Common Thread
To delve deeper into the site, I thought the only way I could so was to join the site. Although many of the features are much like my Facebook page (upload photos, friends list, etc.), there are some differences in it that I stated in my earlier post. But what I find more interesting are the users on the site. Now obviously they don't just have a giant page of who is on the site, but when I try browsing for friends the most prominent people on the site are African American males and females Why? I have no idea. The site has pictures of all races and genders. The members are all over the country, so the site isn't just popular in one city/state. Of course there are other races and genders but it seems to be predominantly African African men & women.
Official & Unofficial Writing
When it comes to the writing of the site, it is an formal type of writing. It is all bullet pointed and very proper. Not old english proper, but it doesn't try to be a member of the site. And there is certainly a unified voice of officialness on the site. When it comes to the user generated writing, that varies of course from person to person. But overall, like all social networking sites, I think the writing is low level and to the point. I'm not sure if there is a term for it, but its the type of English supplemented to get to the point in less characters. Love is luv, cause is cuz, talk to you later is ttyl, and so on. But that is the case with nearly every social networking site I have come across on my time on the internet.
Overall I don't find the site to be that interesting or that useful as a social networking site. I see how they are trying to expand the medium of SNSs but I don't think it's enough. Adding a few games and a few questionaires isn't going to make you the next Facebook. And I think that's what every SNS should be striving for, being the next best thing. This site seems to just add on to the old basics. Even the template (pictured above) is much like Facebook & Myspace and doesn't try anything new. I don't think I'll be keeping my membership to the site since I already have email, Facebook, and plenty of real life friends. But perhaps for the lonely this could be a good tool to meet internet strangers, but I am unsure if it would work.
Where you attended methodically to the seven questions I posed, you did a solid job; however, you didn't address them all--certainly not with a uniform attention. Also, this second part was short on links and visual support.
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