Shawn Butts

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With the recent release of Google's latest social app (buzz) I finally feel the need to step and say what I've been thinking about social networking for a long time now.

You see, I'm a geek in general, and a computer/internet geek in particular.  This means I spend the better part of my time on the computer.  This also means I spend much of my time seeking, consuming, and creating information on the interwebernets.  Like many of my fellow computer geeks, and an increasing number of family members I like to keep in touch with everyone via the net.  Like many people that use this stuff for a leaving I try just about every new things that comes along.  This means I get to pick the new things I like the most (I miss you Pownce) and let the rest go unused.  This leads to some rather annoying issues.

The first is separation.  These silos of social connections are really starting to get to me. I can follow most of my fellow geeks on any of these networks.  They signup for almost everything just like I do.  But, we each pick our own favorites and mostly ignore the rest.  For family members, it's even worse of an issue.  For example, my father recently started using facebook.  This as allowed us to keep in contact more than ever before.  Same for my siblings.  However, I'm ready to move on from facebook and can't ask them or anyone else to follow me around the internet.  For the vast majority of people it hard enough to learn how to use one site. (note to facebook and the others, don't change your interface in major ways too often).

The second is usability choice.  I realize this part is personal preference and that the majority of people will have other preferences.  However, I still feel I need to say this for those of you that agree.  I hate web apps.  I hate flash apps.  I hate air apps.  I know everything has to be a web app these days and I'll admit some of them are very nice.  However, the more I use something the more I want an app native to my platform.  The only reason why I tweet as much as I do is because I almost never have to log into twitter via the web.  I have an app for my mac and an app for my phone.  Here's an example.  I'm trying yet again to really "get" google wave.  But, I don't want to stay logged into a webpage all day.  So, I'm on the hunt for an app that makes it more usable in the way I want to use it.  But, so far all the apps I'm finding just put the web app in a box.  Not really integrated the way a native app would be.  So, I will likely give up on wave again.  At least until a good app comes along.

 

So, now that I've laid out my gripes; on to the meat of this post.

I want someone to create yet another social network service that provides the following.  

I want to be able to post in a single place and selectively have that service post for me on all the other sites I want or to post on any of the other sites and have it replicate that out as I want.  When I say "selectively" I mean per post.  I might post something everywhere.  I might want to post something just to twitter.  I want full control over it.  If I post something to flickr in a particular folder with a particular tag, all of my own choosing, I want a rule that says post it to twitter, and facebook as well as take the original size of that picture and post it to a specific mobileme gallery as well.

I want to be able to see all the posts from all the other social networks in one place.  I want full control here too.  I want to be able to ignore any posts from a facebook app for a particular user or any user.  I also want time controls.  Maybe I want to queue everything posted from everything but twitter until after 5pm unless the post comes from a flickr feed and contains the word "snowball" to cut down on distractions.

I want to reply to posts from other people. Here too, full control.  I want the option to post the reply to my whole social network, or just on the native network of the original post.  

I want this service to have a completely open API and a dedicated group of developers (employed by the service) providing native and full featured apps for any OS with more than a million real work users.  This means I have an app for 95% of the platforms I would use as well as the opportunity for anyone to make a better app for those platforms or for the missing 5%.

I want this service to also be completely transparent to the users of the other networks.  I don't to ask other people to go here and signup for this so I can follow you or click this link to this other site to see my reply.

 

 

 

In short, I want a single silo that pulls together all the other silos and gives me full control over how I use and interact with all of them together, individual silos, or individual users of the other silos.

I'd be will to pay for such a service and I'm sure other would to.  I think $10 a month to give me the flexibility to intelligently consume my network of social streams the way I want, and to seamlessly interact with the users of those networks without getting in the way tremendous value.  I might even go to $20.  I think others like me that live in these networks would too.

 

Dear creators of all things interwebernet related; go forth and meet my demands so I can give you my money and make you rich.