Welcome to Social Media Answers
Thanks for stopping by social media answers. While it looks like the site is up and running the official launch date isn’t until December 1st January 5th. Currently I am reviewing niche social networks and am posting frequently. (So if you are thinking about subscribing via RSS I want to warn you there will be a lot of short review posts over the next few weeks.)
After the site launch in December January I will be sharing with you information about social media strategy, answering questions, and helping make sense of the world that is social media.
A review of BrightKite
Site: Brightkite
Members: ???
Features: Brightkite is a another mobile platform that allows you to alert people of your location. You can friend, message, and mark the places you have visited. With each location you visit you can update information and leave comments about it.
Additionally you can upload pictures to the service.
Review: Brightkite is probably my favorite mobile based service. I am making an effort to use it a little bit more this year. The site is well designed and easy to use. (That has become the most overused phrase on this blog.) It just has a great clean look to it with smooth UI.
The community is growing on here but you can tell there are places that just have more of a user base which is common with any newer type of site. While I don’t think adoption of this site is going to be high I can image it having a growing and loyal user base.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
Plazes Review
Site: Plazes
Members: ????
Features: Plazes is a European based mobile community. Users can fill out profiles, join groups, see what other mobile users are around, and update your status. You can leave your location and what you are doing there. Your friends, group members, and the general public can see your updates depending on which security setting you use. One interesting feature is you can future date the places you will be attending.
Review: I like Plazes. It has a simple design and is very easy to use. The clean look draws you in and you don’t feel overwhelmed while trying to figure out the service. The groups have a lot of members and there is a good amount of people using the site. Just a warning though this site has more of an international feel unlike sites like Brightkite.com which has more of a US tinge to it.
Plazes though is a solid service and one that I would recommend.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
MyGamma Review
Site: MyGamma
Members: ???
Features: MyGamma has a pretty strong user base in Asia for their services which include mobile blogging, photo sharing, games, groups, and other features. The site allows users to connect and interact with each other through multiple features. MyGamma has a large mobile presence and allows users to connect through the site through their phones to share their created content.
Review: I tried to get into MyGamma a mobile social network. However I almost had a seizure looking at their site with the multiple rotating ads and flashy things.
The site has a really outdated look and feel to it and really could stand to get an overhaul that presents their services a little better.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
Frengo Review
Site: Frengo
Members: ???
Features: If you ever wanted to have a ton of applications that you find on social networking sites right on your phone Frengo is the service to make that happen. Through Frengo you can use a lot of applications that you find on social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, and Hi-5. This is a new possible revenue source for application developers as well because it allows the application to bring in SMS and other mobile charges.
Review: From a developers side of things this site is really interesting because it allows them to get their apps to a larger audience and grow their business. From a community standpoint this site a failure because it is so overtly set up for the marketer that the users would have to be blind not to see it. They need to figure out how to try to accomplish reaching the end user and reaching the marketer/app maker in two different ways. Trying to combine both right on the front page of the site is a little off putting.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
A Twixtr Review
Site: Twixtr
Members: ????
Features: Twixtr is a mobile photo service that allows users to share their recent photos taken on their mobile phones to twitter, flickr, picasa, and facebook. Additionally you can do status updates as well like most microblogging sites. You can add friends on the service through importing your contact lists from various sites. Much like twitter you create a public timeline as well.
Review: Twixtr is more of a microblogging platform than a traditional social networking site. The site is easy to use and navigate. Personally I have been using services like twit2pic and trying a few others but I find that this is interesting because it helps push your content into multiple places at once, which I like.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
A review of Zemble
Site: Zemble
Members: ???
Features: Zemble allows for mass messaging to friends via text through their interface. You can also choose to reply to all who received the message through the service. Zemble also has profiles, groups (like grouping your friends for various types of text messages), and small communities on the site.
Zemble also has a mobile marketing division, enterprise solution, and a mobile ad network. I would imagine that this is their main source of revenue for the company.
Review: Zemble is a very easy to use site with a clean layout. I think that this is a service that has been hurt by some sites that are a little more advanced and microblogging. The communities didn’t have a lot of activity around them. It doesn’t seem like there is a whole lot of usage of this service. Most of the groups on here had under five people.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
A review of FanBox
Site: FanBox
Members: ???
Features: FanBox allows people to create hubs for content, services, or media. The whole goal is to get your followers to upload their cell phone numbers in order to access it. Once you do that FanBox pays you for these numbers
Review: I feel dirty just looking at this site. I started to read their terms of service and just overall feel that this site is around to harvest data, oh and to share great content. Well at least that is what they say.
I am going to go bleach my eyes and pretend this never happened.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
A review of ZYB
Site: ZYB
Members: ???
Features: ZYB is a contact integration service that allows users to access their contacts on the phone or via the net. The information can be updated by any of their friends through the network and can be synced to their phone or computer. ZYB also shows the status updates from friends via Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social applications.
Review: The one main feature I like about ZYB is that it will aggregate the various contact lists that I have. Well I mean conceptually I like the idea. I had major issues getting my gmail contacts to import and it heavily lagged when trying to use facebook. Even if I did import them all into their site I can’t export the newly aggregated contact section. Not that it is a surprise since most social sites don’t want you exporting anything from their site.
I guess ZYB works for people that don’t use Outlook or something of that nature to manage their contacts. Personally I aggregate my contacts via a couple of applications on my Mac and import them into my phone. While the web aggregation would be nice I don’t like having my data trapped. I might consider using this as more of a backup than anything else.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
A review of GyPSii
Site: GyPSii
Members: ???
Features: Through GyPSii you can upload and share your favorite places. Once you have uploaded your favorite places you can use a map to show the location, upload content from the trip, post to a bulletin board, and rate the place. Users can come in and share their experience. There is a setup for mobile phone postings as well.
Review: GyPSii is a site that technology has past by. Other mobile sites have a better layout and much more content generated. Rating sites do a better job of evaluating establishments. GyPSii is trying to do both and it doesn’t work. This site has seen it’s peak and I don’t think it will be returning there anytime soon.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
A review of GotZapp
Site: GotZapp
Members: ????
Features: GotZapp allows Blackberry users to download Zapps which is bundled content around an artist, show, or something of that natures. Zapps include picture, info, music, and other content.
In the community of the site users can message each other, rate zapps, comment zapps, and add other users as friends. There is a tool to create zapps on the site which allows users to bundle the content they want together.
Review: GotZapp is a fun site for Blackberry owners. I like the concept of bundling content together and making it a download. Kind of like the whole idea of downloading themes for desktops. The community isn’t all that strong on the site but this is a fairly targeted niche so that is to be expected.
Check out my semi complete list of niche social networks
