It’s been almost a year since my Three Rules for Social Websites and many of my feelings are the same. I’ve found the ones that I really like are those that emulate real life. They make it easy to take my real world communication online.
That’s what I’ve liked about del.icio.us. Tagging something “for” a friend has replaced the emails with links I used to send out.
Recently LinkedIn added questions and answers. This allows me to ask questions and provide answers to not only my friends, but my friends-of-friends. This is networking with a purpose, and it’s emulating, and improving upon, real life.
I’ve also played with Facebook and found it a very pleasant tool. If this was around while I was in college, I think I’d have found it indispensable. It does a good job of emulating groups of friends and supplementing offline communication.
Social networks need to find innovative ways to emulate real life. The market for social sites that do something beyond connect people is virtually unlimited.
How do you get a photo in your del.icio.us bookmarks? Or was that added after the fact? I’ve never tried, mainly because I never knew the ability existed.
When a Flickr page is tagged in del.icio.us, it automatically adds the thumbnail. Pretty snazzy.