Vox#1 - Neighborhoods = dynamic aggregation channels
So I’m cruising through Vox - recreating that effect I had when I first cruised through Orkut. I’m clicking on faces that brings me to someone’s profile page where I then click on their list of neighbors and see their whole list of connections which then causes me to click on someone else’s face.
I quickly (in less than :30) assemembled a list of the usual subjects - the same dam people I hook up with at every social network. But this one is different. Its from SixApart and its supposed to be for Mena’s mom.
They really seem to have combined the notion of a blogging tool and social networking in the right way - with their ‘neighborhoods’. These ‘aggregated channels’ are combinations of the posts that you and your friends create and one can then subscribe to. The Neighborhoods notion is also applied to sharing photos, video and audio - as well as lists of fav books. I gotta find out if they also aggregate fav movies or music albums - and if all this stuff is in the feed. ‘Cause then we’ll have a spec for a ‘compound feed’!)
Each person’s neighborhood is different as we all have different sets of friends - but Vox’s design is so simple and sublime that I’m sure even Mena’s Mom will grok it. It brings aggregation to the mainstream (just as Mary was pointing out how the word aggregation is being misused.)
Neighborhoods as dynamic aggregation channels brings a complex concept to mainstream use. Its like when we provided synchronized authoring of media types over time in our Director Timeline. When you hit it right - it just works.
Nowadays there are all sorts of really difficult notions to try and explain. Every cutting edge feature becomes a marketing challenge - “how do you explain something to somebody - if it has never existed before?”
I get criticized all the time for being far out there, too into the future, too much for now, assuming that everyone will understand what the fuck it is I’m trying to say. That’s my curse - whether I like it or not - and I can’t change who I am.
So I spend allot of time looking for stepping stones, transitionary paths, features and implementations that fulfill many of the notions I have in my head - which are bursting to get out.
So here’s a laundry list from Vox of coolio things they’ve achieved. In each case they haven’t gone far enough or do I think they’re finished, but they’re all great starts to what’s coming down the pike for all of us:
1. Dynamic Aggregation channels = their neighborhoods form on-the-fly groupings
2. Hardwired interfaces = to a limited # of web services/partners
3. New distribution channels = open APIs and new ways of inter-connecting ourselves together
4. Integrated media gallery = built in media repositiories
5. Microcontent publishing = podcasting vlogging, collections, images
6. Ease of use = ajax - simple slean - Laszlo
7. Hosted experience = money - biz model - chaNGE EXPERIENCE - MIGRATE USERS EXPERIENCE
8. Mobile
9. Community - this is the most intangible as it’s 2% technology and 98% networking, schmoozing and party throwing.
10. Big time hussling = funded, pro bizdev, international, pro PR, quality coders, acquisitions, smart board
To me - Vox fulfills the destiny of blogrolls and what a lot of people meant when they said that “the blogoshere is the new era of on-line communities”.
Other social networks have flirted with this notion and attempted to create the effect, but only SixApart has done that - for me. The fact that they cloned the Flickr approach to defining relationships works perfectly - and shows that they’re not ‘too smart’ to NOT copy from others.
So I’m going to followup this post with nine more - each based upon another kind aspect of Vox. I’ll explore the idea of new kinds of distribution channels, what is ‘ease of use, some of the secrets to what makes SixApart for successful and why hosted software experiences mean business model.
I really like Vox. Its got that fuzzy kind of community feel to it AND it supports microcontent.
The only issue now is “where are the APIs?”
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