Sociosophy

Who knew that when Twitter purchased Summize a while back that they’d turn it into a conveyer belt of awesome? Want to catch up what’s going on in the elections? Election 2008 powered by Twitter to the Rescue. A collection of Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin support/hate/news tweets filled with conversation, links, satire and everything you could ever really want with a decent political discussion around a coffee table with your friends… only faster, broader spectrum, wider scale – we say EXCELLENT and tip our glasses to Twitter.

We’ll keep our political views to the side and leave all the jokes to those spreading them on Twitter about the campaign, but if you’re curious, you should stop by at least and read for a few minutes. It’s hard to not want to hit the reply arrow every minute – if you can catch it that is.

A while back we checked out Zkout and boy was it a little bit ugly. We went back today to see how they were coming along, as they mentioned to us that they made some aesthetic changes. What we found:

1. PRETTY! It’s not bad, kinda bubbly, but it’s well done
2. Twitter! Yes, post notes to Twitter
3. Facebook App
4. Fire Eagle integration

So, what is Zkout? Location-based social networking, also known as a Geo-tracking site. You can update via SMS, email, and the site. The interface is FLEX, which we dig, and there’s an RSS feed of your activity on the site as well (which you can easily share on FriendFeed – click the RSS logo on your profile, copy & paste the link). There are the basics, friends, messages, etc – and chat as well.

I dumped a pretty large photo into the Picture Sharing element of the site, and it worked like a champ. The photo gallery of uploaded photos is pretty well organized, commenting and tagging is simply “there” and quick to access… Actually Zkout is taking good advantage of what FLEX has to offer in terms of usability for user’s and fast access to input.

Zkout. Check it out.

If there was ever a king of contribution spamming to social networks crown made, and a decision needed to be made as to who was going to wear it? Ping.fm would certainly win (with HelloTxt.com in at a very close second). There’s oodles of services you can add, and even drop in your own URL if they don’t have what you need, in fact, there’s an API for this site powered by API’s and that’s just so meta it makes my face spin around my spinning head.

What’s this site for? Contribution, numero uno. If you’re seeking a swinging door solution for all your social networks, this isn’t it. If you’re someone like myself who’s a member of every site they’ve reviewed for a Social Media Review site, like Sociosophy *cough*, then this is where it’s at.

Granted, there isn’t an AIR app for this – though I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. If my FLEX skills were a little better, I’d be all up in their API hammering one out right now, but alas… I digress. Ping.fm is teh rulez most awesumz! They went “open Beta” about 3 weeks ago, so signing up is a breeze. Setting up social networks (if you have… 20 or so?) takes about 10 minutes, after that, you’re off and running!

Hang tight kiddies, we’ll be spamming from Ping.fm until everyone’s so tired of hearing from me the only followers I’ll have left are spam bots and the secondary account I have for sociosophy.

In an online world where “now” is everything and “everywhere” is the place to be, who really has time to keep up with status updates on every site from here to Bangkok? I don’t. I have Twhirl open pretty much whenever I’m in front of my computer, and occasionally remember that it updates Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku all at once (which in turn publishes updates to my FriendFeed, tabber, and SocialThing aggregators)… But what about those one off sites that have a specific audience? Facebook, Plurk, Identi.ca?

Ok, Twhirl offers Identi.ca, but in an entirely new window from Twitter? Not cool. I already have 12 application windows up, why make it 13? That’s unlucky. Solution: Updating.me as a site, and their ever so awesome, pleasant surprise, of an AIR application companion for their site.

Updating.me is mainly for contributing items, as there isn’t much interface for browsing time lines and requests in the services they work with, outside of your identi.ca and Twitter time lines. Here are the services they offer:

• Twitter
• FriendFeed
• Facebook
• Pownce
• Jaiku
• Plurk
• Identi.ca
• Friendster (keeping it old school)
• Koornk
• Rejaw
• TwitArmy

There are certainly more services to follow. When we got into the site today it was a very pleasant surprise to see an AIR app for their site interface, honestly. I think they read Sociosophy and understood our addiction to AIR… That must be it.

Want an invite?

We have 15 invites for our readers. Bear in mind the website is in beta, and there are probably some kinks here and there being worked out, but from what I can tell, the website is FAST (very), and reliable (2 out of 2 posts from Updating.me made it up to my services w/in seconds). Shoot us a DM @sociosophy if you follow us, or @ us if you don’t… which you SHOULD, damn.

Here’s a thought. Let’s pretend that you have this idea, you really like your idea, but something missing. Right now your idea is simply called “your idea”, or more properly Your Idea, and Your Idea really needs an identity that reflects Your Idea. What do you do? Think of an identity on your own? Sure, you can do that, but what if it totally sucks, and the name just makes Your Idea wither and die. Even worse, Your Idea can end up hating you, throw a huge fit, and simply refuse to work because you named Your Idea, “Wilbur”, after some pig your aunt used to own when you were a child (they turned it into bacon by the way).

I recommend, namethis. The concept is simple, let other people pick the crappy names for you! That’s right, let’s just say that 200 people try to name Your Idea, well, if 195 of them are horrible, chances are you’ll have 5 pretty nice ones… and there you go! All the hard work of filtering through crumby names to get to the good ones is done by the masses. Your Idea stays happy, you stay happy, and you can move onto other things like advertising, being choked by venture capitalists, and selling your soul to the devil (a bank).