Spokeo, A Social Network Aggregator

Here’s something new - Spokeo is an aggregator for social networks. Spokeo works as an RSS reader supporting RSS and Atom feeds, but it also lets you add photos & videos from MySpace, LiveJournal, Friendster, Flickr, Youtube, Xanga and more. In some respects, Spokeo works like Google News - aggregating content from multiple sources. Spokeo offers a "featured users" section where it lists what is, I suppose, supposed to be the "best of the best" of the social networks. In the "My Friends" section, you can add RSS feeds, friends, etc.

Are you a little confused? So was I. Does Spokeo want to be an RSS reader on steroids or a one-stop for keeping up on what’s going on at all your favorite social networks? Or maybe Spokeo wants to be the place you go instead of a social network’s website. It seems that Spokeo has a good concept here…multiple social networks aggregated at one site, but it needs to clarify it’s focus.

For something like this to work, they need specify what they’re trying to achieve. In my opinion, a clearly defined section for feeds and a separate section for your social networks would be better; and while they’re at it, they should scrap the "featured users" section. And why is "Digg" considered a featured "user"? They’re a website, not a person. I’m not at all interested in what the "featured users" (Barcelona blog? Stuff on My Cat? Ethan?…Who are these people?) are up to…I’m only interested in what my friends have been posting. To make matters worse, to add a friend’s "social network", you have to do this manually, typing them in one-by-one. For example, to add a MySpace friend, you add their URL (www.myspace.com/username). This is not going to work for me. Spokeo should let you just fill out your profile with your social network identities, and then import your friends for you into their own section. If they did this, that would really be genius. Beyond being just an RSS reader, you could keep up with your friends here, too. A bonus feature could be the option to add "featured content" from various sites…like the top stories on Digg, the top 10 YouTube videos, the top 10 MySpace videos, etc.

Just my 2 cents, for what it’s worth.

For now, Spokeo looks like the beginnings of a great idea, but I can’t see myself using it in its present incarnation.