I’m not sure if it’s the right term to use, nor a somewhat vain statement, but this morning, I’ve been mulling over social networking software/websites yet again with regards to the wide variety of applications/sites available to end users and my role as well…sort of a techy socialite.
Here are the established functions for social networking sites:
a) Personals
b) Professional networking
c) Friendship making/special interests searching
d) Community building
e) Events promotions
f) Vanity and collections of friends in a pokemon card kind of way.
g) Forum for Blogging/Journals
I should really put together a Venn diagram in the works that should display the efficacy of each of the players now available.
Are any of the current sites out there effectively capturing the functionality, ease, speed, and critical mass to be successful in this space? Nyet. Not yet, anyways, and perhaps not ever. It just seems that too many sites are now tripping over themselves in terms of chasing a pot of gold without figuring out if they’re following a leprachaun or a troll. Both of which are fictional…and embarassingly documented in a slew of 80s films.
What’s in the big soup out there now?
Friendster
MySpace
Tribe
Yafro
Emode/Tickle
Ringo
Ryze
Spoke
Orkut
Craigslist
Meetup
Evite (fricking weird profile shit now)
Upcoming
So why am I griping?
Because they all suck. Either that or I’m too demanding.
What’s my bucket of piss about?
Consider me:
I am a single Asian American female, highly social, technically astute, and professionally established.
I am well well networked and socially resiliant. 311 directly connected Friendsters. Jayzus Christ. A personal blogroll of over 200 sites. I’ve met in person ~90% of all those folks directly.
I find folks well enough for friendship within my geography and interests without having to cast a net for new relationships. (At least now, at this point in my life)
I like the “testimonials” as it strokes my vanity, but frankly, I’m just re-establishing and publicizing the relationships with people that I already have. It’s hard enough nurturing those relationships without rationalizing some sort of prom queen mentality of being connected to another 2,081,287 people. Unless I’m lobbying for votes, I’m just dandy as is.
My interests/social schedule includes: Indie Bands, Techie Shin digs, Travels, Weddings, Dates, Professional Networking Events, Literary events, Asian American Arts exhibitions, Poetry/Spoken Word Slams, Foriegn Films, Street Fairs, and more.
And what I really want, I still can’t get.
To make social networking more valuable, it’s gotta have that Face2Face component that really works. What that involves, is event/schedule management. Because if we’re talking *friend* social networking or even *professional* networking, the event/calendar/scheduling component of it has to be accessible, fast, user-friendly, and smart.
And in my Ideal World Wishlist:
* Personal and Group calendars that showcase and sync up events that I subscribe to.
Beyond evite or upcoming.org or tribe.net’s calendar’s even.
*THAT* is what would be valuable.
What do I mean by that?
I want a simple form or button by which I can announce or subscribe to pending events. I want this to be widely distributable and sync between Evite, Upcoming.org, Tribe, and posts in the Friendster Bullitens for events. Email’ed events/newsletters too, gawd willing. Also to be ideally used by show vendors and ticket distributors on their sites as a way to put pending shows on a calendar. Perhaps, sorta TIVO-like, to plunk the dates of *favorites* like certain bands, right on to my calendar.
I want to be able to subscribe to various interest communities and have those auto-plunked directly into the same damn calendar too. (ie hooping every sunday: listed in *one* tribe’s calendar. Lovemaker’s show from the Bottom of the Hill Calendar. My houseparties on Evite. And Cafe du Nord Beth Lissick event. And Locus Art’s Calendars fo shows.)
For each event’s information to have a notation of whether it’s a public event (like a show, conference, or gallery opening) or a private event (like a wedding, D&D game, bootycall).
I want to see this in both list form, week form, and monthly form.
I could provide permissions to certain folks to put events on my calendar. (ie if my Sig Oth had a wedding and wanted to make sure I blocked out the date…or like Mom’s scheduling their Kid’s dentist’s appointments)
I want to be able to create user groups of friends by geography/interest so that I can schedule events/invitations by seeing their availibility and calendar of similar interests as well. I want it be a intuitive cross section/snapshot of cool things my friends are doing that maybe I want to either cross promote, attend to, or recommend to possibly catch the next time around.
So it’s gotta be something that is a widely distributably, convenient, and pretty that makes *my* social life easier. Frankly, as a socialite who digs technology, that’s my bread and butter.
Yes my darlings, I’m asking for the moon.
Because technology is still failing (to get me laid) or provide me with reason for ecstatic sighs though it’s getting closer…