E Wants Your Opinion May 2, 2008
E is generating momentum. We have a lot of cool stuff coming up, but in the meantime we’re gonna start asking questions. It’s time for more direct end-user input, so here’s our question:
What do you find annoying with current social networking services?
Think about policy, integration, accessibility, user interface usability, aesthetics, features…
Leave your comments. More about E soon.
(18) Comments
XyonN
what i dislike most (i don’t hate it) is that i need a browser for it.
Kazo
Insignificant updates, notifications, invites and the possibility, that your service shares your personal information with third party members.
Charlie
With Facebook the lack of user customization. With MySpace the surplus of user customization (on the visual side that is).
Jonno Riekwel
That looks totally hot! Thanks for adding me in it ;).
Benjamin Owens
The fact that anyone can add you anytime. Quantity over quality I’d say.
Nicolás Lazaro
I dislike Facebook’s applications feature and news feed, simply because it’s mostly irrelevant (games and whatnot and the mostly useless information). I also dislike having to visit separate pages for each service, so if you could incorporate them all into one page somehow that would be very convenient.
Jenneke
Most of the notifications are unnecessary, everybody can add you as a ‘friend’ and their designs mostly suck.
Jason Chen
That there are so many, and some of your friends are on one and some on others. Wish there’d be a central DB that they could all share!
Sexybiggetje
Most social networks are really slow, and never tend to adopt design flexability. The most irritating bit is, that when you use multiple social websites, that in current state they do not seem to link to you as a person, but all tend to contain a bit of information about you. And thus, in such case, social networks never seem to provide more use then a personal website. I’m well aware of OpenSocial, but it will be long before we see a real social network, that represents it user.
robvk
Life is annoying, so why shouls social networks be different?
Jip
This looks really great! Keep up te good work.
Jordan Green
What I dont like about the current social utilites is that they don’t all connect with eachother in one site of application show me updates on all in one.
Also would be great for a desktop version rather than just web based?
nkm
Filling my data, inviting/looking for friends, uploading media… over and over again evertime I sign in a new SNS.
That’s basically the thing I hate the most.
Goog luck with E, Renn, it looks really interesting!
Vianilla
Most social networks are spamming you with notifications you don’t want. That they excist is not the problem, but people who hate the “FW FW FW Read my crap” mails have to be able to bounce this crap.
Most social networks do not give you the oppurtunity to manage your connections. People from my work see the same stuff as my friends. If a want to send something, they are in the same list.. etc
A real design issue is the customization. People like to make it personal, but Hyves proves that it can be really crap to let people do it them selves if there not web/design savvy.
Florian Pichler
Biggest bummer at all: Not all of m friends are in one network. I have to keep an eye on about 10 pages to get informations about all my friends.
David Petherick
1) policy: we can change our minds abotu what we do with your data and we can kick you off anytime and spam you and sell your demegraphic information anytime
2) integration: there is very little data portability and use of open standards
3) accessibility: most suck on a mobile phone browser, and most suck in terms of design for those with disability such as being unable to input via keyboard, or see images and icons clearly
4) user interface usability: see above - too many try to be clever rather than functional
5) aesthetics: bad bad bad design and reliance on shcking browsers like Internet Explorer
6) features: Everybody is imitating everyone else - with perhaps one exception: http://getnaked.com
Steve Ledbetter
I find that most are either too simple or have way too much going on. Facebook has actually been a victim of both. Of all of them, Virb seems to be the one to reach the best level of balance, but it still has some work to do.
Design is also a big issue. Giving novices the ability to customize anything is a bad idea. There’s enough ugly web in this world to go around. So, keeping everything clean and readable, much like this blog, is a big issue to me.
phlux
First, I’ll wax philosophical, there is nothing wrong with any of the social networks, or how they work. They work exactly the way they should. Can they work any differently, right now, at this very moment? No. So the first thing to do is accept the way they are, not condemn them.
Second, technology works best when it is used to create an experience that is familiar, that replicates the tangible “real” world experience. For some people, they are heavily integrated into social organizations within their communities. There are some people who only interact with a choice few, and rarely participate in social engagements. There are some who “want” to be more involved, but are shy, or not sure about how to do it, or where to go. And some who just complain about everything, and some… you get the point. There are a lot of people out there.
One doesn’t have to look very far to see that the “real world” and online social networks actually are very similar.
If you want to see a change in the way social networks work, start with your life and the way “your” social networks work. When you can evolve those experiences, you will concurrently evolve the social network experience.
In my own life, I am someone who is integrated into a lot of social networks, but I don’t participate heavily. They work for me in the sense that I can, at any time, log on and get a quick view of what’s been going on, without actually having to be involved. The most important aspect I need is a trail that I can follow, my intention is not to lose anyone.
If I can create a stream, some way of never losing track of someone, regardless if they don’t update their profile, or if they change email. That I can trust the system will keep tabs on them no matter where they go. That’s what I care about. And that anyone I have lost can find me no matter what. (currently the way I do this is by never changing my phone number, URL or email addressses. I’ve had the same phone number and URL for over 11 years).
I am only one user.
As a final thought and/or observation…Research has shown that although there are 8 billion people on this planet, there are only 16 different personality types. On another note, there are only 4 different blood types (the Chinese can attest to the personality differences found here.)
I’d love to see someone create a social network experience for each of the types. The experience would lend itself to the needs and desires of each type, the technology, widgets, modules, forms, etc, would all be created with each type in mind.
Then, combine the experiences in such a way that when users interact between each other their interactions are also filtered to match the type. And wrap it into one platform. Now that would be remarkable, but most likely, a little ahead of it’s time.
For the time being, technology mimics life, and currently, this is exactly how life works. It’s haphazard at best.