Spock: Social networking meets people search
If it seems like there's a new social networking site popping up every other day it's because, well, there is. A lot of us juggle registrations at multiple sites and sometimes there's a lot of overlap with out contacts so we were thrilled to hear about a new site that looks like it could help us keep our social networking organized and also search for friends and colleagues that have fallen through the cracks.Though Spock is still at the invitation-only stage, were able to snag one and check out the up-and-coming site for ourselves.
The registration process is fairly quick and easy but requires you to provide login information for at least one networking site or web-based email site where you are registered -- LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail, and so on. Even after supplying one email address and password, users are still prompted to supply more further along in the registration process, although it's purely optional.
Clearly, the more information you supply to Spock, the easier it will be for users to find you and, after all, that is the point of this website. There's something a bit unsettling, however, about being asked to supply login data for all the social networking sites where you're registered. Spock says they won't send emails to or spam your contacts but, even so, some users will be more comfortable supplying this information than others.
When it comes to creating your profile, you've got a lot of choices including the option to associate yourself with other Spock profiles, supply links to your MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Friendster, and even putting tags on your Spock profile.
The tagging feature is a great idea but has the potential to clutter Spock profiles unecessarily. Users can create their own tags, which is both a blessing and a curse because, while "Berkeley" is a useful search tag, "wacky" is, um, not.
Searching for people on Spock is a little like searching on MySpace: the results are quite a stew and should be taken with a grain of salt (okay, we're done with the food metaphors for the day). A search for Mick Jagger turned up more than 100 results and, while we like to think the rock star is all about Web 2.0, we doubt he created his own page on Spock. Closer inspection revealed that some celebrity pages appear to be created by fans but users still may want to exercise caution that the people they're connecting with are who they claim to be.
Overall, Spock needs some work before it's ready for prime-time. The site seems to be a little confused about what it wants to be when it grows up. It could work as a repository for unearthing old friends or building your network, since it ties all your social networking sites neatly together in one spot if you let it.
It could also work as a fun, spunky site for anyone looking to meet new people on the Great Big Internet on a more casual level. It can't do both, though -- at least not the way it's designed at the moment. If Spock is hoping to bridge the gap between the MySpace and the LinkedIn crowd, they still have some work to do. If they want to just give social networkers a place to park the pages we've all got scattered around the Internet, though, then Spock is off to a great start.
[Thanks Andrew!]
