Communicate by Community - embracing new ways of being connected!!
A selection of social media communities and other fascinating Web 2.0 examples – people seem more and more inclined to let the world know what they are up to!
(with thanks to Betti Moser for her help on this post!)
Foursquare
You can make lists of your favourite things to do and share them with friends. Foursquare will keep track of the things you’ve done, help you create To-Do lists and even suggest new experiences to seek out…. As you check in around the city, you’ll start finding tips that other users have left behind. After checking-in at a restaurant, you may unlock a tip suggesting the best thing on the menu. Checking-in at a bar will often offer advice on what your next stop should be. Every tip you create is discoverable by other users just by checking-in.
A bit like a mixture of Twitter updates, GPS search to locate people you know and ‘Dungeons & Dragons’.
Plancast
A service for sharing your upcoming plans with friends – a social calendar of sorts. Just submit the things you’re thinking about doing in the future, and your friends will be able to hear about them – and maybe join you, too!
TechCrunch calls it “a ‘Foursquare for the future’. The main idea is that while many people use Foursquare and similar location-based services like Gowalla and Loopt to share where they are, Plancast is about sharing where they will be.”
It looks very similar to a Twitter timeline, but the focus is on what you’re planning today, tomorrow, next week, next month etc. This is how it works in action: plancast.com/mark
Blippy
“Blippy allows you to automatically share your credit card transactions as you make them. This includes the place you made the purchase, the amount, and in some cases, the item. This is all placed in a social stream where other Blippy users can comment on and ‘like’ the various items.”
This is still very new. It looks similar to a Twitter stream, but the updates are automatic via a link from your credit card to Blippy. (Hmmmm…)
Last fm
“a music service powered entirely by its community of listeners.”
Completely interactive music-based community. Plugs into all other social media platforms. Listeners automatically stream the tracks they’re listening to onto Last.fm, thereby creating their online profile.
Spotify
“peer-to-peer music streaming service that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums, with virtually no buffering delay.”
A monthly subscription gives access to millions of songs to download. Spotify also has profiles on Twitter and Facebook.
Listverse
“a website dedicated to lists of trivia from a variety of categories – the most popular of which are lists of misconceptions and human oddities.” Full of curious stories, all presented as a “Top 10 most…” list.
Hunch
This is a pretty cool site. It uses artificial intelligence concepts to help people with everyday (and not so everyday) decisions! Try it out and let us know what you find!
PetrolPrices.com
“Find the lowest UK petrol price in your area! 9,537 petrol stations and 8,000 daily updates.”
Just enter your post code and find the cheapest petrol station near you. Compares prices in real time. Also available as iPhone app.
