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SocialWhois: The next step for socialmedia
I was computing arround the interwebs when Chris Saad jumped in my GTalk client and said: "Dude! This things is AWESOME!" —Yes, he was talking about SocialWhois. People who know who Chris is, would quickly understand what SocialWhois is about :)
Then, I saw dozens of people setting up profiles on SocialWhois, probably due to his and other tweets and to the article by mashable. So I'm late (as usual) but I hope I'll explain in some words what is SocialWhois, and why it really matters.
Popularity is NOT Value
I bet many people already hate me because i'm always repeating this, but what makes something worth attention is what YOU are looking for. I mean, we people, are driven by our interests. That's not a bad thing, no, really. We have centers of attentions ; things that matter to us. And these interests are different for everyone. Thus, if you're really looking for valuable information, you'd better find it from people who do care about it. Popular people are just people like you and me, and their interests aren't obligatory yours! And that's what I tried to demonstrate with SocialWhois. Because Talk is Cheap…
Personal Interests are THE Value
Do you remember that blog post by Loïc?? Well, I'm one of those who believe that this is wrong and sadly both Twitter and FriendFeed (and almost every social network) implements people recommendation algorithms based on popularity. Now, tell me, how can Loïc help you with a python problem? I don't know if Loïc knows how to code with python. Do you? Another example: Our good old Robert Scoble likes Eminem, yes he really does! But for a jazz lover like me, can I chat about Coltrane with Robert? Yes, I can, because Robert used to be (and still is, I hope) a jazz lover too!
See what I mean? This is the better social media i'm talking about: Finding and interracting with people who are likely to share your interests, exchange experience, fun, learn new stuff… Robert is popular, but that's not the reason why I like the guy. I like him because he is really a nice man, and his interests happened to be mine too! (i.e tech, geeking…)
Seriously, what's SocialWhois?
Ok, so SocialWhois is a tool to find and share fun with people who share your interests! That's it. It will help you find what people are interested in, find people who are interested in different topics so you can follow them on social networks, discuss about things that matter to both of you. And that's what makes it fun!
SocialWhois is about everything but popularity. You'll think that it's hypocrisy or irony, but I (SocialWhois' creator) am not popular on SocialWhois! And guess what, I like it that way! Really :) In fact, on SocialWhois, no one is popular. Social media is not represented by a pyramid of big guys with tons of followers in the top and the rest of us in the base. No, SocialWhois could be described by a graph of people sharing interests. You can navigate in the graph and discover new faces, and the way this graph is being traversed is different for everyone of us.
You can see what SocialWhois can do for you in the about page and the Faqs. And if you still have some questions on how to setup things or just wonder how to use it. Please feel free to leave a comment in my SocialWhois Public Inbox or join us in the SocialWhois FriendFeed room. Your questions and suggestions are very welcome!
Finally, i'd really like to thank everyone who helped me with feedback, suggestions and support! The project took me about a month and was launched very early, but overall I think that the reactions are fine so far. Now, it's time for a features-marathon!
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Comment [2]
— Mark Burhop · Feb 4, 01:31 PM · #
Directeur,
Nice blog explaining your goals. I have a lot of niche interests (3D CAD, cars, Second Life, college football, etc.) The popular folks aren’t usually the ones I want to follow so I’d like to see more tools like this. Its a real trick to raise the signal and reduce the noise in SM :-(
Mark (“burhop” on twitter and most other places)
— Brian Solis · Feb 9, 11:23 PM · #
Directeur, very nice app. Just included in in my massive post: http://poprl.com/9sU
I might need some “lite” twitter app work done…are you free or know anyone who could help? brian [at] future-works [dot] com
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