The prospect of founding a successful generic social network these days might be bleak given the dominance of players like MySpace and Facebook. However, there’s still plenty of room for niche social networks to rise and generate lots of participation.
UGAME, which enters closed private beta this week, wants eventually to be the leading social network for gamers. The site will start off as a place where competitive PC gamers in particular can socialize, share their gaming feats, and organize themselves into teams and other associations. While UGAME will initially cater to the World of Warcraft, Counterstrike, and Quake obsessive, its motto points to a more ambitious future with “All Games. All Platforms. All People.”
A key to starting a successful niche social network probably lies in the creators’ ability to balance familiar features with ones that capitalize on the niche’s unique qualities. If this is true then the team behind UGAME is off to a good start. They’ve built in lots of functionality that will be immediately familiar: news feeds, profiles, friends, blogs, photo galleries, status updates, etc.
But they’ve also added gaming twists to these features and built out new features that don’t exist elsewhere. To name a few: members can post their gaming achievements from both tournament and non-tournament events; they can list their favorite games and computer hardware specs; and they can join teams that are allotted their own public-facing profiles.
UGAME grants users an unusual amount of control over privacy settings. While all sections of the site are accessible to non-registered users, only elements designated as “public” will show up to everyone. Privately designated elements such as photo galleries and profiles will remain accessible only to friends and other permitted users. Founder Sam Mathews describes UGAME in regards to privacy settings as a cross between Facebook and MySpace.
If the premise behind UGAME sounds familiar, you’ve probably heard of Shawn Fanning’s social networking project Rupture, which has been in closed beta for over a year. Or it may remind you of WeGame, a YouTube for gaming videos that we wrote about last month (and which shares a startlingly similar name and color scheme).
UGAME will open its private beta in a few weeks; you can email this address with a mention of your favorite game to put yourself down on a preferred TC readers list for when that happens.
The logo picture leads to unknown website, change the .com to .net
Is there a way I can filter out “*social network” posts from my TC feed?
> DRIVEN BY YOU!
Tried.. confused..
Seems like no more large social networks (whales) are possible, instead be a minnow, until captain Ahab shows up.
HAHA chris, i know what you mean.
@Chris #2… You’re probably kidding, but YES, you could filter the TC feed using Yahoo! Pipes.
You forgot another site (or maybe you didn’t know) – http://www.GameStrata.com
It’s also a social network around gaming, but has a bit of different spin than these other guys.
Hey Mark, it seems like there are a few players in the gaming social network space. I’ve seen another site out there, GGL.com, that also provides a full-fledged social networking platform for gamers. Check it out and see what you think.
Hey All,
Firstly thanks Mark for the write up! I am an avid fan of techcrunch and I read it everyday.. so to see something you and your team have worked on for over 10 months feature here is a great reward!
Yes i understand the criticisms… “another social network” but having been a gamer most of my life and all my friends being very hardcore gamers, I’ve seen a huge need for a solid well formed social network which targets heavily to gamers, providing services they want to use. I am hoping we can be that company.. but we shall see.. at least we will have fun in the process making something we want to use and our friends like!
In terms of GGL Andy, I have known them since 2004 and they have been many things from an event organiser, to a league, to a news/blog site, and now a gaming social network of sorts. We shall see what their focus is like, and I wish them all the best!
Thanks everyone for sharing and I hope to see you check it out once we go live! (or If you ask for an invite maybe earlier
Regards,
Sam
The coolest feature from GameStrata are the live stat feeds from game publishers – allowing users to figure out if smack talkers are telling the truth about their scores. I don’t think the others offers this.
I wish you guys all the luck, but sam, i can start a gaming social networking site in less than 5 minutes on ning or (cant remember the other sites name now).
Its a big hill to climb, but good luck.
IGN (among others) has been offering a social network for gamers for several years.
It’s growing space (gaming) no doubt but I’m curious to see how they add an attractive alternative without all the content on something like IGNs network.
I think internet users, especially hard-core gamers, are always looking for an alternative to a junk-yard type site like IGN.
Gary
@Sam #6.. Nope, was dead serious, I may actually go ahead and do that.
Then again, I may miss out on the announcement of the Lumber Jack social network, or the Vacuum Cleaners Enthusiasts social network, but I’ll take the risk.
so basically sam you figured out a way for a group of people who spend most of their time sitting on their fat asses stareing at their screen to be able to spend even more time sitting on their fat asses stareing at a screen. you’re a superstar.
Cool
“I think internet users, especially hard-core gamers, are always looking for an alternative to a junk-yard type site like IGN.”
None of that statement fits with my own experience. And is a bit laughable actually.
Wow, I made a gamers social network eight years ago when I worked for Eurogamer. It was called the OGA; the Online Gamers Association. Funny how things come back round.
There’s also Eurogamers existing offering, Eurogamers. I think their product is more appealing personally. Thoughts?
http://gamers.eurogamer.net
At least now the ‘fat asses’ have somewhere to network with other ‘fat asses’! Although for some reason all of the professional gamers seem to be skinny!!
This is an interesting looking site I suppose. My friends over at AGZ have switched over to a social networking type site but they are not really pushing the “hey we are another social network” thing. It’s more about gamers getting to meet other gamers for online and local play.
They also conduct tournament, promotions and some really good events. I know their site is beta right now but you guys should check it out. It’s at
http://agzonline.net Their old site soon to be replaced is at http://www.agzonline.com
Niche is key. Just when you think there isn’t any room, you just swing your elbows a little bit and you’ve got a great seat next to the window. Or next to Facebook and Myspace. Drink the cool-aid: go niche. BRIAN OUT BRIAN OUT
http://www.i-gu....ro/blog/Ro/en/
great blog
I use http://www.grea...experiment.com/ because it lets you download free games and has a nice embedded widget system.
Social site have huge opportunity if they add 3D environment game like in a virtual world.
“But they’ve also added gaming twists to these features and built out new features that don’t exist elsewhere. To name a few: members can post their gaming achievements from both tournament and non-tournament events; they can list their favorite games and computer hardware specs; and they can join teams that are allotted their own public-facing profiles.”
that whole paragraph is a lie. Those features arent new and exist in almost every gaming website available within eSports. for eg. SK-Gaming.com has had that achievents feature, computer hardware specs, joining teams, and put up their own profiles for over four years. Who fed you the crap about ugame being the first? Do some research instead of believing in the ceo of the company or whoever you spoke to.
The site looks cool.. even though it is just another social network, maybe the gaming market is a strong niche that might work. Who knows..
Jonas, I think in the article he was saying that it has all the features of a traditional social network like facebook etc.. but with a gaming twist. From a quick glance at sk-gaming.com that doesnt seem to be a social network. Maybe it has some social networking features but so does pretty much every site on the web?
Props to the guys trying to make this work.. I think it has potential but also plenty of mines along the way.
Mark,
You missed another Gaming-oriented social networking site. http://www.GuildCafe.com is Venture-backed (by IDG Ventures in Boston) and has a big following among the MMO gamer community.
There is already an existing social network for gamers that I came across recently, I think they are currently in public beta. Its called Vigster http://www.vigster.com. I think its similar to UGame i think. Since its another UK based company it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
This stuff.. is THA BOMB!
I guess the reason why ugame will definitely succeed is the team that carries out the project. Sam Matthews is the manager of Fnatic which is the best eSport team. Fnatic has been leading Zonerank (the official world ranking) for 4 months in a row: http://www.zone...rlist/221?ln=us .
All gamers know it. All gamers know Fnatic. And this will explain why people will register. It’s smarter than just a fan site (they already have one: http://www.fnat....com/frontpage/ ) because it’s universal. It’s simply bound to succeed!
I am in!
Yep, you also forgot us
http://weplaythis.com
Cheers,
Gilbert
I’m pretty sure you missed the Ultimate Gaming Community – http://zowned.com