Santa Monica based Tagworld has been quietly beta testing its product for a few months, and officially opened its doors earlier this week. They now have 75,000 members and are growing by thousands per day. The funny thing is that I had never heard of them before last week when I was contacted by Carmen Hughes of ignitepr for a preview.
Tagworld is a huge project. At its core it is a blogging platform, and at first glance it appeared to be a sort of advanced Myspace or Tagged - a blogging platform that would ultimately appeal to teens and college students as its core market. But after meeting the founders and getting a first hand look at the deep features, it’s clear that it is more than just the next teen blogging hangout. There are advanced features that will appeal to a much larger audience.
The site is still rough and a number of features are buggy. But given their early subscriber growth, it appears that they are on to something interesting.
Tagworld was founded by Fred Krueger and Evan Rifkin, two serial entrepreneurs who’ve had a string of successful liquidity events. They’ve self funded Tagworld, which is six months old and has 20 employees.
The site is going to try to own just about every web 2.0 experience of its users - blogging, bookmarking, photos and other media files, file storage, and tagging. They say they are going to have open data in and out, meaning if a user is really attached to say, Flickr, they’ll be able to integrate with those photos seemlessly. And they’ll have RSS and APIs to send data out. But their clear goal, as Fred said when we met, is to replace del.icio.us, flickr and blogger (among other services) for its users.
All features are free to users (other than extended file storage); Tagworld makes its money from integrated advertising.
Blogging
Tagworld has a solid blogging platform that is based on user-included widgets (posts, pictures, tags, friends, media player, maps, etc.). Designing the site is done through an Ajax interfact that allows dragging and dropping for quick organization.
The platform is based on widget objects. There are a bunch of widgets that have already been included (such as those mentioned in the paragraph above), and there is an API for third parties to create their own and share them on Tagworld.
Blogs are easily customized by users, and more advanced users can take full control of the html as well.
Tagworld has an advanced wysiwyg tool for editing blogs, including adding photos (resizing, positioning) and media files.
Social Bookmarking
A social bookmarking feature is included. They do not yet have a bookmarklet but the core functionality is on the site. Tagworld automatically takes a small screen shot of the page as well and includes it with the bookmark metadata. Bookmarks can be tagged, and shared or kept private. They are also building integration tools with other bookmark services such as del.icio.us.
Pictures and other Media
Tagworld has a decent tool for uploading photos. There’s a great flash module for showing off photos on the home page.
Uploading media files is also easy, and there is a media player module to play video and audio files on the home page. Fred and Evan say that they will also have flickr integration into and out of tagworld for users who do not want to switch.
File Storage
They are still ironing out the details on this feature, but Tagworld is allowing a full gig of file storage. These files can be tagged, searched and integrated into the user’s website very easily. Uploaded media files can be played on the home page/blog by integrating it with the player widget.
The first gig is free. They plan to charge “at cost” for additional storage.
Tagging
Everything on Tagworld can be tagged. People, posts, pictures, media files, other files, etc. Combined with search, it’s a very useful way of finding content.
There are other nice touches as well. Search is well integrated with personal and community tags. RSS will be available soon. And they’ve done some interesting things with Ajax, such as a slider control to increase or decrease the search results shown on a page.
Tagworld is not for everyone, but it may be for the mass consumer that is just starting to jump into web 2.0.
I just checked the site. In the time it took me to write this profile, Tagworld added another 1,500 users. In the end, customer acquisition and monetization is all that really matters.
Do the numbers here look fishy to anyone else? I just checked out the service and it feels a bit ghost-townish. I’m thinking automated registrations since there is no capcha’s nor any validation on registration.
Unfortunately, it only works with IE and Firefox. I use Opera, and got: http://www.tagworld.com/guest/.....atible.htm
when websites come along and try to “replace” other websites I get a very bad feeling.
DrDel, When new companies enter a market, whether or the ultimatley succeed, consumers are always better off. These guys are pushing the envelope in terms of bringing together a lot of relatively new features (new in the sense that there has not been mass consumer adoption of tagging, bookmarks, etc.). It’s a good thing. It will make other companies try harder to be even better.
That being said, it was a bold statement that Fred made (to replace these great companies). Let’s see how they do.
Ethan,
No…the content that is there is real. I’ve spent a bit of time digging through it.
Well, didn’t work with Safari, and anytime a site has signup without e-mail verification nor captchas, I remain dubious as to their numbers, especially 1500 in a short time period. Without any form of verification, you can’t really trust the metrics.
Built on ASP? Seriously?
Scott
I’ve thought about and here’s my bottom line;
Much kudos to Tagworld and anybody else doing consumer applications. It’s another ad supported, free service, with no sustainable competitive advantage.
As with all consumer applications, the risk-return equation is a nightmare. You’d have to put a gun to my head to start up anything like delicious or Tagworld because the business model is nothing more than a crap shot.
I salute any of you guys out there doing these start ups because you are either very smart, or got cohunas the size of watermelons. Anybody taking on as much risk as you guys ought to be congratulated.
God Luck.
This is just another ajax fad, like 43things.com.
It’s viral, so founders get high initially, but the attrition rate of the sites like this is 95%.
Tagworld is a social site and can easily amass 70,000 users in the SoCal area by word of mouth alone.
I think social sites are being underestimated. Social sites don’t need to be fancy, they just need to be utilized. People will use tagworld as long as a someone they know host their information on the site.
Also, social sites need not be major mega sites expanding the globe but can be regional to certain metropolitan areas. That one ajax map application (I forgot what is was, but it focus on SF) is a perfect example.
How does this fare vis-a-vis Yahoo 360 degrees? Apart from social bookmarking and tagging there doesn’t seem to any major difference or is this the key to the success of social software?Yahoo has the option of bringing in the briefcase functionality into 360 degrees to take care of file storage.
If you know about tagworld’s founders history you will know how they’ve “attracted” their members, and how they can grow by thousands a week. It ain’t by word of mouth, thats for sure.
so how is it then, juicy? You seem to imply some not so good practices..
Nice looking site they have there. I hope they do well.
juicy,
how do they attract their members?
It’s a pain that when using a friend’s computer, which runs a Gecko but not specifically FireFox browser, the site won’t let me in… how dumb is that?
can such as social networking start-up survive? if they only generate ads revenue? a lot of social networking start-ups offer their service for free, it is good but are they going to survive after they burn all VC’s money ? Or will the time of cleaning-up “ads-oriented-start-ups” from the market come soon? as we have experienced at the first internet bubble era?
I don’t agree that sites like these have problems with stickiness of users. MySpace had 9.4 billion page views in August and is signing up 3.5 million new users per month. Once people invest time in the network, they’re in for good.
“Once people invest time in the network, they’re in for good.”
Which is often a real problem. I have the hardest time prying friends away from MySpace and Xanga to use worthwhile services, even though they know right well that they can get better features elsewhere, they’re just used to being where they are.
I think it is a great idea will all the bells and whistles, and I thank you for posting about it!
I logged in and gave it a whirl, my first blog post did not go through, I had to skip that initial part. But I tried it again and it works well. In fact I think the interface may be better than myspace, Y360 and maybe blogger. I like typepad’s categories better than the plain tags, but tags may be better for the masses. I enjoy 13log’s pasting ability. But the whole interface at tagworld seems quite nice.
Steve
Bult on ASP.NET - not asp
it’s like the wikipedia of meta-tags.
It is something really worth checking out and really appreciable work
“they’re just used to being where they are.”
al la AIM vs MSN/Yahoo!/Jabber/Skype/anything else
I was disappointed to see that Tagworld is spamming people. I got an invite from a pretty girl named “carrie,” who unfortunately i don’t know, with a bulk email address.
I was also spammed by a girl named “carrie.”
They (Carrie) spammed me as well today. Jolly annoying. Carrie must be really lonely though, needing to write to so many people. Quite a pretty girl as well.
It leaves a nasty taste in one’s mouth when a site that has a policy on their sign-up page reads as:
” Your Email is protected:
We do NOT spam, sell or trade your information. Your email address is not visible to anyone in the network, not even your friends.
Your privacy:
Tagworld makes your privacy a top priority. We take every step to ensure your privacy is protected.”
Funnily enough, the five email addresses on their contact page (info@tagworld.com, Carmen@tagworld.com, press@tagworld.com, bizdev@tagworld.com and resumes@tagworld.com) are all presented as non-linked graphics.
I trust by listing the addresses here that people can find the tagworld email addresses more easily on the interweb
Oh.
And another spam, same addresses, same dear Carrie just one hour and 45 minutes later.
Get down.
dear tag world,
I wish to have my account deleted, please comply with me! I’m going over to yahoo 360! Please know I have no suggustions! your site was good, but I was just checking it out! please continue to provide safety first…..
ps please do this imediatelty, thank you! sincerely dan.
Personally, I’m a little leary of a site flaunting “powerful web 2.0 tools” as a reason to use the service.
Read the ToS.
“C. You retain all of your ownership rights in Content that you Upload to TagWorld.com. However, by Uploading the Content to TagWorld.com, you hereby grant to TagWorld a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, fully sublicensable (through multiple tiers), and transferable license to copy, distribute, prepare derivative works of, adapt, publicly perform, publicly display, and use the Content in connection with the Service and TagWorld’s business, including without limitation promotion and redistribution of the Service and derivative works thereof, through any media channel and in any media format known now or in the future. In addition, you hereby grant to each TagWorld.com Member or user a non-exclusive license to access the Uploaded Content through the Service, and to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, adapt, publicly perform, publicly display, and use such Content as permitted through the Service functionality and under this Agreement. All tags and comments associated with Content - whether associated by you, the Service, other Members or users, or anyone else - become TagWorld’s property; but TagWorld will grant you a perpetual right to use such tags and comments for personal, noncommercial purposes.”
And yet they still keep spamming me. Happy New Year everyone, and please find a community site that doesn’t persistently spam like TagWorld.com
Please delete my spyce in the tagworld.Please delete my account
Thank you so much, Aleksandra.
I haven’t signed up at Tagworld yet. I was reading their privacy policy and while they say they won’t spam, your email address does get shared with a marketing company called eyeserve http://www.eyeserve.com/
heyy this is a great and safe website. join now its awsome. i have one its xfuturemrscenax so join and check out my profile
I checked out TagWorld and wasn’t too impressed with it. I think MySpace.com is a much better place to correspond with friends. Also, you can befriend bands and enjoy cool music. TagWorld’s just trying to portray what MySpace is already doing. In a few months I see TagWorld being just like one of those other sights that are trying to outdo what MySpace is doing.
Just my opinion.
Oh, and by the way TagWorld likes to spam people like me to get an account with them unlike MySpace who I got an account with due to hearing about it from my mom and sister. Isn’t spamming illegal or something. TagWorld can stick those unwanted spams up their Yuppy butts.
People,
TagWorld just plain sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great concept. Too bad they don’t support Linux and the open source movement or the LAMP family of products see “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_%28software_bundle%29″ for details.
For a site that is in the spirit of community and networking, it’s very sad that they support the corporate giant “Microsoft” by using it’s “.net” platform.
Even though I usually have little brand loyalty, the makers have failed to understand the mission of why MySpace is so great (with all it’s flaws) and has such a wide consumer appeal. It speaks to the community.
Renaming “Tom” with “Ryan” won’t do it.
Rumor has it that myspace is coming out with a better version of there site on another domain name starting march 1st it will be another social networking community site with alot more features even then tagworld. I guess to stay ahead of other sites coming out like tagworld.com also i heard it will be called http://www.FriendWise.com i guess well just have to see if friendwise happens.
Communityx.net is better then tag world for one main reason. It’s privately owned and operated by ex myspacers that hated the under age kids, fake profiles and friend collectors.
Comx isn’t as fancy as the drag and drop flash stuff but for one flash sucks! It’s buggy and very system heavy. Once they get a few million users their site won’t work. And you think myspace is buggy.
Comx VALIDATES all members as to cut down on fake profiles and spammers. Also they work with affiliate sites to provide valued services without the worry of your pc being slammed by spyware.
COMx works with any browser. Some better then others of course. Another cool thing about comx is I can contact the owners and they email me back and ask me if they can help! That alone got me. I mean what site owner ever actually responds to you? I’ve been to many site but the members on Comx are the friendlist group I’ve ever met.
Some other cool things about COMX? Free auctions, classifieds, Websites, unlimited personal photo galleries, all contacted to your profile! That is cool. Also you can set up an online store too, however I’m not sure anyones even using that yet as the site is only a few months old. I see comx blowing tag world and all the others away!
Why bother with the other sites when you can get X’d!
Go to communityx.net and join the friends network for the rest of us.
I heard about tagworld and did not like it at all. Guys send me stupid IM’s and say stupid things, I hate that sh*t. Also the interface was hard to understand and it didn’t feel like a personal thing.. The ones I visit are
http://www.myspace.com
http://www.yapperz.com
http://www.xanga.com
http://www.yahoo360.com
Cassie, could I IM you? LOL jk
Hey cassie, I went to that Yapperz website and it seemed very new. Also heard it was beta. Is it more of a localized base or worldwide? I signed up and it was worth looking at, new into social networking and the more sites I see the better for me to find a girlfriend so I don’t stay up too late. I also check tagworld and I agree with you there.
I had a tagworld site the name was thane, well I done something wrong and could not access it, so I built a new site called thane1 once I got this site up and running good something happened and I can only access the site of thane, can you help me, please and thank you.
i purposely put a fake age down, because of security and now i cant even create a log in, whats wrong with you guys?
im needing asitance how can i delete your program off my computer.i need to .
i need to get off this site.
good site is tagworld
Tagworld is one of better community sites.
please delete my tag world account
I think social sites are being underestimated. Social sites don’t need to be fancy, they just need to be utilized. People will use tagworld as long as a someone they know host their information on the site.
how much sociology is in social sites? i believe that creators don’t even think about that while they build them, and they should.
Rumor has it that http://www.friendsnest.com is coming out with a better version august 20th
Tagworld seems to do well since its launch - it grow larger and larger despite its almost anonimous PR.
I’d like to get some type of advertisement on my site such as you have here; how would I go about that? Or is there a way?
E1
http://domains.optionextreme.com/
E2
http://domains.optionextreme.net/
The social networking site tagworld is moving in the right direction by using ajax and more sites will be moving in that direction soon as i see it.
Is tagword better than myspace?
Tag World is beautiful site it can serve the need to spread the massage of world peace through service , love , compession and coperation . The path can be discovered through networking of likeminded soules
I am new to tagworld .com , I have Ids in Myspace,Hi5 and a lot of other SNS .. but I did find the navigation in tagworld easier . i also liked the web design and site architecture . Myspace has always felt a bit jarring and cluttered . While tagworld looked quite neat !! I liked the integration of the blog in the profile page rather than a hyperlink to the blog as in myspace .. Video comments is one of the features I love .
I use myspace.com and friendlot.com the most i noticed you didn’t mention them but with there different features and the people itself on the site make it a unique social networking site.
What about vois.com why isnt it mentioned?
i have a tagworld page which i log into everyday. i use it primarly for flirting. Tons of hotties on that site, especially in my area L.A. They seem to be way advanced for what i want to do on the web
Hi,
sabrina , we all thank you for what you are doing for indian contemporary ART pl make a community ofArtist on tag world