Chime.In – A Path Through The Noise
I recently signed up for another social network, as though I don't already have enough to manage. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Untappd, Foursquare etc. etc. etc. So why would I sign up for yet another platform? Well firstly of course I sign up for platforms to review them, see if they have anything to offer and see if there is a reason for either myself or a client to use it. The reason I signed up for Chime.In was that it supposedly handled the noise pollution problem differently.
Chime.In : Less Noise More Quality
Chime.In follows the same layout as Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. A main stream which contains all the posts from the people you are following. As with those other platforms, recommendations for people for you to follow are in the right hand margin and methods of filtering are on the left. This is not a bad thing, it makes getting around the site fairly intuitive, you see things where you expect to see them. You have a profile page to edit which contains the usual information – name, location, short bio, link to your website etc.
Nothing new or dramatically game changing here so far. Why would someone think they could beat Google or Facebook at their own game? This is where Chime.In differs. When you follow a person on Chime.In you get a choice, you can follow all their posts or you can choose to only follow the particular interests that you have in common.
Chime.In: Combating Noise
This is how Chime.In combats the noise. For example I have the following interests listed:
Photography
HDR
Street Photography
Social Marketing
So if you wanted to follow me, but really didn't care about my thoughts on Social Marketing but were interested in my thoughts on Street Photography and HDR you could just follow me and see when I post about those topics. This maybe the first platform where it's safe to follow Chris Pirillo and Robert Scoble and not be flooded with posts. For example I like Chris' reviews of tech, I like his pictures and videos of Lego, could definitely live without the Cat gifs. If he set his profile up with interests like:
Tech reviews
Lego
Cat gifs
I could choose which topics to follow him by and only see those posts. That gives me a much better level of control. After all that is how we segment people in real life.
Chime.In: Reflecting Real Life
The intersection of You and Me is Us. In any relationship there are overlaps in interests, the greater the number of overlaps the closer the relationship. For example my girlfriend and I both share interests in Sci-fi, tech, cats, books and travel. However, she likes Sushi and I do not, I like Muscle cars and she isn't really interested. So we have common interests and we have our own interests. This is true online as well. I want to see Robert Scoble's interviews with startups, I'm really not interested in his political views.
Could you do with less noise in Social Media?
I'm glad you took the time to read this post.
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