Social Networking Concept - Complex Identity, Managing Interests/Interactions
Recently I have been taken back by the whole concept of social networking. While I have been a user of Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter for a few years now, I never really saw it as a career option. However, one day I was messing around with a non profit music website that I was having created and noticed that my possibilities were limited. In turn I decided to expand on my idea, but instead stumbled into something much more large scale.<p>What should one do next? Well... I started to create my layouts and talk to my webmaster about development (I'm not a programmer). The problem was, I instantly was very naive about the process. I just assumed that because this was someone I worked with before, that he would automatically share my vision for the project and nose dive straight in. To put it lightly, I was wrong. However, a lot of good came out of it. I began to push myself further and further towards my goal. I watched hours of Youtube videos from start-up founders and social media gurus, plus I read a number of articles and the book The Facebook Effect. The scary thing was, while I have never been a tech guy, the concepts that they were wishing were created were the very same things that my social networking concept would fix. Of course the problem being, I'm not a programmer and most things look better on paper than executed. A tech member in my family sent me here for advice, So I want to know if anyone here thinks my vision is possible and if they know anyone interested in jumping aboard.<p>We all know that everyone is working towards moving into the web 3.0 stage. However, most people aren't aware that the current social networking giants are behind the curve when it comes to the actual social part of their projects. While Facebook is the current leader, even their vision is hazy at this point. They want people to have only one identity online, but fail to realize that someone's identity is very complex and cannot be housed on one single page or profile. In an attempt to collect already existing data and organize it, Diaspora was created. The problem there is, you are still only limited to the options that the narrow minded social networking profiles are providing. Through my concept, everything is scaled back to just being purely social. Instead of taking on an approach of being a ruler of the internet like Facebook wants to be as a platform, Twitter wants to be as mobile tool, and Myspace wants to be as a media outlet, my concept is to bring people back to the AOL days, but within social networking. My vision is simple. I want to improve the way people socially communicate online, in order for them to take that new perspective out into the offline world. Of course, in doing so we would work with existing networks like Facebook, considering they are already an integrated part of how users already communicate online.<p>The biggest reason why Facebook has gone wrong is how limited they allow users to be in their interactions. Because of the new layouts, users have a very difficult time meeting new people through the service. Because of this trend, users have become numb to the process and rarely let people in who are not in their already offline network. Of course this is because of privacy issues and the fact that people aren't aware of who they might be able to trust. After all, Myspace forces you to give up the majority of your information to the world, while Facebook has an all or nothing mentality. With my concept, not only have I developed an easy system for people to want to seek out people based on their interests, but I thought up a tool where people can control exactly what individuals can see what information. This takes social networking back to its core, where Facebook and Myspace should have been.<p>Since an identity is complex, the profile holds more information than that of other networks. In return, the profile process acts as an offline interaction does. As you communicate more with a person, you gain access to more information and the communication gets more intense.<p>I have also factored in major parts of people's lives such as entertainment and a way that they can support talent while in return gaining access to tools that can help them and their friends outside of the internet.<p>I know this is a very general take on my concept (which is fully laid out). But I just wanted to extend my hand and see if anyone here has a passion for projects such as this and might be interested in the coding aspect.<p>Thanks