Feel like sharing? Two ex-Ebay/Skype execs have created Tokoni, a social story sharing site that they hope will become the web’s virtual “front porch”. The site, which quietly launched last December, hopes to foster a warmer and better connected sharing environment than other similar communities on the web.
Tokoni is essentially a community of connected blogs with a social networking slant. After creating a personal profile, members can write an unlimited number of stories. Each story (which is basically a blog post) can be tagged with keywords and placed in ‘Hubs’, which are essentially groups of related stories. Stories can include embedded images or YouTube videos, and other members are encouraged to leave comments and participate in a discussion at the bottom of each story.
At first glance, Tokoni seems like a pretty half-baked idea. People have been sharing personal stories online since the dawn of Usenet, and allowing members to group stories by topic isn’t exactly a novel feature. Why not use a blog?
Then again, painfully simple ideas have been known to work in the past (YouTube and photobucket come to mind). It’s possible that Tokoni will fill a niche for users that just want to sit down and write without having to deal with blogging software or forums. And the community aspect helps differentiate the site from a blog by allowing writers to quickly find and link to stories posted by others without having to sift through the blogosphere.
Tokoni’s most encouraging assets are its founders. Mary Lou Song was eBay’s third employee, and her husband Alex Kazim has held a laundry list of top positions: Director of Engineering at eBay, President of Skype, SVP of eBay New Ventures, and VP Marketing at PayPal. The site also features a strong list of investors, including eBay Inc and a number of current eBay execs.
Tokoni isn’t the only player in this space. In fact, there are literally thousands (if not more) of sites that are dedicated to story sharing, though many of them revolve around a specific topic or community. Six Apart also offers Vox, a simple blogging service that offers some of the same tagging and group features. Tokoni has an impressive set of credentials, but unless it can find a better way to differentiate itself, its stories will fall on deaf ears.
Go Tokoni (and Kate Garmey!). I had to say it.
I’ve signed up to give it a go, but the first thing that strikes me is.. “Why?” Sharing stories can be fun, but I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t just share them on a blog (as you say in the article) or post them as comments on relevant blogs, or put them into the blogs I get given at other sites such as Slashdot. Perhaps they will come up with some motivation or become very “forum” like..
ho hum, strange idea. add them to the deadpool!
I don\’t know. I could go either way on this.
I think myfirsttime is better..:-)
Maybe the twitter guys will use this to share some inside stories about their infrastructure hassles. Then we won’t have to speculate so much (re: last TC post on twitter scalability with 99 comments so far).
Peter
do you follow me @ http://twitter.com/peterurban
i think this is a terrific concept. 99.9% of the world has no interest in writing their own blog or twittering their life 140 characters at a time. but we all have stories to tell, stories we want heard by someone (or anyone). sounds like a great way to give people a forum to share their stories without the barriers of otherwise more traditional means on the web.
MJ,
My guess is that you’re a BIG fan of the site. So, for people not interesting in Twitter or blogging, they would, instead, be interested in Tokoning? Yeah – that makes all the sense in the world. Good one!
Wow, I can write an *unlimited number* of stories?? This is like YouTube, but for text!
If a picture is worth a thousand words, and a 10-minute video at 60 fps is 36000 pictures, then I estimate this site to be worth $1.65B / 1000 / 36000 = $45!
2 other sites recently ran out of all their funding for this exact concept. I’m biased of course but I still prefer leaving my stories where I know they’ll be kept and not lost (on our site)
More people yakking about themselves? I thought Twitter was bad enough…
This is probably the dumbest idea ever.
1. ex-monolithic company
2. lame idea
3. ????
4. profit?
Also, why are te category links javascript links…
their semantic markup is as good as their idea.
waste of money.
Also, why are te category links javascript links…
their semantic markup is as good as their idea.
waste of money.
More people yakking about themselves
I’ve signed up to give it a go, but the first thing that strikes me is..
This is probably the dumbest idea ever.
ho hum, strange idea. add them to the deadpool
I think myfirsttime is better..:-)
I used to work at eBay and interacted with both Mary Lou and Alex. They are the least innovative people you ever met. Puhleeeez! Start with a decent idea at least.
i love the idea and I love storytelling.
Hate the name, tho. That alone makes me not want to participate! I hear Tokoni means “Help” in Tongan…why Tongan? Why Help? why the spelling?
I think if the site had a better name, more folks would be tempted to give it a try.
I think Octales (www.octales.com) has more headway in this space. Still in limited beta (you need to sign up for an invite).
Though via Twitter (when reliable) can simulate micro-story telling as well.
@andrea Skype & Kazaa & Google & Yahoo had those funny names before they made million$$. Chill!
I love the idea and sharing stories with the world. However, In this digital age with Youtube and the like, are sites that depend on text going to survive? Are you willing to take 30 minutes to read someone’s story? Sure twitter depends on text, but only 140 characters at a time. They were criticized at first, but that’s one thing that lead to their success. I highly doubt you’re going to sit down and read paragraphs at a time. Great for dedicated readers, bad for the rest of us.