy, and the home page was never designed for your saves or personal feeds.  If you want to bookmark an article you click the BIG, GREEN, link at the top of the story and hit ‘bookmark this link’.  That link goes straight to the article itself.

Oh, and why allow meebo-esque instant messaging in the page?  Because it adds to the effect, and helps me share faster.  Right now the site only supports the AIM protocol but I’ve added my AIM to the site and if I want to share a story with a friend all I do is click and drag the story to their name, or open up a chat window and click and drag it into the chat.  Now, you’re right, I could go through all the window changing, blah blah blah blah to give someone that same link, but this way is faster and more intuitive.

Having read your post it seems like all you’re really saying is “I’m upset because I’m a big important blogger and I didn’t get a streamy invite”.  Well, join the club, Pal.  A lot of people didn’t get Streamy invites because the designers are doing a lot of work on the site.  I’ve watched it evolve a lot since I first joined, and I can tell that the last thing they need as press coverage is people like you complaining every step of the way when a change is introduced.  Also, as of now, the screen-cast is a little out-dated.  Some UI changing have happened since it was placed on the web, and it’s an even better site now. 

For what it’s worth, Trevor, your grab at publicity worked.  Now we know you exist.

- Adam.