Traditionally, Hawkee has been a place for the developer community to share code, which is somewhat of a social network. As of today, however, the site is officially a bona fide social network.
Just in time for the holidays, Hawkee’s new focus is social networking for electronics shopping. Users can compare prices, opinions, and reviews on various electronics. Products are tagged and users can filter through a tag cloud to find what they want. They can also filter the tags to find the reviews written by people within their social network.
Scott Aikin, the founder of Hawkee, said he tried to make sure that he had all of the “basic social networking” features. So you can create a profile with a picture, leave comments for your friends, send private messages, etc. But you can also read your friend’s recommendations, snippets, and scripts, almost like their own personal blog. You can also search the electronics that they have tagged in their wishlists when it comes to gift giving time.
Hawkee also has a new Deals page where Aikin and his staff post coupons that they negotiate themselves with vendors such as Wal-Mart and Overstock.
Unfortunately, Hawkee only has user reviews on the products listed right now. Aikin says he is working to try to share content with other sites that have product reviews such as Amazon or perhaps CrunchGear.
“I wanted to get this out before the holidays are over so it’s not populated as well as I’d like just yet,” Aikin said.
Hawkee is hardly sexy or flashy but MySpace has never been either of those things on its own. Users and content are what make a social network popular and useful so I think that Hawkee has the potential to be as hot as the gadget-loving community wants it to be.
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What’s with that name? Doesn’t it mean watching for deals like a hawk?
how is this a “social network”? having user accounts with avatars and ratings doesn’t make something a social network. and even if it were, how does it add value to the site? there are plenty of code-sharing sites out there. didn’t we debunk “if you build it, they will come” the last bubble?
and everything on the “deals” page is available at just about every single coupon web site out there. nothing really compelling here…
Don’t mean to be a grammar troll, but you should list Scott Aikin’s name and title near the beginning of the article before you start referencing him just as Aikin.
The focus of this release was on the price comparison and social shopping features. I think Natali got a little off topic by talking about the social network features. The aim of the price comparison is to let users comment and ask questions about products as well as submit reviews. Our review system works like Digg in that reviews can be voted upon and commented on. Our primary focus is to give consumers a means to shop via reviews and comments. For example, you can search for “nintendo ds” and you’ll see all of the resulting products, reviews and comments. So rather than checking each product for reviews, you can read the reviews first in order to find the product that’s right for you. Here is a link to my review blog as an example:
http://www.hawkee.com/shop/user/2/reviews/
Natali. I love your writing style. Keep up the good work. Maybe someday we can work together.
Looks interesting, I must agree. I wish sites like that would link back to phpBB as requested with the license they agree to when they downloaded and installed the software… That’s has always been something that has gotten on my nerves after writing so many mods for phpbb.
Cody Mays
http://www.threadbound.com
Thank you Cody. I just added the phpBB link to the footer. Since the code has been completely reworked that link simply slipped out through the cracks. Eventually we plan to move away from it and get a more professional solution like vBulletin.
Interesting. Geek cental rocks!
Geek Tip:iPod Hacks
Another social networking site. I like the sound of this one. It’s a bit different to some of the others out there.
@ Scott, thanks for clarifying. Natali’s kind of new to TechCrunch and I think maybe still a little new to writing professionally - hopefully everybody will cut her some slack while she develops her ability to write about this kind of stuff.
I review systems that work like Digg are a cool idea. If the site’s already getting traffic from developers, adding some interactive features to be at the pace of what users are used to is probably not a bad idea.
“…slipped out through the cracks”
That’s funny.
You have to actually *delete* the copyright from the code. It doesn’t just “slip out”.
Do any of the social shopping networks ever get traction? Or do they just stay niche-y? Personally, I don’t buy enough big items to derive any value from participating in such a network, and I’m not inclined to take the time to post about small items.
Am I in the minority here?
Personally…. I don’t see anything great about it.
LAME!
Wow, that site sucks a big one.
Nice idea, definetly looks nicer than MySpace.
Nice stuff. Hawkee, come a long way since the fserv days
> You have to actually *delete* the copyright from the code.
> It doesn’t just “slip out”.
Unless you replace the copyright-containing code with code that doesn’t contain it.
I agree though that especially on the surface it looks really similar to other shopping-comparison sites. I know that yes, it’s “different”, but maybe there could be a way to make that more apparent.
this is so called geek? how about lifehack? I love lifehack.
http://www.ezecho.com
Doesn’t it sound similar to a similar site launched a few days ago on deals?
Definition of geek changes.
Early 90’s, you are geek if you play with assemblers.
Now a php, ruby are geeks. What a pity.
I’m underwhelmed to say the least. It looks like the development progression was a site that featured resources on a few languages and an IRC derivative and then they stuck a few shiny social “Web 2.0″ features on it.
Very little discussion about other topics…10 forum posts on Ajax? An anemic Webmaster discussion? These guys should be grateful for the fact that TC even reviewed them.
Seriously, I’ll stick to reading Slashdot, like I have been for the past 8 years.
Interesting. The Deal Page seems to have the standard affiliate coupons from the major networks like CJ, Linkshare, etc. Nothing special that I see. Perhaps they plan to have special deals in the future? Or maybe I just missed them? It will be interesting to see what motivates people to participate in the site versus just using the price search features (if they find they like those over all the other pricing aggregators out there).
Laura@NotebookForums.com
Wonder if they will have any useful info for non technical like myself…will check it out…
http://www.revafinancial.squarespace.com
very good service!
Amazing!
Hawkee.com is the best site from internet codes they people shares knowledges and help the word to make a good new internet age.
and in the actual Days the site interface is much more much more evolved than when was done this article. try and see!!
Thanks Scott Aikin keep the good work!
Yea i agree the name kinda sucks though it sounds like they should be looking for deals across the internet i guess its ok though well i found this website they have some pretty good deals
http://www.tycromedia.com
http://www.tycromedia.com/cons....._1696.html