I went on a social networking research rampage tonight in response to the news that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook support the new SOPA bill clone CISPA. First I went and researched what viable sites might be worth checking out as facebook alternatives. You know, there needs to be a newsfeed going based on your interests and when your friends say stuff in the newsfeed you generally give a shit,that’s why they are there after all and not blocked, and you hope they give a shit about things you say; and don’t block you. If you deeply agree with some friends you barely knew that added you on facebook after a night at the bar on all manner of things like, for example, how awesome sarcastic E-cards are; or Occupy Wall St. love it or hate it, or whether Brock Lesnar sucked or had talent in the UFC; then all of a sudden you have met your new news feed soulmate and entered personal satisfaction Nirvana; at least for the next 5 minutes until you go play "Words with Friends" or "Bubble Witch". You know; FACEBOOK.
So in an effort to see if there were other places where this magic could take place I joined Bebo, Badoo, Google plus, and checked out the current state of Myspace. These were the ones that the Wikipedia article on “Social networking sites” said should be close matches. Bebo is apparently a dead and dying old myspace style site. I had never even heard of it before checking out the link I posted. So I immediately went and joined up and checked things out. They suck balls. It’s pretty terrible. There is no easy way to find any friends. Every profile, NO JOKE, ALL OF THEM, listed peoples most recent activity and that activity was from 2009. EVERY PROFILE I LOOKED AT. It was kind of like looking at a death date on a headstone in a graveyard your car broke down next to.
Badoo is listed as a "General" networking site, but it is definitely a dating site. It is CRAZY EASY to get a profile up on Badoo though. You single? Get your ass on over to Badoo. The site is cool, the interface is slick, and you won’t be single that long if you are at least both fishing for dates there and not clinically insane. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of you single motherfuckers are def clinically insane so let’s just pretend you’re not and focus on making some sacrifices and hooking up eh? Rofl. At the Badoo site nearly every time you click on anything the site prompts you to put in pics. And the pics can come from facebook. THAT’S HUGE. Google+ doesn’t even do that. Too bad these geniuses don't run a more "Hang out with friends" kind of place like Facebook or Myspace. They could run the show.
Myspace was a surprising journey tonight. Justin Timberlake bought it awhile back, not too long ago, and there have definitely been a wide variety of changes. The news feed looks just like Facebook now, and you will remember that is what this journey into social networking started off as. The search for a Facebook replacement. So now Myspace has a very Facebook like interface and design, while at the same time, allowing you to set up your info page like you always did before. I think if they made you use your real name, they would be a very legitimate option. It’s too bad they fail to have anywhere near the game attractiveness of Facebook or Google. It’s also a shame they can’t relaunch under a new site name and allow existing myspace users to log in with their old myspace credentials. SPACEBOOK! I think that is realistically all they would need. Oh and maybe a juggernaut like ABC and DISNEY pushing their name in nearly every hosted show like they do for Facebook. Timberlake might have some dough but he doesn’t have that kind of swagger to through around. He does have a great deal of pull with NBC due to his SNL fame though. Maybe they could work something out.
The king daddy option of the night however was Google+. Google has Facebooks number. And they are Google. They have free books, and free games, and they offer some of the best perks in the world as an employer. They stand up to governments when Governments get annoyed with wikileaks and want to ransack internet users information. GOOGLE IS GOOD PEOPLE is what I am getting at. They have respect for individual rights, and a brilliant vision for the future of mankind. Oh and yeah, they have Zynga games. And blogging. And photos. And newsfeeds for your friends. And their user group interface where you can just shuffle people in and out of different news feeds… left me speechless. I am definitely happy Zuckerberg put himself forward as a supporter of castrating the internet tonight; if he hadn’t I wouldn’t have done this research and discovered how good Google+ was finally. Jesus, wtf was I waiting for? I guess I was just another satisfied Facebook sheep.
The bottom line tonight is that I left out a lot of sites like Reddit, and Gawker, and LinkedIn, and Pinterest because I wanted a “Facebook” style site that was about 90% EXACTLY like what we all love about Facebook. Myspace has some of the games we know from facebook, but not a lot of them. Honestly Myspace has really kind of transformed into a very facebook style place as of late though and are worth a login to your old account at the least. Myspace still rocks Facebook’s face as far as being able to have music on your profile, and lets not forget that there is a “Forgot Password” button on their login page. Facebook’s real competition that I found though tonight is Google+. Google+ has Facebooks number. IT HAS FACEBOOK’S FACE SON! Google+ has all the games, maybe not the exact games, but the Google+ version of the same Facebook games from the same publisher, Zynga, and a slick android marketplace interface for your droid phone to get those games and apps too. If you are rockin a droid phone, you really ought to be on Google+. Hell, if you support keeping the internet the way it is you should be on Google+. See you around ;)
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/
Google+: https://plus.google.com
List of Social networking sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
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