Social Websites Wishlist

7 years

This post is a wishlist of social media websites that I would like to see.

Personally, I find certain social media sites to be an interesting concept. Especially those that focus on a specific community that is able to share an interest (such as books on Goodreads and movies on Letterboxd). I prefer those that are less involved with marketing the user (we know who) and that can create the atmosphere to enjoy the experience of sharing/collecting/exploring and growing. Because I have a background of playing in website design, I also like a site that is easy to navigate and has a ‘clean’ design.  😬

Last.fm alternative or music scrobbling website

1f3bc I get the feeling that last.fm is probably on the way out. They have been in beta for a long time on the new release of the site and don’t seem to have made any major updates. The old scrobbling rss no longer works and you can’t scrobble from Apple Music unless you use something like Bowtie. In the early days, last.fm was such an exciting site for me, and the idea of being able to track my songs was awesome. I would love this to be reborn and to work properly. 🎶

A ‘Currently’ or simple rss feed website

1f4bb What I mean by this kind of site, is related to the section in my sidebar called ‘Currently’. In this section I have what I am reading, watching, playing, etc. At the moment I am doing this manually, because numerous feeds did not work or had problems using a feed reader. I would like to see a website where you could input this information and have it displayed in an elegant way and have it displayable in a blog or wherever you want. It could pull feeds from popular websites like Goodreads, IMDB, etc or have a native system of it’s own, which could also include other features like; mood, location and maybe even custom ones. 😍

Blogger comment exchange

1f4ac I tried to make the idea of the comment exchange work with Blog Matter, but this was too difficult because there was no script that was able to do the job. A comment exchange is a website where bloggers are emailed a certain amount of blogs to comment on in a set time. For instance, you have to comment on 3 blogs in 7 days. You are emailed the bloggers/blogs to comment on and who will comment on your website. If someone doesn’t, you can report them and they become inactive. From memory, there were two I was aware of around 10 years ago in 2006, Despair and Exentrique. I think this is such a brilliant concept and I would love to see it a reality. Either as a complete site or as a script for the possibility of making one. 💖

Creative trade website

1f3a8 If you are someone that has creative skills, it would be fun to be able to trade your skills for something in return. For instance, imagine if you where a website designer and wanted a personal logo. You could setup a trade with another creative, where you design a website for them and they make a logo for you. Another example might be; You are a writer and want a set of illustrations, so you might trade with an illustrator and write something for them. Legally it would probably be the most complicated, where the issues of ownership and contracts would have to be pretty clear, and the value of an ‘equal’ trade also evaluated. If done properly, it would be something I would love to do. 🎨

“Goodreads” for Gaming

1f3ae I know there are a number of sites out there that are connected to social media for gaming (my favourite is probably Grouvee). However, to me it doesn’t have that same level to share content (I could never get the RSS feed for my currently playing, unless using an alternative RSS pull) and interact as a ‘goodreads’ level for gaming could have. Maybe there are already some out there that are like this, and if you know of any please let me know. 🎮

Social Bookmarks

1f4d1 This might seem like a redundant idea (and maybe it is). Years ago this was a hot topic and del.icio.us was a master. However, I never liked the design of the site and found it a bit of a muddle to use. It would nice to be able to store and share bookmarks/websites online, only if it was done in a nice way. So you don’t end up with a million links all over the place. Maybe I am thinking of something like, a “Pinterest for links” or a visual directory. 📚

If I had a lot of time it would be awesome to dedicate to these kinds of projects. But I have to be realistic I wouldn’t be able to do it, but hopefully someone else could. I know not everyone is a fan of social media and you have to be aware of the motives (many of them as a way of selling the user for advertising) and assess if they are a business for profit or ‘for the love of it’ gaining revenue to keep themselves viable.

This post is just for fun, throwing some ideas of sites I would like to see.  🤓

Images in post are from Emoji One and the featured image by William Iven via Unsplash.

Questions
  1. Do you like social media?
  2. What is your favourite social media site?
  3. What kind of social media site would you like to see?

27 Responses

  1. Hrmmmm, your wishlist is interesting. I kind of feel that the more social media sites we have, the more it’s just convoluted. Granted, I have all sorts of accounts like Tumblr, LiveJournal, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Grouvee, Backloggery, Letterboxd and so forth so on. However, I primarily use FB, Twitter, and LJ to do actual social media things. With Goodreads, Grouvee, Backloggery, Letterboxd — I have them primarily to keep track of what I read, game, watch, and et cetera. I barely really do the social aspect of things there. I feel that FB, Twitter, and LJ along with my blog are enough for me to keep up, so that’s my take on them.

    I do like some of your ideas, but even if they were to be put in place, I am not sure if I’ll stick to using them. I may try them out and love it at first, but once the novelty wears off . . . it’ll be probably be abandoned XD;;;

  2. I like the idea of the link sharing. You could also set some links to private, friends only, public etc and then people could see what you are interested in. I would hope not a pinterest style thing… mostly because I don’t really understand pinterest 😛
    It would be great to go back to the old days and have a comment exchange again! 🙂

  3. I have nearly stopped using social media sites, for that reason of their business idea of selling the user as a product to advertisers. I’m so against that. However, I still have the accounts and use them when I need to. The one I use more than others is probably Instagram but I’m not there much anymore either.
    I also like less cluttered design, and I’d love to see a social network where you can choose what to see in the feed, where focus is to be social and not click a “like” button (which is kind of lazy in my opinion), and to post your own stuff instead of reposting other people’s photos and links.
    I also like the idea of link sharing, I’ve sometimes made my own link pages just for myself. Now I guess the Firefox or iCloud bookmark sync does that kind of job.

  4. These are all interesting ideas, and I like the the idea of these, especially the gaming one. I love social media. Go on it all the time. Have to stay connected to everyone, you know?

  5. Those are some cool ideas! I really like the currently one and the blog one, and the gaming one. I din’t mind social media stuff that actually seems to have a purpose.

  6. I like social media, you could say that I’m addicted to it. I’d like to see a WordPress plugin that displays Netflix movies on my account. There was one, but it doesn’t work anymore.

  7. These are all really interesting ideas! My favorite social media sites are ones centered around a community, like Goodreads. I didn’t really notice that until you mentioned it, but those are the ones that I use the most often.

    I use True Achievements as my gaming website, but it’s really more for tracking achievements than games, though it does do that, too. Unfortunately it’s not across all platforms. If I were to have something other than an Xbox I would want something more integrated, but for now it is okay. It would be fun to have a site like that, though!

    I would love to see a comment exchange come to fruition. I loved it when you tried it for Blog Matter, but I could only imagine the amount of work you put into it.

  8. #1 – In the beginning, I used to hate social media. I was one of those “proud aspiring web designers/developers” who wants to make everything her own way. I now frequent Facebook (because majority of my family and RL friends use it), Twitter (mostly for sharing, catching up with some quick news, auto-sharing my blog posts), Tumblr (cross-posting from my blog, I used to use this during the period in which I couldn’t afford web hosting and had to settle with that as a blog), Instagram (just because I’m a hobbyist photographer and can’t be bothered bringing my micro 4/3rds camera along w/ me all the time), GitHub (is that even part of social media?), and a few others, mainly for good reasons. I love Goodreads as well, especially now that I got a Kindle for Christmas hehe. ;D

    #2 – My favorite social media… I don’t have one actually. ^^ Although I frequent on Facebook even more because, again, family and (RL) friends. I do love Instagram though just because I love (random) photography. I just wish Instagram is compatible with Kindle because it isn’t. What’s up with that? ~_~

    #3 – I also love the “Currently,” creative trade, and the comment exchange ideas. I’m barely getting familiar with PHP (still taking classes), especially with OOP, PDO, and frameworks, so hopefully once I master those, I can contribute, somehow. I’m also currently learning Javascript (including node.js and all that) and Ruby (on Rails) if PHP doesn’t work.

    I know this doesn’t really relate to social media but I’d love to see a listing directory script (like Nerd Listings, etc.) and a fanlisting script that can be interchangeable to any database you would like to use (SQLite, mongoDB, or Postgre instead of mySQL, for example) using PDO, and of course, a whole lot more secure. I forked Enthusiast via GitHub and downloaded a couple others (like Jem’s NinjaLinks and a few old/outdated ones) to see if I can do it. Sadly, I don’t even know where to begin. n’D

  9. Interesting wishlist! My husband would love a social media platform for video/computer game check-ins. I would like to see a Goodreads that isn’t so clunky, plus some type of platform for movies and TV shows – remember Get Glue?

  10. I like all of these ideas for a social media! Last.fm is a great concept, but I think there are some significant improvement tha can be done. Since it had some success, I am surprised no competitor came up!

    I agree that a blogger comment exchange would’ve been a good system! I applaud you for trying to start the project and assigning everyone’s blog hops by hand. That takes lots of dedication!

    The idea of having a “currently” sounds neat. It’s a more specific usage than Twitter. but I swear I’ve stumbled upon one of these before!

    I love social media- but I mostly use Twitter XD. I’m happy with it too to want anything else ;P

  11. I never thought of a social media wishlist before, because there seems to be a vast amount of noise out there already. Although one that sticks out to me the most is the creative trade website. I would love to see something like that come to life!

  12. I love Social media, and I was quite excited to see this post! The gaming one in particular struck me as I was recently exploring the options, such as Grouvee, Raptr and Backloggery and found them all lacking some where. There just isn’t one that seems to do everything, especially for PC gamers. I’ve seen some nice ones for xbox players and playstation users, but PC gamers just seem to get poorly made ones.

    My favorites would probably be Twitter and Goodreads. I also use Trakt.tv a lot for tracking tv shows and movies, but there is way too much of it that they put under paid accounts. It works because there’s not other alternative that actually functions, but it’s not one of my top ones due to these issues.

    I was thinking of ones I liked the other day and now my mind has gone totally blank. If it comes back I might attempt to write my own list 🙂

  13. I totally agree on both last.fm and having a currently plugin, those would be wonderful. I HATE the new design and miss some of the features on last.fm – but I love sites that let me track and list like that, and goodreads and letterboxed.

  14. Back then, I remembered when Myspace and Xanga was popular. Not so much anymore. I like Facebook and Twitter. You can put it on private so only certain people can see what you post. On Twitter, you can post random tweets. I used to like Tumblr. After doing it for so long, I got tired of it. Every day I would go on to check my feeds. I have to constantly check it.

    We should have more gaming social media sites. We can share tips, download content from each other, etc. It would be a good idea, especially for those that play the same games. You don’t have to join a site to do all that. I play The Sims 3. I’ll probably post stuff once I get a gaming laptop.

    1. Do you like social media? Yes
    2. What is your favorite social media site? Facebook
    3. What kind of social media site would you like to see? Make online friends or a social group type of social media site.

  15. Your “currently” and “Creative swap” ideas are what dreams are made of. I would definitely swoon over something like that! Especially the creative swap one because I’m currently doing something like it.

    You need to get yourself on a think tank,Missy! Your ideas are golden! :blush:

  16. I think that’s interesting to have a wishlist of social media 🙂 I think a “currently” feed would be nice, especially if it can pull from other services. I also wish there were better sites for keeping track of video game progress. I’ve tried Backloggery, but I really hated its UI. That’s the reason why I ended up coding my own site to track my games.

    In general, I feel kind of overwhelmed by social media. Though I have several accounts, I’m really only active on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. There’s so much duplication out there, I actually wish there were less social media sites!

  17. That’s an interesting wishlist. I’m all up for the Blog Commenting Exchange thing and the Creative Trade (if done properly). 🙂 Why don’t those exist?

    I used to dislike social media. >DD<

  18. That’s an interesting wishlist. I’m all up for the Blog Commenting Exchange thing and the Creative Trade (if done properly). 🙂 Why don’t those exist?

    I used to dislike social media. XD I was one of those the-machine-can’t-control-me angsty tweens. I only had a Twitter back then because I didn’t really want to conform (and Twitter wasn’t as big yet). But I ended up having to jump in the social media bandwagon because I needed Facebook and such for school. Now I’m most active in Facebook, my personal Twitter, Instagram, and to some extent Goodreads. However, I feel there’s no need for too much social media. It’s hard to maintain so much accounts. >D<

  19. I love how your brain thinks! Those all sound really cool, and I think it’s neat that your think about the future.

    Do you like social media?
    In a word. YES!

    What is your favourite social media site?
    DeviantArt, and Instagram!

    What kind of social media site would you like to see?
    I would like to see DeviantArt expand to include music. I have shared my music on Tumblr, Facebook and Myspace. However, none of those sites have really done it for me. :/

  20. I heard of raptr for gaming but I am not sure what the features are. It was quite popular at some stage.

    I miss the way Last.fm used to be. Music has moved to subscription services and we can’t scrobble our music. In a way, I feel like it has made me stop listening to as much new music, but I know that while I scrobbled I was trying to get certain artists in the high ranks… LOL. I feel like Last.fm has died a bit, and I am not sure if it would come back or if there would be a new service like it. I think everything is now connected to things like Facebook where you can share what you listen to, to your friends… but not many people even like that because they find it embarrassing or don’t think Facebook is the right platform for something like that. And personally, as someone who does not have Facebook, I don’t like the connections between services and social networks. I think if something should have its own purpose, then it shouldn’t require or request a connection to some other social networking website.

    I remember when ‘Currently’ was uber popular, somewhere in 2005? I used to do it back then but I did it manually. People do it now with WordPress’s custom fields, but even that to some extent is manual. I don’t think I am as interested in it now as I was before, but it would be nice to see something like that.

    I don’t have the expertise to make these kinds of networks, unless I buddied up with a few people or learned some new programming languages on my own… even then, I would have to find the motivation. I don’t think I have ever come across any ideas for social networks, but if I did, then maybe someone came up with it already! I actually wanted to make my own app that would let you find items in your wardrobe from a directory of product photography, then let you put outfits together in the app that you wear, then make suggestions based on what is in your wardrobe. I think someone already did that for a target audience of men, though. ?

  21. I like the idea of Currently and Blog Comment Exchange!

    Though I don’t see the point of Currently that much, I just think it’s pretty cute and cool haha

    I’ve joined blog matter before but wasn’t able to participate because it went on hiatus, I think. And I agree, it’s not easy to moderate comment exchange. It’s always done manually. Also, it seems difficult to implement rules, like no one-liner comment and such haha

  22. Those are some interesting ideas. I would probably get suckered into all of them at one point if they ever happened. I tend to do that with social media websites. I join a lot and then most of them die after a few months. I guess that is my best way to find out if I’m going to like something or not. I have a job where I’m suppose to make a type of website for children to watch safe videos about gamers and so on so forth. Since youtube has so many people that swear. It seems like it will be a big project but I can see the pluses in that. It sort of makes me think of a different kind of social media, but for kids only 🙂

  23. A majority of from the list are new to me. I love Spotify than Last.fm. And is that an app, that Currently?

    Do you like social media?
    – I do. I might say I can’t stand a day without checking all my social media accounts.
    What is your favourite social media site?
    – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and VSCOcam
    What kind of social media site would you like to see?
    – I would like to see Peach and MeToo.

  24. My favourite social media site is probably Goodreads, I just wish there were more people on it. I barely have any friends on there so sometimes I just forget about it completely. Everything should have Facebook’s popularity!

    I think it would be really cool to have a gaming one. I’m going to be doing a blog post soon about what games I’m playing, cos I’m really into it at the moment.

    I used to love LastFM, it’s such a shame it doesn’t work properly anymore. It’s probably really hard to keep up with Apple’s updates though – I feel for them!

    I’d like to see more blog related ones.

  25. I love your list! I would also love a currently site/plugin and a comment exchange! Those would be awesome!

    Have you heard of Player.me for the gaming? You can create different sections, add the games you own, etc. Kind of reminds me of Goodreads. :p

  26. I definitely love social media and these days I mainly go on Facebook to connect with my friends simply because there isn’t enough time in the day! However the way I use social media is to promote what’s happening!

    Do you use Spotify? That’s not scrobbling but I know it can track what you’re listening to! The only thing is that it doesn’t have a lot of songs that I listen to, though these days I listen on Youtube.

    I love the blogger comment exchange idea because it brings community to blogging, the type of thing that we don’t have here on self-hosted WordPress blogs! I know we can follow RSS feeds but it’s just not as easy as it is to follow someone on Facebook.

    I agree legally the creative trade website could get into some serious issues, and people’s definitions of equal trade could be a problem as well so I’m not sure of this one!

    There’s no Goodreads for gaming that I know of. Personally I use Backloggery just to track my gameplay but it definitely doesn’t pull from anything. I know Playfire does it, but I’m not too familiar. Steam allows you to review games easily, but only Steam games. Ah someone should make this one for sure!

  27. I really miss GetGlue, which soon became something else…I don’t remember TVTag. GetGlue mailed its members physical stickers for TV shows they watched (and some movies; it was a promotional deal). TVTag waltzed in, however, and changed the game. It became a site people checked into, but didn’t receive stickers for. They made it difficult to navigate. They changed everything, all in hopes to make money with it. It quite sucks. 🙁

    I liked Last.fm, but then I started to hate it; I couldn’t listen to exactly what I wanted to. I tried 8tracks, but that site was hit-and-miss for me, especially with even the cover and/or original songs being deleted. I’m not big on Spotify or Pandora. They worked a little several years ago, but as with all things, everything changes.

    Ah! The ‘Currently’ website would be awesome—and if not a website, a plugin for WordPress would be rather nifty (or even something to manually code into a theme and use shortcodes for). I actually tried to make something at least a little bit similar, but to no avail. The feeds didn’t display right.

    I stopped coding stuff for a long while because I had life and other frustrations/annoyances/etc. happening. 🙁 I’m sorry I never created the software for the blog comment exchange/thing. I still fiddle with coding sometimes, though, and you’ll be the first to know if I ever finish juggle.

    I love the idea of an equal trade website. 🙂

    Have you tried Raptr for gaming? I don’t know if it has an option for your ‘currently’ purposes, and it doesn’t have every game out there available to add as one you play, but it’s still kinda fun. I am most fascinated by how it tracks my hours. <3

    I like social media only sometimes. I prefer Twitter and/or Tumblr over many things. I like Instagram. I’d rather have a personal community for my family, because Facebook royally sucks. I can’t stand LinkedIn. If I hear one more thing about Pinterest “optimising” I might spew.

    I chat on AIM a lot more than I text and/or do other things.

    I tried Ello, but…I didn’t like it. I couldn’t customise it as much, and it felt too much like Tumblr.

    I like Deviantart a little, but I find it hard to navigate.

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