Thanks to Profy’s article on ShoutEm, I tried out their beta Twitter-esque service. Profy’s got an invite code that should let you in the doors, too.
ShoutEm describes their service as “Ning for Twitters.” While features are light, that’s a pretty good description – with ShoutEm, you can build a themed gated community following Twitter rules (140-character-long messages, public timeline, etc). The expectation, of course, is members will primarily talk about the theme. As an example, you can see the educational technology ShoutEm site I set up, and Svetlana’s profy ShoutEm site.
Setting up the site is easy. ShoutEm walks you through three steps, starting with the name, headline and web address you’d like to use. Unless you’re a paying customer, your web address uses the form *.shoutem.com. Next, select the theme and features and you’re ready to roll out your new gated Twitter.
I know this service is still in beta, so I expect some missing functionality and hitches. Some features, however, strike me as such glaring oversight that I wonder if ShoutEm intends to not include them, or include them only as part of a paid subscription. For instance:
- After creating edtech.shoutem.com, while I could upload pictures to modify theme elements, like background and header images, I couldn’t select a new theme.
- More frustrating, once I created edtech.shoutem.com, I couldn’t change the network features, like automatically accepting new members or enabling subscriptions.
- After creating a ShoutEm account and setting up a new network, my login credentials did not work for Profy’s ShoutEm site. I’m sure this is a “feature, not a bug,” as the intent is to provide gated communities. Still, I don’t understand why I can’t carry my single ShoutEm profile from one community to another.
- Also, I don’t see a way to aggregate the public timelines for all networks I belong to.
- Finally, there’s no directory of public communities. I imagine this is a feature missing due to ShoutEm’s beta status, as any social network relies heavily on the “social.” If I can’t discover new friends and networks to join, I have very little motivation to continue checking both ShoutEm and Twitter.
I see two benefits to using ShoutEm over Twitter. First, the themed network helps find members with interests I share, and sets an expectation we’ll be talking about that interest. While some Twitter directories exist (for instance, Jane Hart maintains a list of educators on Twitter), and Twitter clients like Tweetdeck allow you to create groups, it’s still a crapshoot to discover people to follow that discuss topics interesting to you. By creating themed gated communities, ShoutEm attempts to sort people out by interest, guaranteeing a group of people you (hopefully) connect with.
Second, ShoutEm allows for private, invite-only networks, possibly very useful for companies and organizations in particular. However, if Twitter is smart, gated communities (or at least groups in some fashion) is their next step to monetization, which could affect ShoutEm’s future. Also, ShoutEm competes with several other similar services, such as Twingr, Yammer and Present.ly. Each network currently has its niche, but it won’t be long until they’re poaching on one another’s features.
Laconica, on the other hand, presents an interesting alternative to all of these hosted services, including Twitter itself. Built on PHP and Jabber protocols, Laconica’s open-source, self-hosted nature is exciting all on its own – but there’s more. Laconica is built from the ground up to support federation, the ability to share public timelines between Laconica sites. Eventually, not only will Laconica support pulling messages from other Laconica networks, but it will also pull messages in from other networks, like Plurk, Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku. You can see Laconica in action at Leo Laporte’s TWiT Army and Identi.ca, and read more at Identi.ca’s FAQ page.
Micro-blogging is becoming the Wild West of Social Media, with new entrants circling the monetization wagon. Twitter has its tremendous following and large number of third-party clients adding features; Laconica brings the kitchen sink full of “I wish Twitter did …” features and innovation. Perhaps there’s room for a a few more big players in this space, capitalizing on features Twitter and Laconica choose not to support. In any event, this will be an interesting space to watch from the sidelines.
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