Social Sites Evaluation Team

There are lots of social networking sites and there are new launched every day. Some people just stick to one of them and never try anything new - but I, at least from time to time, I would like to evaluate some of the new sites and see what functionality they provide. The problem is it is really hard to do it in one person - after all it is all about social interaction and not about some lonely web surfing - and it is socially a bit awkward now to ask your friends to join a new and shiny social networking site after so many others. Hence the idea of a web team of people who would declare themselves interested in trying out new social networking sites and joining the new sites by the whole team together to evaluate it.

Facebook and conversations

I am a bit disapointed about Facebook - it notifies me about all kinds of events involving my friends - but somehow I can't find a way to monitor for new posts in groups I have joined. For me having meaningful conversations is the absolute number one feature of social web sites and I don't see much point in using Facebook when it does not make it easy for me. It provides me all the context needed to engage my friends into a conversation - but somehow does not create a convenient place for a group exchange of ideas.

And perhaps I am not alone in that sentiment?

Ideograms and SMS

There is much evidence that SMSes are more used in the Far East then they are in other parts of the world. It's no surprise mobile is generally more widespread there, but somehow I cannot imagine reading a book on the screen of a mobile phone. Is it just lack of imagination - or perhaps the text in ideograms just takes less screen estate to convene the same meaning? I don't know. I've tried to look at some web pages (like www.un.org) in English and in Japanese or Chinese - frankly I don't see any difference - but there must be some. Does any one have some real data here?