The first big social network site I was involved in was deviantART. From there, I've moved on to Facebook (awful), Napalm Riot(amazing even in beta, and HUGE), and TheSixtyOne. If you hadn't guessed, I'm "Infog" on each of those sites. Well, except Facebook.

I think that what I like about each of these sites is that I am able to get more from it than I would a normal, non-interactive site, AND, the owers of these sites have dreamed big and beatiful.

The first point - Big. They aren't big in a way similar to Facebook or MySpace. Facebook and MySpace have no real purpose but to connect people. Once people get there, they need to have a reason to stay - and that would be talking just to talk. The sites mentioned above, though, are centered around something. deviantART, if you can't guess, is dedicated to sharing and selling visual art. Napalm Riot is all about computer games, getting people to talk about and group together around these games, and play them together. TheSixtyOne is for finding music, listening to it, promoting it, discussing it, and even creating and posting your own if you want. These sites can be so enourmos only because they have a guiding concept beyond social networking.

The second point - Beatiful. These three sites have REALLY nice designs! Unlike the mishmash of Myspace, they are consistent (but still a little bit custumizable). If you can't tell by looking at this site, I like my visual world to be very organized. I actually took a minor in Graphic Design in college. (I'm a little bit too practical to be hired as a concept designer, I tend not to jump off the deep end on my designs.) The three sites all have a coherent visual aspect. Napalm Riot, for instance, has a darker-colored theme, and has things like box art and screen caps in its tidy on-screen modules.

These elements work together to make sites that are enjoyable to browse through, easy to use, and encourage actual interaction between people as real people, not just faceless content authors. Its nice to see different peoples' lives, and to be reminded that real people DO exist on the internet.

-- Chris