01_facebook
Obviously one of the most popular social networks, Facebook has an interesting set of features that could inspire us.
- the wall- probably the most attractive feature, allows ‘friends’ to write on each others ‘public space’. The Wall allows you to leave a message on your friends wall. Your comment can be made public (’write on ‘friends’ wall’, or private, through the wall-to wall application). Additionally ‘ the wall’ allows for multimedia uploads, (application fun wall) where users can upload photos, videos and sound.
- the profile set up. I have noticed among my friends how popular the ‘current status’ feature is. What appears next to your picture as e.g. ‘ Anna is…’
- the extra playful features : poking, booze mail, send a growing gift, turn your friends in zombies, take a quiz, make your aquarium, your garden, your solar system, its a never ending list. Personally, as a user I usually ignore these features, nevertheless the ‘object’ orientated interaction, sending ‘objects’ in addition to leaving messages for your friends could be somehow applied to a class related space. For example your peer could send you a ‘cookie’ to reward you for an essay.
( you can also check out the ‘new yahoo social network called : yahoo mash)
02_Hi-5
Along with Facebook Hi-5 started as a college site. Therefore its set up and list of features ( lifestyle, interests, backround, groups, schools, photo albums, videos, widgets) are following a common path. Nevertheless there are some interesting applications in the widget part that could inspire us.
- slideshows : Could be used for presentations. this application mashes up with Friendster, Bebo, My Space, Tagged, Slide, photobucket, Flickr and Facebook. If we are going for a school network that reaches out to other socila networks the students might already use then this is a good way to go. If we are aiming to a more closed structure, a simple slideshow application, for in class presentations could be useful!
- guest book: similar to the wall, provides a more concrete interface of a dynamic space that allows uploading multimedia files.
- games : various casual games can be brought to your account by bigger websites such as shock wave etc.
( similar to this is the social network Friendster )
03_My space.
What is appealing in my space is the emphasis given on the users , literally what the title implies. Thus in ‘their space’ there are a couple of interesting features we could look at.
- Mypage :configuration of your page. add colors
- Myblog :basically implementing a blog structure in the users space. Fairly simple and easy to use.
04_ Gaia Online, is one of the best examples of both a visual layout as well as dividing through a playful, game related terminology the different domains and activities.
- Arenas : submit artwork | build your avatar | organize your home
- Journals : interesting layout with speech bubbles, as well as integrated design of the users avatar, current status and information.
- Collectibles for your avatar : these remind me the pokemon games and I think could be an interesting feature, especially if they somehow relate to your school activities. Not necessary connected to a rating system, as they do in Gaia but perhaps have to do with a trading set up.
- Mailbox: necessary to build in our system, mailbox could be closely related to
- My stuff: includes the avatar inventory and the locker (to store stuff).
- Guilts and Towns
- Forums : are divided in discussions | announcements | general discussion | question and assistance | lifestyle discussion | introduce your self | extended discussion |site feedback. What I particularly find interesting is the division between discussions ( serious ones- fun ones?) This could be implemented as an underline system for both teachers and students to set up discussions. Another inspiring idea is the word forum. I was thinking of an exquisite corpse mechanic implemented in the ELA class forum for example.
- World Map: also a very nice visualization of a site map (includes Forum, ArtArena, Guilts, Shopping, flower shop-jewelery shop, Towns)
- Marketplace: even though this is related to ‘gold’ prices within Gaia Towns i was thinking that a diagram feature could be used in our case for teachers to see the progress of their students, throughout the curriculum.
- Cinemas- a space to watch movies- perhaps professors can post you tube videos?
- Mini Comic Archive- potentially to upload storyboards?
similar to Gaia is the skype avatar building engine called weeworld05_ Guild Cafe
In Guild Cafe, you mainly have four different areas on the arena, the ‘About me’, the ‘Invite your friends’, the ‘Shoutbox’ and ‘The personal page’. Subcategories in the Personal page are the ‘Score and Profiles’ as well as the ‘Badges’.
- ‘About me’: avatar setting
- ‘Invite a friend’ : thumbnail that leads you to a find friends page as well as a small network visualization of your friends and the networks they belong to.
- ‘Shoutbox’ : sends you to the home page where you can check up what’s happening around the communities, news and so on.
- ‘Personal page’ : includes information about the following areas
a) attitude: current status
b) admiration: gain the respect of other players
c) respect : give respect points to other players
d) questionnaires : surveys
- Score and Profiles: store information about your characters including attribute and equipment information.
- Badges : collect badges based on the admiration you have gained!
Care2 is an environmentally orientated social network that promotes involvement in various green issues through a forum and a donation set up. Despite the dense layout there is an interesting idea behind care2 regarding setting up a guiding system that relies on tagging. e.g. when you go to photos, you can see the categories that are more popular and so on. Technorati, wordpress, flickr, twitter and other sites also use that structure. When it is implemented alongside with other search engine settings it can be confusing, but in care2 it is used as a primary way to find photos posted by the network’s members, which is succesfull. For more about tagging you can look up tagged
A social network where you connect to people that share the same experience as you. Anonymity is obligatory in this site, which makes it really interesting in terms of defining your identity through an experience. In terms of connecting such a project to Being Me, it would be interesting to see how communities of students are formed based on, e.g. experiences, interests, etc.
(similar idea is the ‘43 things you want to do with life ?’ 43 things )
08_dodgeball : obviously whats interesting about dodgeball is the mobile interface experience. Also they have a well structured site layout. (also see twitter)
09_booklovers http://www.shelfari.com/
