I’ve always dissed the likes of MySpace and Bebo and all the rest and I have a post in draft about how I see uses and drawbacks with these sites but it was about time I tried them all out and saw what they are like from a user’s perspective.
If you want to add me to Bebo, follow this link. This is my profile. I thought with Bebo it was popular because you could register your old school and add classmates? Hmmm. Are Bebo locking out videos from YouTube? I only stuck a video on it after uploading using some app that made FireFox stall.
On Vox I am DamienM.Vox.com. I’m not sure how the hell this works and how I add people. Pity I can’t have blog posts here go over there too. I do like the privacy features though. Elana, where are you on this?
My Facebook profile. I’ve added myself to the Ireland network and the UCC network but there doesn’t seem to be much activity. Wow, this seems very much like a dating system. More open about it than the rest I suppose. I’ve noticed a few people I know. Small world.
My mySpace profile. Feels cold and quite boring. I’m at a loss to know what the fuss is/was. Edit: Just found their search thing is like a singles bar thing too.
So far impressions from all are that they are spam machines. They are very pushy about importing MSN and GMail contact lists so they can spam your friends with invites.
Oh I must try Orkut now, since it brought me so much traffic 🙂 SecondLife is sure to follow.
I set myself up with a second life account a while ago, and concluded that I had enough trouble sorting out my first life to devote much time to a second. It was mostly just a load of people wandering around asking each other “do you know how to get out of here?”. I logged out, leaving my avatar rather poignantly nursing a drink on his own in a nightclub in Seoul.
I signed up to them all for work (honestly).
MySpace – At least it look like a bit of fun. Geocities for the 21st Century. And full of Bands which is no bad thing.
Bebo – Lacking in features? A bit dull?
FaceBook – Developed by Mormons? Where’s the fun bits?
Orkut – Developed by Opus Dei? Joyless. Featureless.
Vox – Very French. Looks great but where’s the damned HTML editing? “When I wrote this I was feeling – perky”
Where I work, we’re running a campaign that has as one of its key target groups second-level students. My manager and I discussed suitable magazines this age group might read — we were thinking of a contemporary equivalent to what HotPress was 25 years ago. Research through official media marketing routes suggested we would need to look to UK-published mmagazines, which would be a waste of our budget. Somebody else tome told me that bebo is where the people in that age group “are at”.
So, some research on bebo was required. It turns out that the Boilerhouse is also using bebo (http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=866150625).
I’ve been trying out several of these for An Lionra Soisialta. Bebo leaves a sour taste with the way it tries to wall off the rest of the net and doesn’t allow you to do HTML. Yet, I think 99% (?) of Irish teenagers use it because it feels kind of “safe” in the way that you can restrict access to your profile, etc.
Maybe we should view it as blogging with training wheels? Policing is important in this kind of environment. Last week I had a Bebo friendship invitation from a porn spam profile. I used the “report abuse” function to flag the “user”.
I have a personal interest in the way the Irish language is flourishing in Bebo. I’ve been a little impatient at the slow uptake of conventional blogging among Irish speakers, although it has improved significantly in recent months. However, I think that’s more to do with the fact that blogging isn’t for everybody whereas, for young adults right now, Bebo is for everybody!
Bebo is the only place I’ve found on the net where “real people” 😉 have a presence – not just the “geeks”. And that includes young people from the Gaeltachtai who use both Irish and English naturally and unselfconsciously and switch between the two as appropriate.
For those of you researching social networking sites, you may be interested in reading Karel Baloun’s “Inside Facebook” for insight on what it was like working there as Facebook grew from a small company to what it is now.
There is also a section on other sites like MySpace, lots of great info.
Here’s a link to a 50% promo off the ebook: http://www.fbbook.com/promo
why is bebo blocked this was the only website that i like on the internet can it be unbolcked i dont see the harm.