DISQUS

Nigel Cannings · 2 years ago

Depends on how you define Social Networking :-)

We at mailspaces do the whole wiki/discussion group thing as well, but because we automatically tag and link all of a community's content, it's a lot more than just a glorified mailing list. You have the ability to to create an automatic community portal based on content, and break down the barriers between e-mail, wiki and RSS

Not all Web 2.0 features are good. Ajax as a mainstay may not be as desirable as it sounds. While fine for many web users, there are many communities and community members who require a fully accessible community, which is "readable" in a text browser

There's a lot of life left in the "community" dog yet. Last year was the "me" year, and so a lot of what passes for social networking, was glorified self-publishing.

Communities stretch back past Usenet to bulletin boards, but they are still badly served. The changes made to Google and Yahoo Groups are hardly revolutionary, with much of each company's focus staying with individual user generated content.

Perhaps it is time to split off "Community" from "Social Networking" - Who knows, maybe Time's Man on the Year next year will be "US"?

Andy · 2 years ago

Please don't ban social networking stories! Yes, there are probably way too many micro niche social networks out there, but as you have pointed out there still are specialized needs that are not being met by the big players.

Articles like this help me to keep up with what's out there and what other people are working on. Keep it up.

Alan · 2 years ago

If you ban stories on sites that include social networking you will miss out on many of the interesting companies.

Looking at Nexo, they appear to be more of a platform for building group web sites than a traditional social networking company. I loved how flexible it was to create the pages.

Skip the myspace clones but keep it up with the sites that incorporate social networking into their offerings.

Gina Bianchini · 2 years ago

Matt,

I'm confused by the statement "Ning doesn't have workflows for small groups".

I'm not sure what that means, but on Ning, you can create a private or public group social network for free in a few clicks and customize it in any way you'd like.

Your new social network has member profiles, photo sharing, and a discussion forum all customized for your family, friends, or community.

To the extent that it can be both public or private, we've seen lots of families using the Ning platform.

Thanks,
Gina

Matt Marshall · 2 years ago

Gina,

By workflow, I meant the email correspondence feature, where an update gets sent to the group, and you can check the email and get taken to the site, etc...

Have you since implemented such a feature?

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Gina Bianchini · 2 years ago

Yes :-)

Brian Dougherty · 2 years ago

What you are seeing with these products (and our product AirSet (www.airset.com) - which by the way you hurt our feelings by not mentioning :-) - is not really the same as social networking in the vein of MySpace and that ilk. Those products are targeted at people in their teens and twenties trying to get a life, exhibiting oneself to the world to meet people and make friends or get a date. Once you get a life you find that not only do you know enough people but between work, friends, family, school, and little league it's a really hard to keep track of all these relationships. The product that nails helping this set of people out has not yet emerged (yahoo groups is clearly the most widely used tool but they haven't really focused on updating that service in a while and it doesn't let you integrate the various groups to which you might belong.) The need is there, it's now a race to see who can deliver the best solution.

Andra Davidson · 2 years ago

"There's no site on the Web, he argues, where you can slap together a private network for a few trusted contacts - family members or others — and do it EASILY."

Untrue. At least for moms groups. We've got 'em. :)

paul · 2 years ago

Genealogy, A family based on social network

I am a regular visitor of your blog and always find something new at your site. I have come up with some new findings and want to share it with you.
I just launched a family 2.0 social network, Kincafe- www.kincafe.com. and would like to invite you for the review of the service and provide feedback to andy@kincafe.com.

Thanks
Paul

car insurance estimates · 1 year ago

Nice website. Great online affiliate program. Thank you.

Matt · 1 year ago

Another site is http://www.familyden.com. It is a family social network where you can easily and privately share videos and photos with your family.

Gus · 1 year ago

I don't see much new in Nexo. May be because it is easy ti use! So many social networks for families have been created. Most of them focus on the immediate family relatives. Some of them allow you to interact with non distant families. We have founded familyigloo.com where the focus is on getting local families connected in order to improve their social support. We have also developed a matching tool where you can look up families that share the same traits with you. The competition is tough.