Revision: Tunerfish not catching on

I should begin by noting how badly I wanted to like Tunerfish.  It was a pretty innovative idea that was a combination of two of my favorite things, social media and television. The website has the glitz and glamour of a successful and fun social media website, but it is missing one very crucial aspect, the social part. Becoming a part of the established community has been difficult.

Other social networking communities I am currently a part of were almost effortlessly established. I haven't found that ease with Tunerfish. I do as I'm told and answer the simple "What are you watching?" question and it seems like I'm having a conversation with myself. I have yet to understand how becoming a part of the community on Tunerfish is possible.

Tunerfish attempts to establish a sense of community by recommending people to for their users to follow. It is my understanding that the follower recommendations are based off users with similar watching habits. If I commonly post that I am watching, Modern Family, The Office, and 30Rock, then Tunerfish will suggest users who watch the same shows. While it is neat to see what you have in common with people, it is a useless feature because there is very little user-to-user interaction on the site.

When I was first exploring the site I thought Tunerfish would catch on because it would be a new and interesting way to learn about new television. I thought I would gain insight on emerging shows. However, if the only people I am following like all the same shows as me, then what do I learn? The answer is nothing. Tunerfish so badly needs to improve interaction among users on the site. It has so much potential to be a television-swapping site, but doesn’t even attempt to do that.

I also do not understand the awards feature of Tunerfish. I currently have a Guppy Award and an Oscar Award. The Guppy award was completely a pity, thanks-for-signing-up, type of deal. The Oscar award I'm pretty sure is just a result of posting that I was indeed watching the Oscars. Apparently there are 121 possible awards to win. But what do they even mean? If I have more awards will I connect with more users? What will earn me awards? None of this is clear. The awards component of this site seems useless and just clutters the site.

One part of this project was to explore emerging social networking sites and follow them as they gain momentum from unheard of to viral. As I learn more about Tunerfish it seems that their online presences is, if anything at a stand still. Unlike Quora or Hunch, Tunerfish does not even have a Wikipedia page. As a hopeful social media site, creating a Wikipedia page should have been an initial priority. The same viral energy that surrounds both Quora and Hunch is not present with Tunerfish.

While I think overall the Tunerfish website is precious, I just don't see much of a future for a site like this. Once you post what you are watching, then what? There really isn't much offered on the site to keep you their longer than the 2 seconds it takes to post about what you are watching. It doesn't have that addictive pull that Twitter or Quora have.

Maybe there are components I am missing out on that make Tunerfish a site worth noting. My logic tells me however, that if someone fairly savvy in the social media department fails to understand all aspects of a site after 2 months of playing with it, then your site isn't as user friendly as it needs to be. Maybe that's the issue.  Either way, at this point in my exploration, I don't see Tunerfish causing any sort of ruckus in the social media world.

Quora, Tunerfish, Hunch, and their obvious differences

As a part of my Personal Learning Project I investigated 3 newer social media websites. Each of these sites (Quora, Tunerfish, Hunch) were anticipated to be among the new trendy social media sites in 2011. After creating accounts on each site and monitoring conversations about each via Twitter I have noticed many strengths and weaknesses for each.

Without a doubt Quora has been the most useful of all three sites. It has the most active community, the most links on Twitter, and the most potential to do big things in the social media community. Quora is a question and answer websites, that unlike competitors, maintains a professional attitude. It was created by two former Facebook employees that are making major names for themselves in the social media community. Quora is also actively used by some other top names in social media such as Facebook's Dustin Moskovitz. It is very simple to get started in the Quora conversation by looking up what you are interested in. Because Quora is still building its community, some specific questions are not on the site. However, submitting your question is very simple. After submitting a question I received a response about a week later. The more users Quora attracts the shorter this turn around time will become.

One complaint I have about Quora is the feature that creates personal communication among users. It is simply unnecessary. I follow 14 people and 0 people follow me back. The people I follow do not contribute to my Quora experience, and my lack of followers do not hinder my Quora experience at all. From what I've gathered it doesn't seem to play a large roll in anyone's interaction with the site. For all intents and purposes, the ability to follow specific questions seems to suffice.

Tunerfish was my least favorite among these three sites. It is just useless. Like Twitter your home page is centered around a question that needs answering. In this case the question is "What are you watching?". After answering the question, then what? Depending on who you follow you might receive good recommendations of television shows. This is where I developed issues. I follow 13 people. When I began following certain people it was based on people with similar taste in television. These people were recommended to me via Tunerfish. The problem with this is, if I want to discover new television, how would I do that if the only people I interact with watch the same shows as me? Tunerfish would benefit by developing a suggestions aspect of the site, similarly to Netflix. Without that feature the site is pretty much useless. Once the initial question is answered, I have no reason to stay on the site longer than that. In my opinion, Tunerfish would be more successful as just an app and not a website attempting to do more than it actually does.

I love Hunch, the only problem is, I don't have time for it. Hunch is a brilliant website that recommends all sorts of things based on your responses to simple questions as well as your rankings of recommendations. The website gets to know you the more you use it and becomes more beneficial the longer you have your account. But unfortunately not a lot of us have time to just waste time on the internet. Hunch is the type of website you would play with on a lazy Sunday morning, or in between flights at an airport. You can so easily get lost clicking from recommendation to recommendation. Which means the website is fun and addicting, but few of us have time for another internet addiction. I could see Hunch being attractive to younger people, perhaps high school aged. These people have more time on their hands and could perhaps benefit from discovering new interests.

Since using Hunch the site has changed a bit. The most recent time I logged in, Hunch recommended that I begin following specific people with similar interests as me. Since doing so, my account has become more about giving other users suggestions, and less about receiving suggestions. I like this because I am still able to discover new products, while simultaneously becoming a more interactive user. I think this is a step in the right direction for the site.

Quora definitely came out on top among these sites. I firmly believe that we will be hearing a lot more about Quora in the near future. I can see it becoming comparable to major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Linkedin. As for the other two I do not see as bright of a future. Hunch, more so than Tunerfish, has an addicting and fun foundation, I'm just concerned about another hour-killing website out there to distract me. Tunerfish needs to add more useful features if they want to be recognized as a major social media site. As they are now, Tunerfish won't be around long enough to make a splash in this seemingly endless sea of social media.

 

The significance of usernames

In chapter 12 of Brian Solis' book Engage he describes the importance of maintaining a professional online persona. A lot of what he is discussing places emphasis on the minor details of your online persona, such as the usernames we assign ourselves. While much of this chapter is aimed toward business-associated online profiles, this logic can also be compared to our personal online persona's.

While reading I couldn't help but apply my own usernames to what he was describing. I pretty much stick to the username "biancaatx" for most social networking sites that require usernames. "Biancaatx" isn't creative. It's simple and obviously combines my name and where I live. It doesn't necessarily harm or help my online persona.

This reminded me of some of the awful usernames I have used in the past. I remember my very first AOL username, GlitzieGirl101 from when I was 10 or 11. Just seeing that on-screen makes me cringe with embarrassment. I reminds me of a screen name Lizzie McGuire might have had. From then on the usernames didn't get much better, only more embarrassing in fact. I transitioned to lilprep628, then sassygrl912. As I got older and inevitably more angsty (as most over-dramatic teenagers do) my usernames followed suit with screennames like shutupXbianca. Then when I was determined to seem mature, way before maturity ever took place, I had an online journal where I took on the username _my_incentive.

In recalling all the usernames I have possessed in the last 10 years I find it interesting that my generation has something like usernames to use as a place marker for certain times in our life. We can look back at old usernames and recall the type of people we used to be.

This realization really corresponds with what Brian Solis was saying in chapter 12. Usernames say a lot about the people behind them. They create the initial reaction to our online personas so it is important to really be aware of how you portray yourself through social media.

Something to consider.

Social media IS popular culture

This weekend I read on Mashable.com that Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's CEO) will grace the cover Mad Magazine next week.

The Mashable article discusses Mad Magazine's decision to feature Zuckerberg by highlighting his  growing popularity and listing off his most recent accomplishments:

• His relationship with President Obama
• His SNL cameo
• His 60 minutes interview
• Having an Oscar nominated movie created about hm
• Comic books about him
• His own action figures
• Being ranked as the 52 among the wealthiest people in the world

Mark Zuckerberg is pop culture. He is a hot topic and a subject of interest for many people, and he's only 26.  He is the first social media creator that has become a household name. He's erasing the line that says smart nerds can't be cool. If cool means popular, intersting, and impressive, than Mark Zuckerberg is cool.

Mad Magazine claims their decision to put Zuckerberg on the cover comes from a business perspective. The infamous Winklevoss twins offered the magazine $2 million to "poke" Zuckerberg a new one. The Facebook tribute issue will highlight the 50 worst things about Facebook.

While the Facebook/Zuckerberg shout out might not be the most complimentary, it doesn't change the fact that people are still talking about Zuckerberg. The cover won't tarnish his reputation, it will just fuel the conversation more. It will be one more factor elevating Zuckerberg's popularity. It shoves more social media into popular culture.

Tunerfish not catching on

I should begin by noting how badly I wanted to like Tunerfish.  It was an innovative (sort of) idea that was a combination of two of my favorite things, social media and television. The website has the glitz and glamour of a successful and fun social media website, but it is missing one very crucial aspect, the social part. Becoming a part of the established community has been difficult.

Other social networking communities I am currently a part of were almost effortlessly established. I haven't found that ease with Tunerfish. I do as I'm told and answer the simple "What are you watching?" question and it seems like I'm having a conversation with myself. I have yet to understand how community on Tunerfish is established.

I also do not understand the awards feature of Tunerfish. I currently have a Guppy Award and an Oscar Award. The Guppy award was completely a pity, thanks-for-signing-up, type of deal. The Oscar award I'm pretty sure is just a result of posting that I was indeed watching the Oscars. Apparently there 121 possible awards to win. But what do they even mean? If I have more awards will I connect with more users? What will earn me awards? None of this is clear. The awards component of this site seems useless and just clutters the site.

While I think overall the Tunerfish website is precious, I just don't see much of a future for a site like this. Once you post what you are watching, then what? There really isn't much offered on the site to keep you their longer than the 2 seconds it takes to post about what you are watching. It doesn't have that addictive pull that Twitter or Quora have.

Maybe there are components I am missing out on that make Tunerfish a site worth noting. My logic tells me however, that if someone fairly savvy in the social media department fails to understand all aspects of a site after 2 months of playing with it, then your site isn't as user friendly as it needs to be. Maybe that's the issue.  Either way, at this point in my exploration, I don't see Tunerfish causing any sort of ruckus in the social media world.