43 Things - YASNS With a Point
It seems like there are more and more social networking services popping up all the time, but many of them are no more than a rehash of what SixDegrees used to be — i.e., I know you, and you know somebody else, and we’re all connected. It was a brilliantly innovative idea, but unfortunately not extremely useful, which might explain why SixDegrees isn’t around any more.
Fortunately, the nature of innovation is such that people build on the ground-breaking ideas of others, and now we’re starting to see people come up with ways to actually do something, like share musical tastes or trade business contacts, with social networking services.
Well, here’s another one. 43 Things allows you to form networks based on common personal goals. If I want to learn Spanish, I can mark that as my goal and I’m instantly connected to everyone else with that interest. Each goal has a blog to which its participants can contribute, so you have people sharing their advice and experiences.
It’s pretty interesting so far, as I’ve been exploring and marking so many of those things that I’d love to do and never get around to. One small issue that, since the interests are user-contributed, I’ve noticed is that there multiple goals that basically mean the same thing, which could cause missed potential connections if the participants of one don’t know about the other. Still, having the possibility lends to the free-form spirit that allows interesting unexpected developments in group-based technology.
It’s in beta and is currently invitation-based, so if you want to give it a spin, send a comment with your email address (it won’t show up on the blog) and I’ll send you an invite!
5 Comments so far
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I agree that social networking tools are much more useful when they’re a feature of somthing that serves a useful purpose, rather than an end in themselves. That’s why tools like Flickr and del.icio.us have been so successful.
However, I’m not yet sold on 43 Things. Again, the tool is shaped around the “hey, look, I’m part of a group!” approach. How does it help me actually accomplish something? I don’t want to know everyone interested in learning X…that’s still too broad an approach (remember how quickly the groups got out of control in size over on Orkut? how useful is a group of 1500 people, really?).
In contrast, Flickr, del.icio.us, Meetup and the like allow both structured and informal group-forming, and allow connections based on content interests as well as real-world socializing.
Well, perhaps you’re right. I certainly doubt I’ll be using 43 Things more often than del.icio.us. But it seems like there are a couple things it still has going for it.
For one, the connections are slightly more meaningful than “I know you” or “I work with you”. There is a greater level of common interest established that might be strong enough to build on.
Actually, considering your words and thinking about it a little more, it seems like my original “con” might actually be a strength. Allowing arbitrary group formation hopefully serves to keep them at a manageable size.
Also, each “thing’s” blog gives its participants the ability to create a shared journal their progress. That could help build a sense of community and ownership around that particular thing. I consider 43 Things a community blog tool rather than another FOAF site. Maybe that’s the edge it needs. I guess time will tell
Business contacts. I don’t see that working very well. The higher the level of the contact to your business/industry, the less likely you’d be willing to dump their information on a public database. I work with some pretty highlevel people, and discretion is what keeps them.
But regardless, would you consider writing a review? Or could we post your post as a guest reviewer?
Regards,
B.A.R.
http://www.badassreviews.com
Well, I certainly have reservations about the effectiveness of business contact trading. Though that’s not what 43 Things is about — I was just using jigsaw as a comparative example. I’ll be glad to write something up for you once I’ve had time to form a more solid opinion on 43 Things. Sound good? Thanks for the comments!
Are you kidding? I would be honored!!
That would be fantastic! I’ll take whatever I can get a short, couple paragraphs, whatever would wonderful.
Thank you!
B.A.R.
http://www.badassreviews.com