Spokeo Aggregates Social Networks And Blogs

If there’s one thing the web doesn’t need more than yet another startpage service, it’s a really really *bad* startpage service.

P.S. to Techcrunch readers at the office > features NSFW images on the homepage.

“This is a great idea but it needs some work.”

Why are you even writing about this then? Isn’t Techcrunch supposed to pick out the cream of the crop? I don’t want to read about rejects with great potential. I want to read about people actually doing it.

Just my two cents… whatever that’s worth.

Give them a break.. It’s a couple of kids trying to have fun.

However, I do agree that it’s pointless. Some kids from Standford should concentrate their efforts on a better idea. Go back to the drawing board because even if this idea does take off, it will be a very niche user base.

I couldn’t clear my cache quick enough after seeing this…

Thanks, Natali, for your mention. Although technically Spokeo is a RSS reader, it does not compete with other start pages or readers. It is positioned to help people organize their online friends and social networks, and in that sense, there hasn’t been a comparable service.

Spokeo differs from any other start page in several ways. First, it supports social networks. Second, you can add all your friends’ content in one click, so you don’t have to add feeds one by one. And third, it does not look like any other Web 2.0 websites.

That said, I am sad to hear that some people don’t agree with our artistic tastes. We really thought it looks cool, but then again, we are all guys.

I got an invite to use Spokeo a couple weeks back, and thought I’d only use it to keep track of different bloggers I read. Once I put in my MySpace and Livejournal accounts though, it imported my friends for each of them, automatically. Suddenly I could keep track of EVERYONE together. I don’t have a Xanga account, but I have friends who use it, and I was able to add them as well. For network compilation, Spokeo is really good at what it does. I was expecting just an RSS reader.

Harrison,

Actually, 30 Boxes does a lot of social network aggregation and our webtop is a way to keep up with what your buddies are doing across networks…

Yeah, the site doesn’t look pretty at all! That gray color is terrible. Change it!

everything i’ve seen of Spokeo.com so far leads me to believe that they’ll only get better. they listen to feedback, and obviously have the user in mind. that’s more than i;ve seen in most “social websites”!

i don’t mind the grey, but i heard there was supposed to be different custom skins or something? not sure if that’s still going to happen. i think soon that spokeo.com will be garnering some real well deserved interest.

They want us to make that our homepage? Are you kidding me? Looks nasty, I agree with the other reader, I couldn’t clear my cache fast enough on this one. Why write about this, how much they pay you lol…

We want Michael back!! Get off the stage!!!!!! lol Just kidding..

I saw them roll their servers into the colo. It was hoping for “big” since they had quite a bit of hardware ( i.e. lots of server rails to cut). I’m a little disappointed.

Oh, guys, put some adsense on those pages and at least make your
first $100 from google.

You guys have still have a lot to learn, good luck.

I totally agree that they’d need to go hire and spend some money on a kick-ass web designer and make their site look better. The room for improvement is HUGE!

Wow, since when has Techcrunch become Fashioncrunch? Instead of reading inciteful tech commentary, it’s as though I got stuck in a teenage gossip magazine. For shame, Techcrunch! As a longtime reader, I expected better.

Onto the site itself- I don’t think it’s trying to pull off the start-page theme. If it truly is, it has a long way to go. If however, it’s doing what other reviews and what the own website suggests (nowhere does it mention start page on the site, by the way), Spokeo is certainly forging ahead with a refreshing 2.0 idea: hyper aggregation.

Other sites have attempted a similiar construct, but there aren’t any that I’m aware of that combine social networks, RSS feed AND multimedia. It appears that Spokeo is focusing alot of its energy on networks like MySpace, and so it should. There are hundreds of RSS readers, but nothing shining in the way of social network aggregators. I think Spokeo is going to be the first of a wave of these network-culminators, and appear to setting the trend.

Harrison — dont listen to the naysayers. this is a great idea and has a lot of potential.

If you guys could somehow allow personalization via skinsand tweaking html like Myspace, it’s only matter of time before you get traction and hopefully critical mass…

I feel bad saying this, but I just don’t see anybody taking the extra step to use something like this. I could be wrong of course, but, at this point, internet users are pretty savvy, they know how to get around online, have sites they visit regularly and therefore systems for organizing them (or no systems at all). it’s historically hard to move users from one thing to another (people are still using windows 98), people are slow to adopt and it is competitive among those who do so early. i just think it’s fair to assume a site like this will have some challenges and obstacles.

The service needs scaling otherwise it will get stuck as just another startpage.

Just had a look at the Techcrunch about page for the first time in a while - Natali, you might not write what I want to read about, but good god do you bring some much-needed sex-appeal to Techcrunch.

Call me.

The site seems more like GAIM or Trillian (for social networks of course) than a start page.

I can understand this effort of building THE homepage aggregator. However, I think it defective in a few ways, please consider this as user feedback;
1. It makes user think too much - If I stumple upon the site I have absolutely no idea what this site is about.
2. Lack of decent UI design: an aggregator should look better/easier than the sites you try to aggregate. Think meebo (not aggregator but simple enough)
3. With engineering expertise, Open ID maybe a better project to target

Starting is always difficult. Not everyone can catch fire like facebook did.

I’ll be honest to admit that I didn’t like spokeo at first. I mean, what’s with that huge hedgehog that takes up half of the screen? I didn’t even have that many blog friends! However, to try out spokeo i imported blogs of many people that i didn’t know. It forced me to break out of my narrow social circle and seek out for blogs that write about my interests. Trust me this one-time effort paid off. I used to not read blogs but now I read spokeo everyday to keep up. All of the sudden now I have something I want to read everyday right in front of me. spokeo expanded and kept up my interests immensely. Thank you! I don’t have many friends who blog but now can read about so much more than what I already know!

Don’t listen to the naysayers! These people didn’t even try hard enough for the first time! spokeo rocks. mm and i’ve gotten used to the hedgehog now

A new GUI designer, please.

Anyone remember how ugly Google and Yahoo’s start page was? (Granted, if Google now had a home page of any substance, it too would probably look fugly; they don’t spend a lot of time on UI design.)

Back then, we weren’t as critical as to what something looked like because we were too busy thinking how cool the Internet was. But now, we’ve dropped the capital “I” and have all become UI critics. We’re already starting to take the internet for granted.

I’m looking forward to the *evolution* of spokeo. It will survive the technological selection process much the same way cockroaches survived in Darwin’s kitchen. Anyone else want spokeo to be struck down by a lightning bolt from the heavens, relieving them of their misery?

I did a quick Google search and found that it’s done in Ruby-on-Rails. http://ruby.meetup.com/6/board.....ad=2417559 Interesting choice of technology.

I position it as “trillian for your social networks.” I am not a fan of trillian or gaim but some people swear by them. Spokeo aggregates and _distills_ content. The unit of content are blog entries, pictures and videos. Customized profile crud on the likes of MySpace is stripped out.

LOL.

Just because this was on GigaOm doens’t mean you have to talk about it too.

Has TechCrunch officially now jumped the shark?

Tastes are like assholes: everybody’s got one. I am for minimalism, but it’s silly to reject an idea on looks. Good web designers are 10c a dozen I think, so that is easily solved with some sort of skin system.

I am more interested in understanding what makes this different e.g. from Netvibes (to which I switched from butt-fugly Google Personalized Home) feature-wise??

Not a great site at all…. design was poor.

We also have the same concept as Spokeo: http://iceflake.com. Here are some key differences:

1) By importing user’s friends to the site, Spokeo violates the TOS of all the social networks it aggregates from. I do agree that it is easier for users since they can import all their feeds by the “add friends” link but it’s possible that they will be forced to shut down parts of the site if they receive cease and desist letters (as techcrunch readers know, myspace is no stranger to sending them out to start-ups)

2) Iceflake requires users to invite their friends to the site and only once they join does the original user receive content their friends create. This is more cumbersome a process for users but means that we don’t break the TOS of any site and it also makes Iceflake more viral.

Other than that, both have the same concept and we’re both going after the same market. Good luck to Spokeo…it’s going to be a fun competition;-)

Tech Crunch jumping the shark?

And now try to click on youtube from spokeo, all videos has been removed.

Gianni > wrong. Web designers who can make something look pretty are 10c a dozen. Web designers who can create something pretty, usable, memorable and trend-setting are an invaluable asset.

BTW “not pretty” is not a “woman in me speaking” — Crappy design affects men just as much as women. After a design is considered good, then we can start to look at it if it has feminine or masculine touches.

I found the wordpress is not supported.

i wonder if naysayers have actually “signed up”. or if they actually use myspace. i was able to see all my friends posts in 2 steps. this is awesome!

and techcrunch’s decline continues…why not just spin off “CustomizedStartPageCrunch” so all the 22-year-olds with average PHP skills and a copy of photoshop can showcase their “internet startup” and leverage the long tail? then they can highlight it on their resume when 6 months later their “startup” has faded off the map and they’re begging for an ibanking job.

such a cool website that can save a lot of time spent on social net work

Thanks for everyone’s comments! Some categorize Spokeo as a start-page, and some see it as a social network. There seems to be some confusion about what Spokeo is, and that’s expected because Spokeo is in a category of its own.

Spokeo is not a start-page (although technically it is) because its content focuses on friends, rather than generic news. The target audience is different, so the design directions are not the same.

Spokeo is definitely not a social network because there is no social interaction built-in. You cannot message another person, or build / customize your profile, or write a post. You can only view the contents, and every article title links back to the original.

So if you really want a comparison, I would say Spokeo is Google News for social networks. Our goal is to organize information in a coherent fashion so that people can consume more content. More content consumption means more page views, benefiting the blogosphere as a whole.

Looks great.

anonymouse; You’re right! TasteCrunchy should only highlight elite startups and web apps. Forget about any new startup that isn’t heavily funded or, by gosh, has been started by young’uns with a dream.

Or, better yet, these kids shouldn’t start up companies to begin with. They’re wasting their time if it isn’t “the next big idea”.

/end sarcasm

I think this lacks any true innovation. That’s the basic problem these days…

Good post, Natali. I tried to add you as a friend on MySpace (I’m in SF too) but your profile is private, probably a good idea.

Regardless, you’re a great addition to the TC team.

Nifty entry, but this area is somewhat saturated right now. None of them have stood out enough for me to make them part of my “online life.”

This isn’t the only site in this space. Profilactic.com is launching its beta on December 8th. It, too, is a digital life aggregator; however, it takes a different approach than both Spokeo and Iceflake.

I’ve signed up and tested both Spokeo anbd Iceflake and I much prefer Profilactic.

It is:
1. Easier to setup and get started using
2. More comprehensive — it will support about 30 sites at launch with another dozen or so added in the first week live
3. More feature-rich — you will be able to update all of your online profiles, aggregate all of the content you create online, bookmark other content about you, aggregate all of your friends’ content, take your Profilactic content with you via RSS and HTML badges.

Of course, I am totally biased.

Check out Profilactic.com:
http://www.profilactic.com
http://www.profilactic.com/blog/

A new start page?
i suppose that you are kidding

Bad design, lack of interesting content…

I use it as a RSS reader everyday and check my friend’s photo sometimes, thanks Spokeo, it grabs the news and photos as soon as the news and photos got updated. No more switching back and forth from News website and Flickr.

I commend my fellow commentators for making it to the homepage. I couldn’t get past the name. I know how hard it is to name a new company - finding available domains composed of real words is expensive hence the current trend of “unique” names. But, seems odd spokeo for a soical networking company given that Spoke.com and Spock.com are in the same general category.

try this>>
http://www. netvibes.com

nathan .. i totaly agree with you…spokeo =it’s as though I got stuck in a teenage gossip magazine

This isn’t what I want. What I want is a tool that will REPOST my blog to any site I choose: Myspace, livejournal, okcupid, etc. I want my blog to appear in 4 or 5 places so different people in different commmunities will read it.

well, i have been searching for some sort of social network aggregator something that i can use to see all my friends on different networks together, a valuable step to the direction of managing an online network of friends. i guess spokeo is the best because it actually works decently. i don’t know about the technical details, the design is not so good, but not bad, however i am appalled to see that some people can’t find a reason for an application like this, well i’m sure you’ll get the idea in a year or so folks, in the mean time, thanks for the effort spokeo.

really great

wonderfull!!!!!!!