What is People Aggregator?
That's a good question. ;)
When we first started talking with Marc about People Aggregator, I understood, but was a bit confused...did the world need another social network?
Well, no...it doesn't...but even though that's what it looks like today, that isn't what People Aggregator is supposed to do. In fact, it isn't about People Aggregator at all (or about Marc)...it's about you.
What? Sounds like a load of bull? It usually is, you are right.
In fact, when Marc first hired Citizen Agency to help with the community marketing and to help build the developers network, he asked me if I would be blogging about PA. I said, "No." :) What I really meant was, I'm not just going to blog about our clients because we are being paid to work for you. That is insincere and my readers are way smarter than that.
But today, after using PA for a little bit and thinking about where it currently is and where it should be going, I thought I'd blog about it.
Today, People Aggregator is not where it should be. Today, I may stumble upon it because Marc asked me to look at it, then lose interest very quickly because it is:
But wait! There is a bigger mission here...and this is where it gets interesting.
Marc tells me he wanted to launch PA now to start developing it in the open, where they could bring in feedback and create something of use. That's #1. Great. We have to communicate that:
When we first started talking with Marc about People Aggregator, I understood, but was a bit confused...did the world need another social network?
Well, no...it doesn't...but even though that's what it looks like today, that isn't what People Aggregator is supposed to do. In fact, it isn't about People Aggregator at all (or about Marc)...it's about you.
What? Sounds like a load of bull? It usually is, you are right.
In fact, when Marc first hired Citizen Agency to help with the community marketing and to help build the developers network, he asked me if I would be blogging about PA. I said, "No." :) What I really meant was, I'm not just going to blog about our clients because we are being paid to work for you. That is insincere and my readers are way smarter than that.
But today, after using PA for a little bit and thinking about where it currently is and where it should be going, I thought I'd blog about it.
Today, People Aggregator is not where it should be. Today, I may stumble upon it because Marc asked me to look at it, then lose interest very quickly because it is:
- hard to use
- confusing
- not so pretty
- nothing that would interest me & none of my friends spend time there
- not customizable
- not totally working
- has a funny name (and I'm not partial to PeepAgg, either)
- etc.
But wait! There is a bigger mission here...and this is where it gets interesting.
Marc tells me he wanted to launch PA now to start developing it in the open, where they could bring in feedback and create something of use. That's #1. Great. We have to communicate that:
"You think it's ugly? What would you do to change it?" We'd love to see your feedback and ideas.
Marc also tells me that his ultimate goal is to free people's information - import/export/etc. using web standards such as Microformats, XFN and OpenID. He'll even support that other stuff like FOAF and Structured Blogging. And, of course he wants you to use PA to do all of this. Why wouldn't he? He's setting the stage for some major online shake ups.
So I'd ask you:
Marc also tells me that his ultimate goal is to free people's information - import/export/etc. using web standards such as Microformats, XFN and OpenID. He'll even support that other stuff like FOAF and Structured Blogging. And, of course he wants you to use PA to do all of this. Why wouldn't he? He's setting the stage for some major online shake ups.
So I'd ask you:
"Is this important to you? How do you want to see your data? Where would you like to take it? Would you use a service that created import/export to port your data between social networks...how about your friends?"
There is, of course, all sorts of other things we need to clear it up and figure out going forward, but I wanted to open up a dialogue here on those two issues. I think we have alot of work to do and, after this crazy period of setting up a business and getting settled in, we will hanker down. It should be a lively summer!
There is, of course, all sorts of other things we need to clear it up and figure out going forward, but I wanted to open up a dialogue here on those two issues. I think we have alot of work to do and, after this crazy period of setting up a business and getting settled in, we will hanker down. It should be a lively summer!
Tags: peopleaggregator, citizenagency
14 Comments:
" He's setting the stage for some major online shake ups."
Tara - Shake ups ..like what ?? I am not seeing anything revolutionary in motion here. What am I missing ??
The 'shake up's will happen when, after Marc, all of these other online companies start freeing up their data.
That's the hope, anyway...but if you don't see that as a shake up, I'd love to hear more.
Are you saying it looks like it was developed by a Red Diaper Baby? :-)
ahhhhhhhh... OK I see it now..
"We’ll host that network for free – as long as they have under >128 members. Over <128 – we’ll add ads to the network – or one can pay to remve the ads ($10 a month.)"
I think we all know how fickle the social network market is. Teens and young adults moving from myspace to bebo to the next big thing next week.
Apart from the obvious time spent creating the personalised pages, I can see only benefits from allowing users to import commonly formatted data to the next big thing.
In fact, the next big thing will be just that if it can provide that seamless transfer feature (like blog import for blogger/wordpres et al.)
One thing that strikes me as a little odd though is that so much of blogging is about individuality yet here we are talking about ways to homogenise personal data!
I think marc's approach is great and PeepAgg is absolutly needed to do the first step in the right direction and to proof the concept.
Let me give you a real life example:
my girlfriend - no geek at all - is open for every single innovation I tell her.
she is envolved in a network of management trainers and has just started up her own business with these people.
they have been looking for a kind of collaboration tool and I introduced her to blogs and wikis. She was absolutley enthusiastic about how easy it was to set up her own wiki and started to invite her co-workers to the wiki ... so and now, they are all working with it.
A few days later, I told her about PeepAgg. I described PeepAgg in the way, that she could set up her own network (same as her real life network), that she could add all her co-workers to it, and that they would have all the tools they need, like blog, groups and so on.
The problem was of cource: nobody is registered at PeepAgg and wants to set up an account.
But all of her co-workers allready have accounts at openBC, mySpace and so on - or other social networks. (Or they have perhaps blogs allready)
So now - if Marcs vision would be reality, she would be able to import all these people from their existing social networks (or blogs) to her new one and they would get started in minutes by clicking everbody together.
Nice vision - it enables people to make things happen very quickly and reduces the barriers of setting up new accounts, get familiar with a new GUI and so on ...
But honestly - after I got her full attention by telling her, what PeepAgg is about ... in the moment she saws it, the enthusiam was gone ;)
I think practical we all have a kind of homebase "social network", which we are using most of the time, but we also attend for a prearranged period of time to other groups or networks - in real life or virtual.
Mapping this (real life) behavior with PeepAgg technology to the web, to build plattform of collaboration or to set up representations of these networks in the web, would be great.
And for this case, I find it absolutley necassary to keep the control over my data. Because someday I could quit this network, join another one and still wanna have the maximum off control over my data.
Things like openID give me the possibilty to control my Identity and give other web services only temporary access to it - but I never loose the control. I think this concept should cover every apsect of online behavior and PeepAgg could be the ground on which this might happen.
I ask every social networking start-up I talk to if they support open ID standards and they say "like PeopleAggregator? We hope to down the road..." lol
Your list of gripes pretty much mirrors my own. It's simply hideous and the lack of personalization is the killer for me.
The workflow is also awful, interface unintuitive, and while the structure behind it sounds good, the implementation is simply awkward.
It's just not fun.
PeepAgg (I hate that name, Tara) is going to be great for early adopters and tech nerds, but I just don't see it catching on with the zillions of teens who use social networking for sex, chatting, and making ugly profile pages. Teens don't care about identity and freeing data, they care about being able to post pictures of themselves and meeting hot people on the internet and leaving lewd remarks for friends.
I've love to see it succeed and I think it will in a certain market, but I don't see it shaking up MySpace or Bebo or any of the other hot social trends of the moment.
I simply can't believe a blogger of reknown like yourself would stoop so low as to shamelessly plug her client's product on her own blog.
Consider yourself unsubscribed!
@hugh
Intereesting...I know you aren't the real hugh...since I was:
a. critiquing said client and asking for feedback
and
b. hugh loves to shamelessly pimp his own clients and products. ;)
;-)
Interesting stuff, Tara. I like what you're doing with Canter, here.
This is the first I've heard of People Aggregator. My first impression, totally naive thought is that it kind of sounds like People Feeds.
Should it?
Before you redesign the site or develop any features, how about some basic questions:
- what business are you in?
- what does the service do for me OR what promise are you making?
- how are you delivering on that promise?
Without that foundation you can go on all you want about Marc Canter and freeing people's information but it won't make sense to people and only a tiny group will care.
Clear the air, clean things up and make it simpler. Today, it just feels oppressively unfocused.
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