I've talked about
social networks and the importance of them and the
need of creating an online social persona. I've also gave you a
huge list of social networks that you can join. There are millions of people online who have joined multiple social network sites and like everything else in the world, they want all their information to be compiled into one service. In comes social network aggregators.
There are many different ways compile all your social networking profiles together including a browser, a desktop application, an online application, and an instant messaging like application. I have compiled a lot of them here.
Power.comPower.com connects "all your friends in just one place." In reality they connect your friends from only a few different places:
MySpace,
hi5,
Facebook,
Orkut, and
MSN. So if most of your friends are within those social networks, than this site will be great for you.
HelloTxtHelloTxt seems to be popular and I have seen some
Twitter updates using it. "HelloTxt lets you update your status and read your friends' status across all main microblogging and social networks all at once." When they say all, they mean just about all. If a social network isn't there, don't worry because it probably will be soon. Updating your status on all your online profile is easy with this service.
FriendFeedWhen
Facebook came out with their news feed that showed you everything your friends did, in my fraternity at college we called the stalker feed. FriendFeed reminds me of this except this could actually be useful. Instead of reading about what that hot girl in class said on some other chicks photo you get updates on what your friends upload to the web. Whether it's pictures, videos, music, or news, you will know what your friends are doing.
YoumeoYou and
Me Online is another place to add all your friends. What started as a clubbing/party site evolved into a popular social network site. It allows you to add some of the most popular social networks and see what your friends are doing.
GatheraGathera is a little different than the other online applications. This is more like an instant messaging service that allows you to check your email, your social networks, and chat with your friends in one nice little application. I haven't used it but the flash intro on their website shows you what their application looks like and it seems like people would like Gathera.
SpokeoSpokeo claims it's a friend finder/tracker that brings your friends updates from all over the web. But the way they are seeming to advertise it on their site is as a stalker program. Finding "truly mouth-watering news about friends and coworkers" doesn't sound like a service I want to join. "Uncover personal photos, videos, and secrets...GUARANTEED." They even have an "hr" section where they can research on potential candidate across the 41 networks Spokeo supports. Your profile should be private to those you aren't friends with so this service can't find the "juicy" news it is looking for.
SecondbrainSecondbrain is a different kind of service. Instead of just updating you with your friends status, this service allows you to import all your content from many different services, browse and search for more content, categorize your content, share it, and then "find people through content, and content through people." What kind of content can you import? All your content from bookmarking sites, social bookmarking and news sites, all the blogging platforms, online document sites, picture and video sharing sites, and others. If you have content all over the Internet, than this service will help compile it into one place.
8hands8hands is a similar service to the rest of these, except for the fact that it's a desktop application. "Get notifications of new comments, messages, friend requests, videos, feeds and more - in real time! IM and share online content with your friends: Just drag and drop your YouTube videos, Flickr pics and more into our easy to use chat window. Receive summaries and statistics on your social networking activities.
Easily access your community locations from a single entry point." And if that's not enough, they have a mobile version so you will never be left out of anything thats happening with your friends on the web.
Flock BrowserThe Flock Browser is powered by
Mozilla and is very social media friendly. You can email, blog, share pictures, and micro-blog through this browser easily. I haven't used it yet, but I plan on downloading it and writing a review of it, so look for that soon.
Profilatic.com"Profilactic is a social media aggregator/lifestreaming service that pulls together just about everything you and your friends create online." Create a profile, aggregate your social networks, and people can watch all of them on your lifestream through Profilactic. With over 190 social networks currently supported, this service has the potential to become very popular.
Ex.plode.UsEx.plode.Us is basically a search engine for social networks. You can search through multiple networks at once for friends with the same interests. Check it out and see if you can find any new friends.
Broadband MechanicsBroadband Mechanics has built a platform for you to create your social networking site. The software is called PeopleAggregator. Check out their site if you would like to start your own for your specific niche.
Mashable.com also has a post about
20 ways to aggregate your social network profiles. Most of them I have talked about here, but there are a few I didn't.
For me, I do not use a social aggregator for the same reason
I don't use news/blog/feed aggregators. I have a few different profiles but would rather login to them. The Flock Browser is interesting though and I will download it to try it out and some point.
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