With the growing discomfort people have with Facebook over recent years, I’ve occasionally kept an eye out for other social networks that might replace it. I’ve tried a few in the past and they all had problems one way or another. Some had next to no privacy settings. It looked like Facebook but acted like Twitter. Others had severe operational problems, such as comments on a single photo being propagated across all photos in an album. Those that let you create groups often had weird setups that didn’t seem to have any security built into them. A closed group was still open to the public too. Others that let you create business pages had strange ways of managing them and those tools sometimes overlapped your personal profile unexpectedly.
I finally had a chance to test another one recently. I could have tried it a few weeks earlier, but at that time it wouldn’t accept a hyphen in the middle of my domain name. However, it finally let me sign up using my own hosted email address. The ability to create groups or pages isn’t present in this network, nor is the ability to create photo albums, although I think it’s safe to say that most social media users don’t do that anyway. I’m always surprised when friends will comment on a set of photos, seemingly oblivious to the fact they clearly state they are part of a larger album. Needless to say, this one omission honestly won’t be missed by most people I know because they never used it in the first place.
The real plus in this new network, is how your contact list is managed. For starters, it’s not called a “friends” list. For me, friends are friends, co-workers, acquaintances, classmates, camp or church buddies, etc. The contact list at this new network is divided between professional and personal lists, allowing you to share certain things with each list. I thought I would try adding a friend who signed up for the service a couple weeks ago, and I had the option of adding her to either list. I added her to both, because we are both friends and professional colleagues.
When you create a post on the service home page, the default privacy setting is in bright orange, and says “public”. Click the dropdown arrow beside this setting, and you can choose if you wish to share it with your professional list, personal list, or just yourself (such as in case of making a note to yourself about something that no one else needs to see).
This new network has been in beta since 2016, and this Fall apparently went through a number of upgrades to the system. The polish that is on the current system leads me to believe that new features won’t be added unless they are as complete as the developers can make them. The presentation of the site does not lead me to believe this is a pre-written downloadable code package like so many others out there. If it is, then the developers are doing an amazing job customizing it to suit the inventor. However, judging from tidbits slowly showing up in the zendesk help area, this site is being built from the ground up. I like that!
When the network comes out of beta, a full-featured affiliate system will kick into high gear immediately, as will a purchasable upgrade to pro feature. This feature is in direct competition with LinkedIn, offering similar search and communication options for those who want or need that functionality.
Unlike LinkedIn or Facebook, you can’t create groups or business pages, at least not at this time. The road map available on the founder’s own profile page however, does have these things listed as future additions. Groups however, sound very different from what people are used to on FB or LinkedIn. They appear to be more along the lines of groups of people you can contact, much like how you send emails to groups of people.
Adding to your newsfeed is done from the home page as well, not from your personal profile. This isn’t to say your personal profile isn’t important, it’s VERY important! If you are business-minded, use this as your CV and fill in as much as you can. If you are here to socialize, fill in the parts you want the public to know and leave the rest. However, the site does say that if you wish to receive commissions in the future, you should complete your entire profile one way or the other.
Part of completing your profile is obtaining 10 contacts for your lists. Again, unlike LinkedIn or Facebook, this service is currently invite-only. There was a time when Facebook was invite-only too, back when it was just a Harvard-only social network. But I remember the year it stopped doing that and went public. Whether or not this network goes public in the future remains to be seen, but for now, it is invite only. As such, you have two links you can share: Your personal profile, or your referral link. Because of the potential for future earnings with the site after official launch, you want to put your best foot forward. Building your list now lets people try out the system for themselves and if they approve, start bringing over their friends and colleagues. If you want a piece of the Internet Marketing Income pie, don’t skip this!
Many people are disillusioned with FB now, and are looking for networks that respect their privacy, respect their freedom of expression, and don’t censor them for having conservative or liberal viewpoints. If you know people like this, then start rebuilding your contact list here:
