February 18, 2004
Social Networks need better interfaces
The social networking sites, like orkut, tribe, linked-in, ryze and others are in serious need of interface additions.
That's right, additions. I'm not calling these extensions, improvements, or changes but additions. Mainly because all of what they're currently doing is good, just not enough. What I'd really like to see from these are newsfeeds. That and NNTP interfaces. That's right, good old usenet-style news. Give me a way to get RSS (1.0 please) feeds from things that are 'hit the high points'. Don't bother giving me full-content crap, just give me a way to plug 'em into my reader and get a quick run-down of what's happening.
Then give me an NNTP interface so I can scour the bulk of the content quickly using tools better suited to the task.
We all have different learning styles and absorption rates. Give us access to the data in ways that better suits us. Forcing us into using single interfaces is unacceptable. We will go elsewhere to tools that aren't so short-sighted.
